“… Fire investigators say that when the e-cigarette reached its charging limit, it overheated and shot parts everywhere, including onto the furniture.
“It blew the end cap off and blew fragments off and on to the couch and ignited the couch in the house,” said the county fire marshal.
The more we catch wind of these stories, the more clear it becomes that the e-cigarette industry needs to make some important changes. Designing devices that can charge and then shut off when they’re full so they don’t overheat would work, but until manufacturers get around to doing that, never leave a charging e-cig unattended and unplug it as soon as it’s done charging.
Barring that, even a simple warning to consumers on the packaging would be the responsible thing to do. If my hair dryer tells me not to drop it into the bathtub full of water, surely companies can advise consumers how to safely operate their cigarettes….”
If the voltage is too low its best to trash them instead. Low voltage causes internal damage. Options vary on the cut off point for trashing a low voltage cell. Some people would rather take the extra risk then toss the cell.
I would toss anything below 2.5v.
Also unprotected batteries such as laptop pulls should only be used in flashlights that have low voltage warning.
They’re Sony and Panasonics, don’t know how old but they look good. Got to get some charge in them to see if they will hold it. The Accucell is good for that and to measure their actual capacity.
I bought one of these Police brand lights c/w battery and plug it into the light to charge charging system, I noticed some thing odd about the battery (this was a few years ago, I know better now) -
Same here, I got two, they sent one free when I complained the LED was not as advertised - I binned both batteries and still have the lights somewhere but never use them, they aren’t very good.
So i got my hands on a Turnigy Accucell hobby charger and started going through my laptop pulls.They were rated for 2200 mA but charging them got them to about 2100 mA. Is that a sign of good cells? With my Ultrafire charging current goes to about 0,2A and sticks to 4.2V. I’m charging the Sony laptop cells starting at about 1.5A. Are they any good? I didn’t have the patience to run a discharge test yet but I’m thinking that if they take 2100 mA they should also discharge 2100 mA. Am I wrong?
Really need a discharge test for accurate capacity.
If any laptop pulls heat up during charging toss them.
Also check for elevated self discharge. Charge to full, let it sit for a week then measure capacity.
I wouldn’t recommend ultrafire / _any_fire chargers.
Yes I occasionally post a review and detail the truth on Ultrafire and other bogus 4000-6000mAh batteries, but more often than not, my reviews are overwhelmed with uneducated “Runs my flashlight bright! 5/5” and phoney reviews.
Whats the lowest capacity any of you has seen on one of these cells? Mine was about 500-600mAh on a “5000mAh” cell. It also had phoney protection and no vent holes, but I didn’t dissect it.
i wound up with a supposedly bad light that was bought at the flea.guy paid over 100.00 for it.light was ok but the batteries were the issue.
ultrafire blacks one at 32mah and the other at 105mah.
the guy was happy he wasnt completely at a loss when i told him to come get it that the batteries were bad.
it wasnt anything anyone here would pay $100 for but it was decent once i dropped in a good laptop pull.
