I have an 18 volt DeWalt XRP 1/2 inch drill. The drill has been working perfectly up until this morning, when I took it from its case. I was using it the evening before to screw in some 2 inch screws into some spindles on a deck I'm building. Anyways, when I took it out the battery was dead so I grabbed a spare and that one didn't work either which is odd because I always charge the spare.
I plugged up the charger and put the battery in and noticed that the light was blinking a lot faster than it normally did and didn't seem to charge. I grabbed a few more power packs because I have 4 and tried those. 1 of the 4 worked in the drill but after it was plugged into the drill for a few minutes (2-3) smoke started coming out of the squeeze clamps on the sides of the batteries and they were rather warm bordering on hot. I put it up for the day then.
Later that evening, I set up 2 charges and got all 4 packs charged; I didn't have the fast blinking lights as I did earlier and tried the drill out.
Forward and reverse worked fine and it seemed to be fully powered but after 2 or 3 minutes of being plugged in it began to smoke again. It did this with 3 different batteries, so I am thinking its something to do with an electrical connection inside the drill where batteries plug in?
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated, I need to get this deck finished and I'm not that eager to shell out another 329.00 for a new drill.