Look what I found in the recycle bin

It is addictive. I agree. Tool packs are where it really is at as you will learn if you keep it up. Nice suggestions on how to deal with snoopy employees. :)

That seems like a very nice device. Since Ridgid and Ryobi are related, I hope Ryobi will soon make some for their batteries. I own the same lime green 40v powerpack youā€™ve found. I got it for 20$ with the charger, almost new, in a garage sale. I donā€™t own any tool for it but the USB monster power bank immediately crossed my mind.

What I found in the recycle bin today made me aware of something I never really thought about.
Whenever I go into a Home Depot I make it a point to try and look into the battery recycle bins by the returns desk. Today was no exception.
This time I actually had some loose 18650ā€™s that I wanted to dispose of. When I came up to the bin I didnā€™t see the roll of plastic bags they keep there so that loose cells can be wrapped. I could see from looking inside the bin that there were some in there so I reached in and pulled one out. Thing was though it already contained some packaged cells!

Looking a little closer, I noticed this sticker on the outside of the bag.

After reading THAT, I knew just what I was going to find. New cells that had ā€œgone to a pennyā€ and where thrown away by Home Depot and placed into the recycle bin.

For those that donā€™t know, when Home Depot puts items on clearance they generally are reduced over a period of time to 75% off. If after a set amount of time, if those items still do not sell, they pull them from the shelves, mark them for a penny in their system, and throw them away
Lamp shades, plumbing parts, light bulbs etc get thrown into the dumpster and crushed. Batteries however have to be disposed of in the proper way.
They are thrown in the same battery recycle bin that is place by the returns desk for the general public.
I netted 7 packs of 4 cells each of these Energizer Advanced Lithium AAA cells. And they are not ā€œdamagedā€, they are brand new.

Actually I have found quite a number of these cells in both AA and AAA at a penny, Here is a link to the ā€œHome Depot Deal Alerts & Discussion Threadā€
where I posted about my score.

and again here Home Depot Deal Alerts & Discussion Thread - #1771 by dchomak

Found these 3 NiCd battery packs yesterday. they look like they were installed in a piece of equipment, and as such they are probably spent.

They are made up of 10 ā€œDā€ cells each, rated at 5000mAh.

I tested one for voltage as it came out of the bin, 10.56V

As I said, they will probably be worn out. I am charging one now at 700mA. It will take hours before I know for sure their condition. At the very least, I scored 3 inline fuse holders :slight_smile:

those are stairlift packs.
one of my clients gets new ones every 6 months.
i get the old ones to ā€œrecycleā€ and get paid for the service call.
they are always still over 5ah.
some have flattops some button tops.
free nicad d cells!
some packs i leave as is and power stuff with them.

That was good news to hear.
The first pack I took apart, the pack I suspected would be weak, yielded cells that tested at only around 2000 mAh.
The second pack, which included a physically damaged cell, did better, around 4800 mAh :slight_smile:
Very pleased with that kind of number. Those cells are much better than the old NiCad and NiMH ā€œDā€ cells that I had been using.

Does anybody know where to get ā€œDā€ cell shrink wrappers?

Havenā€™t used this guy but there are tons of sellers that sell heat shrink in sizes that should work for a D cell.
This example was for wrapping 4 18650ā€™s together so I think it should work.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-66MM-42MM-PVC-Heat-Shrink-Tubing-Wrap-For-18650-Li-ion-Battery-8-Color-/192001775208?var=&hash=item2cb4329668:m:m-3w91guIQal24snQKXoF9Q

I just happened to see this while looking for some specific colors to deal with overly glued cells from a laptop pull this weekend.

SMM

And if not, look for shrinkwrap for a 32600 or 32650.

Thanks guys for pointing me in the right direction. Somehow I calculated that I would need 50mm pre-shrink tubing and did an internet search. I found a site that offered just that and placed an order.
It wasnā€™t until I was checking out that I realized I had stumbled upon none other than FastTech.
:person_facepalming:

BTW, the popular use for 50mm shrink tubing is for 2 - 18650ā€™s side by side.

This tube inspired me to take a stop by our local Best Buy, Home Depot, and Lowes in search of cells. Soā€¦ Best Buy had not a thing that we cared about(I went with a friend I got into flashlights). It was filled to the brim with AAs and a little rummaging revealed a shoddy flat power bank so it was a bustā€¦. Next was Home Depot, and after asking several employees we almost thought they didnā€™t even have a battery bin. It is marked online that they have a bin, but it isnā€™t a traditional one, but just a series of cardboard boxes filled with various drill battery packsā€¦ I had a friend that worked there ask someone if we could just take them all and he said sure so we walked away with 2 boxes of assorted batteries. Lowes had the most conventional battery bin, probably because they had just built it. This time we hit the employees with an educational shtick that we were looking for cells in order to help with our educational robotics program and they said sure take whatever we have, SCORE. Sadly all they had were these Motorola NIMH packs, but as I suspected they each contain 6 NIMH AA sized cells.

