I always assume those pics are fake just for fun ..i don't want to know what's in a lithium ion that has no capacity .putting a hacksaw to a battery is low on my list of things to do . a junk cell is just a reason for me to go and recycle and see what's new in the recycling bin ...
I have 8 sanyo lmrs from 2 hitachi drill packs .they came flat as a pancake with very low low low voltage and almost killed my tr001 charger ... it heated up and buzzed and didn't like the amperage these empty cell s were trying to steal from it ..so much so i stopped and gave everyone a short break and let them cool down ...batteries weren't affected or hot the charger was freaked out by them .. once they hit over 3 volts everything chilled out . They are the best batteries I've ever seen.. red sanyo Lmr with hexagon shaped tops /with a blue colored ring around the top
I have been on the lookout for used laptop batteries but can’t seem to find any. I pulled my battery off my Toshiba laptop that I didn’t use anymore and got 6 red 18650s. 2 would only charge to 4.06v and I think were the ones making the pack drain so fast when I did use it. The other four are charge to 4.13+\0.01v. I think they are good and have been using them in my one cell 18650 with no issues. They hold a charge and recharge to same levels.
Just finished stage 2 of testing cells from 5 packs (3 old Macbook 18650 packs, 2 no name). Total of 32 cells, 6 or 8 got kicked at <3V. The rest charged up fine although 4 of the pink Panasonics I was doubtful about (turns out they were ~300mAh). Then I left them a week and all bar 7 went below 4.1V Recharge testing on individual cells (I did pairs originally to save time) showed that all of the remaining pink Panasonics had lost >10% in a week (boohoo :(), as had half the green Panasonics (both were from Macbook packs). Now I’m left with 3 green Panasonics (~2Ah) and 4 no names (~1.9Ah).
A lot of work and time, but I’m pretty confident in what’s left. It’s interesting to see the different ways in which the packs die - one of the Macbook packs was due to half the cells losing their capacity and the rest self discharging, the other was fine capacity wise but all the cells self discharged and one of the no name packs was the classic “1 pair gone” problem where the other 2 pairs were fine.