I’m shooting for some other way using an MCU but no luck so far. It should be doable though. I’ll post something when I’ve made demonstrable progress.
I’ve posted another pack teardown. This one is a ACER AS11B5E battery pack I picked up on eBay.
This pack is a bit unusual. Its an internal pack, but unlike most internal packs, its made with 18650s, rather than pouch cells.
One benefit is that its really easy to get in to. I just had to peel some tape off the thin shell.
Inside, I found eight Panasonic NCR18650A 3,100 mAh cells. Not bad for a $22 new-old-stock pack!
Or perhaps it wasn’t such a deal after all. The pack voltage was ~7.7v, which wouldn’t be bad if this were a 3S pack. On an 4S pack though, that works out to less than 2v a cell. In retrospect, I can now see why the seller wasn’t asking more for the pack, and now that I’ve gone back to check, I see that they have other NOS packs of the same type for almost 2x the price. No mention though that it was marginal
I decided to give it a slow charge to 12V at 200 mA, which didn’t take long. Overnight, the voltage settled to ~11.6v. I am taking it up to 14.8v now at 660mA, which is probably where I’ll leave it until I manage to read out the pack info over SMBus. Then I’ll separate the cells and do a couple rounds of tests.
Pack Summary:
Acer, AS11B5E; 14.8v, 6000 mAh, 87Wh, 4s2p; Panasonic, NCR18650A, 3,100 mAh
Thanks EAS, I will get the OP updated asap.
Not to drag this too far off topic, but I’ve made some progress. I was able to get this info out of one of the $12 acer packs:
I need to figure out how to interpret the manufacture date. I also want to figure out if I can get the individual voltages for each parallel bank, and also how to deal with string data, like the manufacturer and serial number.
Once I do, I’ll clean up the code a bit and share it.
Went back to the flea market
Apple iBook A(?)O62 (14.4v) --> 8x Panasonic CGR18650CA (2x 0.00, 1x 3.87v, 2x 3.83v, 3x 3.81v)
Dell branded JWPHF (11.1v 56Wh) --> 6x Samsung ICR18650-26F (5x 3.87v, 1x 3.62v)
Dell branded X284G (11.1v 48Wh) --> 6x LG LGDAS31865 (4x 3.50v, 2x 3.48v)
Solomon Technology BTP-X31/TH-3500A (10.8v 3500mAh) --> 9x Toshiba 4/3A 1.2v NiMH Cells
Generic Toshiba TS-M2 Replacement (??v ??Wh) --> 6x Moli ICR-18650H (6x 3.91v)
Downlinx I updated my other posts with VDC and mAh/Wh info (#65 #71 #80 #84 #100)
sorry i missed this, i will get everything updated.
A friend of mine, not a member here, but into flashlights none the less sent me these pics of a 40V Kobalt battery pack that HE found in the Lowes recycle bin. It was only half full with only 10 cells. The cell info is scribbled onto a piece of paper on the desk. The pack claims to be 2.0AH, that would mean those are 2000mAh cells. He claims there is also a 4AH version of this pack, so that one would be full with 20 cells.
This pack, like the one I found appears to be brand new
Been doing some pack pulls over the last few weeks. Laptop packs were acquired from friends and tool packs courtesy of Home Depot
Acer AS10D41
10.8v 4400mah
6 Sony 2200mah
US18650GS
T6GS23SK08Y
All 3.94v
Ryobi 5 cell lithium ion tool pack
LDGAH11865
M284J115AG
All 0.4v JUNK
Pretty disappointed with the Ryobi, pack looked new.
Downlinx reported the following pack to produce Sanyo double red while gauss163 indicated panasonics. I got Sanyos in the first one and Sony's on the second.
Dell BATDWOOL
Type 6T473
14.8V 6450mah
12 Sanyo red top 2200mah
9 @ ~2.8v, 3 @ 0v
Dell BATDWOOL
Type 6T473
14.8V 6450mah
12 Sony 2150mah
SF US18650GR
T G5146LJ24H
All @ 0v
Makita tool pack
18v 3ah
10 IMR “konion” cells
1500 mah
SF US18650v
T V1110NK25N
1 dead cell, pooched 1, dented 2, six @ 2.85v
No self discharge
4.4 A on DD XM-L2
6.4 A on DD XP-G2 triple
Lost three high drain cells due to clumsiness!
More Later,
Brian
Dell Y4367 11.1V 80WH
9x LGDA2E 18650 2400mah
Thanks for the patience everyone, too a bit but everything has been updates.