Onto the haul:

Unfortunately only one of the drill packs was Li Ion and had 10 of these 18650s

They all registered at around .5 volts so pretty dead. From battlebots in high school we used A123 and other Lithium cells we would often have cells drop below the ā€œsafeā€ voltage and just force charge them until they hit the required voltage. I have managed to get 1 of the 18650s up to 4.2v, but they all seem to have this problem where they are constantly discharging so I expect either a protection has blown internally or maybe they have external circuitry to blame? The one cell I charged was the one that discharged the slowest, the rest would discharge at a rate near 0.01volt per second so I didnā€™t even fiddle with them. Iā€™ll see if the one that I charged holds a usable charge over the course of a few days, otherwise itā€™s not really worth keeping around. I did not take any pictures of the NIMH AA cells, but they all seem usable Iā€™ll try to charge a few and test if they hold onto it or can power stuff. Iā€™m not well versed in NIMH do they have a voltage they shouldnā€™t drop under?

All in all, it was a great first time haul. Anyone have ideas for all the nicad cells I got? A lot of the 14v packs measured in at around 13.3volts and seemed healthy. I just didnā€™t tear into them because I was only really interested in the 18650s, which incidentally we got the least of.

edit: also got what looks like a brand new never used electric scooter lead-acid battery along with a very-used lead acid battery. We have plenty of fodder to give us an excuse to start frequenting the binsā€¦

With all the packs I have opened, I have NEVER come across one A123 cell that was any good. Their cells are not as good as the modern ones from Samsung, LG, or Sony.

Maybe you got away with charging up dead Li-ion cells in high school, but that is something you definitely should not do. There is too great a chance of a catastrophic failure. Look for batteries that are in the bin for reasons other than that they are worn out, or have been discharged to unsafe levels.

For instance, of the 3 NiCad packs I described above, one pack was discarded because it was simply worn out. The individual cells have lost over half of their storage capacity.
BUT, the second pack I described above was in the bin, I think, because just one of itā€™s cells failed early on, rendering the whole pack useless. After disassembling that pack and separating the cells, I have netted 9 good cells out of 10. Those 9 cells still function at near full capacity.

Bottom line is be fussy with what you pull out of the bin, most of it will be trash.
But there are some good finds, if you are willing to be patient. :wink:

Aw, thatā€™s a shame. Iā€™m not really worried about catastrophic failure, I took necessary precautions. I will put my safety above all else, I donā€™t take these things as lightly as I used to. The best part was that in high school we would solder tabs onto each of the cells, then over discharge them, force charge them as nicad, have them near punctured in battle, and continue using them. In all my years never have I seen a cell do anything dangerous. There was one time a 21volt lipo that was huge got short circuited and it didnā€™t have a protection board so it fused the wires together and started a fire. The cell got puffy after, but never vented. Just a few horror stories from high school and most were due to our instructor neglecting safety, I donā€™t take after those bad practices.

Home Depot was all or nothing, they made us take everything. A lot of the drill packs were just returns, but they donā€™t restock the packs if theyā€™ve been used. Iā€™m certain I have a lot of usable nicad cells, some of the packs have leaky cells and read flat so thereā€™s no use fiddling. Iā€™ll just return those to the bins. I get my chances are slim, but itā€™s all about the gamble right?

Let me make just one last point.
Say the probability of a new, perfectly good cell of venting and catching fire is 1 in 10 million, letā€™s just suppose that.
And letā€™s just suppose that discharging it all the way to 0 volts and then charging it back up increases the probability of a problem occuring by 10,000 times. There would still be a 1 in a 1000 chances of something going wrong. Just because nothing ever happened doesnā€™t mean the danger hasnā€™t increased.
Because of this, I strongly believe that it is very easy to become complacent and careless. For that reason, we must draw a line and say do not use after a certain discharge voltage is reached. I would recommend the numbers generally discussed in all the literature on this subject.
What you do is your own responsibility.
BTW, I store all of my scavenged battery packs outside in the shed, away from the house.
I am nervous about the new ones I buy as it is.

Don't mind at all,,, here ya go.

JACKPOT...!!!

Ego 56v tool pack, = 42cells, Samsung 25Q
Ryobi 40v tool pack, = 20 Samsung 13Q

Well, I've tried to get into the recycle bin at my local Home depot to no avail, for months now. Every time into it, a employee questioned me and more or less stopped me from any further exploration of their bin...
This all changed last week.

HD moved the recycle bin to a out of the way, kind of out of sight location. So,,, last week was my first bin pick. No more questions from employee's that now don't see me dropping off my recycles and exploring whats in their bin...

Got a couple tool packs last week out of HD recycle bin. No good. All the cells were 18650, LG1100mAh, but had 1.1v or less. Tossed them all in my recycle ammo box after a wrestling match with the packs disassembly.

