The Dells and Acers I have opened yielded 2050 and 2250 mAh panasonics which, for free, is great!
Most name brand packs have name brand cells in. I have had good luck with dell batteries. They often have 2600 mah sanyo batteries in them.
Thanks for starting this alex was just wondering the same thing
Posted on iphone
For example:
The Toshiba Qosmio x505 series uses a 12 cell 90 watt battery pack stuffed full of good Panasonic cells.
I want to wish you a warm welcome to BLF, ryanferg!
I get HP, Dell, