salvaged my first 18650's

Hey guys, yesterday I tore open my first laptop battery to harvest its contents!

It had 6 x panasonic CGR18650AF 2050mah in it. Cool.

Two batteries had about 2.47v left, so i dont think ill try to use those. (or should i?)

The other 4 had about 2.8v. I started charging them but had to go out so stopped.(didnt want to leave them alone in the name of safety)

Anyone had any good luck with panasonic CGR18650AF? Im assuming they should be good as most other panasonics are.

Also my 4 x 3100mah panasonics showed up from intl-outdoors. hurahh!

I now have way more 18650's than i can use.

Easy to fix that. Buy more lights ;)

Below 2.5V I'd not try to charge them.

I check and mark capacity with my hobby charger. Any that are less than 50% get recycled. Any that fall to 50-75% get placed into my single cell flashlight, single use stack, then are recycled when used. My best cells are matched for two cell use (same capacity from same pack). I find more Sanyo/Samsung packs, than Panasonic or Sony. My highest find to date are Samsung pink 26s that capped out at 2450-2600ma followed by some Panasonic and Sony that were 2200-2300ma. One Acer pack yield was some orange 16650s at 1850-2000ma. Get my packs ”dumpster diving” local recycle bins.

I have about 30 premium batteries at the moment and have stopped looking, best to leave some FISH for other divers.

Indeed, I could always do with more lights! I currently only have a 1 x 18650 light and a 2x 18650 light.

Have almost finished charging up 4 of the batteries im going to try using. First two are done, and are sitting at 4.209v.

I went to sleep before the second set was finished, so stopped charging them at 3.9x volts. Will continue with those tonight.

Can I only test capacity with a hobby charger?

Currently im just using an ultrafire WF whatever it is, the light turned green on these unprotected panasonics at 4.212v so thats nice i guess.

Congrats lol, very good way to save some dough.

I opened a 9 cell laptop battery this weekend - the battery pack wouldn't charge at all. End result, 2 were dead, 3 were pretty good and 4 were like new. So, basically, I had to buy a new laptop battery because only 2 of the 9 cells were dead...total rip-off.

After reading this, I realized I had not recycled my old laptop battery. Mine had six pink Sanyo UR18650Y's 2000Mah. All but one are back in service, now that's recycling...

Thanks for the reminder.

Heh, thanks for idea guys - took apart (dead) battery pack of my MSI U100, and it had there 18650's made by...

wait for it....

GP!

I was really shocked by that, I expected it to have Sanyo, Samsung, LG or something along those lines. I didn't even knew GP was into LiIon business. They each test 1800 mAh at 0.2A discharge (using Turnigy Accucel-6), but they can't really hold up at even low/med loads like 1A (at 1A discharge, it dropped to 3.2V!! in first 10 seconds). I guess the fact they can't hold up under loads anymore is why my laptop refused to charge them.

I got 2 panasonic CGR18650HG from a camera battery. It said cell is made in Japan, But the battery is from China. 1 is 2.88 the other is 2.25. I am charging the first one and recycle the second one. Let see how it turn out.

I just salvaged too a laptop battery, I took the 6 sony 2200mha out and check the voltage. 2 had 3,17v the others 4 had 3,80v. I put a pair in a charger that is for sale in almost all the items in ebay, and others two in a charger that work with my nokia charger, well, I think that the two first battery had be charged first because this charger is what I use most and the charger is fast, so, I notice that the second one charge the batteries first, I say what??? Because that I check the first one and touch the batteries, both are really hot, I take it out and check the voltage, was 4.17v the others two too, so, I think that the second charger had a cut charge so high and the charger that work with the nokia charger is efficient.