How low do you go ?

Batteries and Chargers Rechargeable Batteries
1

You can see the archived poll results on the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221220093741/https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/72678

2

Hi!

what is the lowest voltage you let a cell discharge before you toss it into the bin recycling box ?

i got an old laptop pack but i meassure 1,4 - 1,9 Volts
usually my limit is minimum 2 Volts to charge a cell…

3

Two volts is normally my limit, but if it’s a fairly new pack then I will go a little lower, but discard it if it starts to get hot, or doesn’t measure up on a charge/discharge test/impedance test
Had good success with some samsung cells that were a bit under 2 volts when salvaged

4

I use 3 volts as my standard cutoff. Some manufacturers have a 2.5v low voltage minimum and some recommend 2.8v. By using 3v I don't have to think about that and I have a bit of a safety margin.

5

I haven’t noticed any significant differences or problems using 2.4v as my cutoff. However any battery that gets hot during charging or shows major reduced capacity gets binned.

6

As long as the charger recognizes the chemistry of a cell, I will attempt to charge it, regardless of the residual voltage.

I just got a six 2,400 mAh Samsung ICR18650-24E from laptop pulls which were between 0.4 and 0.5 volts. I restored them all. One cell restored to the 1,450 mAh capacity, one to 2,100 mAh and the rest to 1,950-2,000 mAh.

7

I don’t know if this will help or not. It is a good discussion, and table.
http://lygte-info.dk/info/BatteryChargePercent%20UK.html

Jerry

8

typically the performance is below acceptable befrooe I get to 2.5. but now that I have a charge that tell me mR (mean resistance) I use that to tell when to cull the heard.

9

2.8

10

My cutoff is 3.1—3.3 volts depending on the brand name
of the battery.

11

Just to clarify, are you just talking just about old laptop cells you just pulled or general cells you use everyday or both ?

If so I’d give you 2 different answers, for salvaged laptop pulls I’d stick with my original answer in post 2

For my everyday use cells I normally wouldn’t let them go below 3.5 volts before recharging then