Yesterday morning got lucky. Got a Ryobi with 20 Samsung 13Q, all cells 3.1-3.3 volt.

Now for the Ego, a massive tool pack, chock full of 18650, got to be the recycler's JACKPOT.. 42 Samsung 25Q all cells 3.2-3.4v. Yes, I know they aren't 30Q or Sanyo 3600mAh, but for free, not bad.
They seem to be hi drain cells. Power my highest amp lights as good as any of my best high quality batteries, says my trusty amp probe. And the ones I charged so far, charged up great, didn't even get warm in the lii-500, and took a full charge.

Getting good at taking these tool packs apart, a slight art to it. They sure don't make it easy.
Haven't got them all charged up yet, but dang, more cells then I know what to do with,,,lol

This is getting fun, thanks BLF for showing me the light, to the recycle bin...

Going to start to get picky on what I take from the bin. What tool packs have the best cells..?

Oh, by the way, 56v does pack a nice wake up shock, wear gloves, be careful with the ego...

Opened my 2nd to last battery pack from ebay. Supposedly some Chinese 2200mAh cells. Not bad! Better than the rest of the bunch! Accidentally pulled off some heat shrink around the casing of a cell and connected the positive nickel tabs to the negative on a batteryā€¦BAM! huge thing of sparks and the entire nickel melted awayā€¦lol! Fortunately all the batteries are still good! Good thing I got a 2nd heat shrink wrap for my batteries! Save them from possible shorts!

Would you still have that 40V Ryobi pack from the original post? iā€™m interested to reverse engineer the BMS board in that pack and wondered if you could post the part numbers of the 2 big IC chips seen in the pictures. i would guess that the square one is a microcontroller (TI?) and the rectangular one is a cell monitoring chip (LT?).

If we could hack the BMS then it might be possible to figure out why the packs are shutting down and how to repair them and then re-use the entire pack.

thanks, kenny

I maybe able to help soon. I still have one I havnt taken apart yet. My 4th one. In 3 months Iā€™ve found 4 they seem to fail a lot. But the cells are still almost at original capacity. Iā€™ve been putting it off being is highly disappointing they are 1300mah cells. When other brands have much better cells in them. A lot of people say thereā€™s have Samsung 13q. All of mine so far have lg 25 amp 1300 cells not samsung. Iā€™ve just been using them mostly for vaping since they are high drain. Or night lights. Each pack had a few cells that were shorted out. In 60 cells 18 were completely dead. The other 42 perfectly fine. Just low capacity. Figure Iā€™ll hang on to them for hurricane season. In case power is out for a few days or a week

On a positive note I found a brand new pack a display I believe in the bin still had new plastic smell and the battery light worked on it. Had 5 Samsung 20q inside. At 2200 capacity roughly. So those are my batteries for the Q8 Iā€™ll put solder blobs on 4 of them

ok i can answer my own question now.

There are two versions of BMS boards made by TTi in the ryobi OP4026 40V packs.

model # board # date
13086012 280146 jan 6, 2011
13086045 280296 dec 17, 2013

i had guessed just opposite for the two chips on the board: the square quad pack U3 is the battery monitoring chip by O2 Micro, OZ8940ATN; and the rectangular 28-pin SSOP designated U2 is a PIC16F1786-1/SS microcontroller.

i had found a 40V and a 18V pack in the recycle bin at HD. The 40V is completely dead, the cells have been totally drained. The other pack indicates 9V when reading from the outside terminals, but all the cells read 4.0V when opened up.

Depending upon the model, there are either one or two big FETs (IRF1404Z) on a heatsink on the bms board that switch the low side of the pack closed/open that functions like an ON/OFF switch. Something must be causing this to stick ON and draining the packsā€”there are a huge number of dead packs for sale on ebay, plus lots of posts from folks with problem packs. These cells should last 10 yearsā€”something is killing them earlyā€¦

These packs, like nearly every other power tool brand, are built under patent 7554290, invented by Todd Johnson et al, and assigned to Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. The BMS has no shutoff or low-power mode, and it gets itā€™s power from the packā€”so it is constantly draining the pack. Too bad we have to pay these guys royalties for a POS system, there are better solutions out there e.g. Texas Instruments

^

Thanks for the info kennybobby. Not sure what it means, but it seems like good info for those that know about such things. I just pulled my 5th or 6th one from a recycle bin today. So far, 2 of them had completely dead cells and the others had cells that acted as if new (Low resistance, full capacity, stay cool when charging and discharging a 1 amp, normal warming under high current loads, etc.). So it seems the bms has some other issue that prematurely ends its usefulness. I heard (don't know if it is true) the internal bms disables the pack and intentionally fully discharges the cells when it deems the pack unsafe.

Great cells for around the house lights that don't need long run times.

i think you are rightā€”the controller can disable the pack by opening the FET, which is device 480 is this simplified patent schematic image (440 is the microcontroller).