Did a pull over lunch
this time did a Dell 4M529 7800Mah 90Wh
This one had 9 samsung ICR18650-26f’s 2600Mah. (I 3 wrappers off accidentally, will need rewrapped)
I have not tested them yet, i will this weekend
Interesting, it would seem that Dell rounded up a bit on that Wh rating.
thats what i am thinking as well, should have been marked 85Mh
I am working on another 4M529 and it looks like it comes with ICR18650-28A’s so i dont know what is going on. it is also a 90Mh
So my work have Dell Inspirons and they bought extra batteries. These are supposed to be genuine Dell batteries but I have pulled one apart and they are are not genuine. Hate to tell the requisition guys this …
So the pack is 11.1V 5200mAh pack with 6x18650 cells in 3s2p. It is to replace the Dell J1KND, 9T48V and W7H3N.
The 18650’s in them are purple in colour. The marking is ASO, so guessing they are ASO branded. Full marking is ASO GH1G221EF 809551 (this last part varies and appears to be a serial number). Below that marking is SZN, so another Shenzhen company I guess.
Can’t find specs but basing it on the specs on the pack, 3.7V 2600mAh. I don’t think it’ll do more than 1C constant discharge, the generic aftermarkets ones rarely do. Not bothering to test these as I’m not keeping any these.
DELL Inspiron replacement battery from ebay
9 x CMP 18650 cells: http://cmp-chn.gmc.globalmarket.com/products/details/2200mah-rechargeable-lithium-ion-18650-laptop-battery-cells-2130048.html
Thanks vladraq, OP updated.
Link in pic
DELL branded 5081P (14.8v (4S2P) 3360mAh) --> Sony Fukushima STG G4 US18650GR 1700mAh (8x 0.00v)
DELL branded 75UYF (14.8v (4S2P) 3800mAh) --> Sony Energytec GR G2H US18650GR 1900mAh (6x 0.00v 2x 3.18v)
i originally thought those were bak cells.
now i know.they are just fine for normal flashlight use and even did ok in our custom box mods we build.
i wound up with several hundred of these cells from new but obsolete packs bought by some school and later sent to us for recycling.not one dud and every last one were at 3.81v out of the sealed packs.not used to seeing that sort of consistancy in generic stuff.
Bought this new open box Acer AS10I5E pack on Ebay for $19.95 free s&h. Received it and pack date was 7-2012. Inside were 8 NCR18650A green Panasonic 3100mah cells. Voltage was 2.20v for all eight cells. In process of charging 4 cell for 30 minutes and voltage is 3.29V. Repeating on the second set as I am writing. Looks promising for $2.50 per battery!
Update…did a discharge 1.5A to 3.0V and checked 2885mah with the hobby charger. Do figure that at 2.5V minimum discharge would be close to rated capacity. The battery pack was purchased from ebay seller INANDOUTELECTRONICS. Many members here purchased packs from this seller and have been pleased.
I tore into some DELL XX326 11.1V 60WH packs.
I started by trying to read data out of them with PackProbe. Only a few yielded any data, and what they gave was patchy. I pulled open the rest to see if I could figure out why they weren’t working. I could tell that all of them had one or more bad bank of cells. I could also tell that some of the spot welds had broken at some point, perhaps while I was twisting the packs to get the case open.
When I checked cell voltages in situ, I found that all of the packs I opened had bad banks. Some worse than others.
Hmm, that ain’t good, how does each bank look…
Huh, I guess those aren’t bad, the rest though…
Umm, weird…
–2.69v?!? That can’t be right, but the polarity on the multimeter is right.
I looked at a few more packs. Found some more reverse polarity cells, but not with as much potential. A bunch of flat cells, and when I tore out individual cells, I found 0v cells paired with ~3.5v cells in the same bank and more broken spot welds. Not quite sure what is going on, other than these being lousy packs.
Out of 18 cells from three packs, I only have 3 (Samsung ICR18650-28As) that are anywhere worth charging.
Update: The three cells I charged are pretty hammered. When charged to 4.2v and tested on my Opus, they all put up about 1,720 mAh discharge capacity at 500mA drain. These cells are designed for 4.3 discharge voltage, and according to HJKs tests, when charged to 4.2 they give up about 8% of their capacity, which would put them at ~2,600 mAh from 4.2v when new. Internal resistance as measured by my Zh-yu battery analyzer from Fastech is ~75mOhm (for comparison, on the same rig, some pink samsungs pulled from one of those $12 Acer packs with a dozen or so cycles on them now come in at ~60mOhm, and some Sanyo blue top from a 110-cycle Lenovo pack I got from Hagg911 measure 55mOhm).