Between us my son and I HAVE 10 18 volt batteries for our Makita power tools which we use in our Carpentry work of these 10 batteries 6 have failed. I have to say the reliabillity of the Ni-cad equipment we previously used was much better. The batteries failed only after heavy use and came as no surprise. We decided to go Makita, so we had common equipment saving on the variety of chargers we had to carry.. On the face of it to be honest we would have been better avoiding this decision..or stuck to Makita ni-cad across the board. The Makita equipment is fine, the problem is the battery failure rate.

Your most likely problem is the switch (PN 650583-6). When they go bad they will let power go to the LED light but it won't get to the motor. With a multi-meter, check the power going into the switch and coming out to the motor. If 18 volts are getting through to the motor then you may have armature (PN 619198-8) issues.

The DC18RC are most likely to charged the BL1830 battery, which is the most popular of 18V Makita power tools. It is a Li-ion battery.

And the DC18RC battery charger has two volt 110 Volt and 240 Volt.

The 240 Volt DC18RC charger can replace model DC18RA & DC18SD because of its improved performance and full compatibility with Makita's NEW 'Star' labelled batteries that communicate between the tool, battery & charger. And, it is a fast charger.

It can charge a Makita BL1830 Battery in approx 22 minutes.

But, I do not recommend to convert a makita charger model DC18RC at 110 volt to 240 volts.

The reason is as below:

1. This will void product warranty ! If you follow this mod, you do it on your own risk !

2. There are several comments that described
same model # but with different design and components.
Please beware that this mod might not work on your charger
or worst, will damage it.
Only perform this mod if you know your way around with electronics !

I sell & repair the Makita line of tools and the BL1830 (194205-3) battery is designed to fit on Makita's entire line of 18-volt tools. You didn't give the model number of your saw so my best suggestion is to make sure the saw is an 18-volt tool then make sure the tool's and battery's mating surfaces are OK. Try the battery in other tools & try other batteries on the saw. If this doesn't help please respond with the saw's model number or what you found out doing what I've suggested.

Some of the Makita 18v LXT tools require the BL1830 3.0AH battery and are designed that the 1.5AH battery will not fit.

Bjarne, odds are the variable speed function of the trigger is failing. There are Makita repair centers that perform repair, and sell parts if you want to take it on as a DIY project. Before proceeding, I would make sure the warranty has expired. If it is still in warranty a Makita repair center should repair it for no charge.

Join the battery collectors club. I have 25 batteries, 12 guns, I quit buying the batteries, I found it cheaper to buy the gun with new batteries and charger once a year. Cause they don't even last that long. I have tried different brands too all the same. Got batteries?? Sure do.

This happens regular with Makita battery powered tools Try putting the battery in the frezer overnight this remedy worked for me once with a Hitachi battery if not you would be cheeper buying a new drill rather than a new battery.

Those batterys need to be on the charger if they are not in the tool. I would try to get the store to exchange the entire set for a new one. If that fails ebay sells batterys pretty cheap.