How many li ion cells have you retired?

From lack of capacity, overheating while charging or other reasons (please elaborate)?

Only 2x 18700 Xtar 2400mah protected, like about 4 years old, they fed my Xtar B01 for a long time.

about 3-4 I think

Had one vent…very bad

the others were drained to 0 by the kids leaving the light on and/or just not taking a charge or getting to hot while charging (aka *catch*fire brand batteries)

6 sanyo purple top 18650 died from charging

good healthy stuffs ripped from an old working HP laptop

but they just can’t be charged over 4 volts and starts to heat up to untouchable temperature when it reached 4v (even when charged on 0.5A)

All my “fire” branded cells that i bought before i knew better, so 9 x 18650, 2 x 17650 and 4 rcr123’s

This doesn't sound good ..or healthy .

If batteries won't charge up fully I think thats a huge red flag .

Besides used laptop pulls I've only recycled one orange 16340 lmr from bestinone /efest in 4 years .

new/unused oem laptop packs have made up 98% of what I'm currently using ..all with great success.

4+ year old trustfire flames/reverend jim pannys and tennergy 2600's are still hanging in too

4 18650s for me. One won’t even get recognized being plugged in on the Opus, the others take
forever to get charged to around 3.7v and just stay there.

Wrong forum!!
Deal alert

plz goto: http://budgetlightforum.com/forum/batteries/rechargeable

On topic:
not manny: a few truefire flames 18650, but i have to say in my early days i did not know much about “taking care of”

reacently one out of four Pannasonic NCR18650B, i think the protection board is faulty.

Shorted out or overdrained 3 VTC batteries. 2 were VTC5 in mods and 1 was VTC3 in a mismatched set of 3 in my K40M.

Two Ultrafire batteries. These were junk in every possible way. Got rid of one within days. The other within few weeks. (Bought them before discovering BLF, just wanted to test an 18650 light and picked them up from Ebay. I did not know anything back then.). Never picked up an xxxxfire battery since.

One Sanyo UR18650FM, used it in a crappy and cheap battery holder that had a ton of resistance. I believe it heated up close to the battery, and battery got too hot. There was some smell that seemed to come from the battery. Cant remember exactly what happened. A long time ago. I got rid of the cell just in case.

4 - 3Ah rated Ultrafire 18650 protected batteries came as a package with the light and charger when I first got into these 18650 batteries. Tested capacity was around 600 to 700mAh new on the hobby charger. Internal resistance was high compared to the Panasonic 18650A. Recycled. Also no protection circuit found. Obviously fake. Got fooled. Such a noob!

6 - 3Ah Trustfire Flames 18650 protected batteries. Tested capacity new was ~2.6Ah. After 18 months hard use, lost 50% capacity. Recycled.

2 - 3.1Ah Panasonic protected 18650A. After 3 years lost 50% capacity after hard use. Recycled.

1 - 3.4Ah Panasonic protected 18650B. After 1 year lost 50% capacity after hard use. Recycled.


6 or so various batteries that I’ve dropped numerous times on pavement (not all by me) and after some inspection, too chicken to put it back into the flashlight or too banged up to fit back into flashlight.

Not sure if this applies as it's not used in a flashlight...

12 – IMR 2.0Ah Moli cells and about 40 various 18650 laptop pulls (Sony, LG, Samsung, & Panasonic) used for power tool drag racing. No survivors. All batteries were toast, literally. They were used to power a modded belt sander, 2 angle grinders and 3 cordless circular saws. Gave up in the end. Running out of good working donor power tools. It was fun while it lasted.

I've retired whatever FuglyFire cells I had left, but I did keep the wrappers just to shame myself of that earlier time period :P

I wouldn't call these cells fully retired, but I have 2200mAh LGs cells that are lying around now since I got higher cap cells (Sanyo FMs/Panny CGR-Es).

only one Sanyo laptop pull so far that was accidentally drained down to 0.4 volts in a light that was left on in a packsack.

I call them healthy because they were good when charged with laptop power as they were never more than 4.15v each cell. Without heat issues too

But charging them with a different charger (fenix are c2) gives problems

The charger charges other cells fine except this pack

Four 18650’s all in a light/charger/battery where the batteries recharged in the torch via a wall wart, my first venture into the Li-Ion world. I sort of realised something wasn’t right when the batteries were branded Uitra Firc. So I started reading about things that go boom and vent with flame.
A Nitecore i4v2 and 6 18650 batteries, Nitecore protected, together with other branded, protected cells from reliable suppliers, a load of Solarforce L2 Lego and all is good.

12 Sanyo laptop pulls from my kid’s Toshiba laptops. 2 got really hot when charging on a Xtar charger and the other ones tested out at less than 800mAh. Also discarded 6 18650 Sanyo’s laptop pulls that I picked up from someone on this board. They tested out at around 1000mAh and weren’t worth keeping since I have plenty more that I either bought new or were pulled from never used packs.

All my cells are from new or used laptop packs. I have a few dozen or so that were close to or even below 0V that I need to make sure I have decent records on, and then they are out of here. I have another few that behaved badly in the charger (warm, never got to 4.2v) that are going to be pitched.

I now have a couple dozen that charge and retain charge ok, but are kind of low capacity (1,500 mAh - 2,000 mAh). I’m probably going to put them through some tests with an eye to maybe using them in a fixed application.

I have another half dozen or so that are similar, in that they charge and hold charge Ok, but only muster 800-900mAh at 500mA discharge. I think I may experiment with them a bit more, because they seem to be loosing significant capacity with each charge cycle and I’d like to verify that impression a little more carefully before taking them to electronics recycling.

so far for me is

6 red & 4 blue - when started into high power flashlight with “Fire”brand claimed to be 3Ah & 2.6Ah.

6 - generic brand power screwdriver battery pack, normal battery life span, took out & solder in new CGR18650CH.

8 - common white case claimed to be 20Ah power bank, in fact only abt 1.1Ah per cell, lost capacity (0.6-0.8Ah) in 3-4mths time.

1 - Nitecore NL166 which is RCR123, nearly a year of hard use, lost capacity & heated when charging.

21 - used laptop packs from recycle bin, cell heated when charging, unlucky me :cowboy_hat_face:

About 6 or 8. But practically all of those were either DOA or died shortly thereafter.