Makita Refreshing Adapter Review

The Makita Refreshing Adapter (193681-8) is a must-have tool for anyone who owns Makita batteries. This tool is designed to refresh and renew worn-out Makita BL18xx Lithium or NiMH batteries, giving them a new lease on life. The adapter is one part of a larger system that Makita issues to its service centers, the MAKSTAR Battery Checker System #194918-6 (European number). The adapter is not a charger by itself, but it attaches to the charger you already have. It has both an upper display panel and a lower display panel, and it functions much like the charger you already have. When you activate the refreshing button on the lower panel, it will run a series of charge-discharge cycles using specific voltage/amperage profiles designed to refresh and renew worn-out Makita BL18xx Lithium or NiMH batteries. It can take five to fourteen hours to perform a conditioned refresh, and more-worn-out packs will require more charge-discharge cycles. It will not revive battery packs reported as dead by standard chargers. Neither will the full battery checker system. If it did, we'd have reports of people going into service centers with dead packs and returning with revived packs. It will restore some "useful service lifetime" to old packs.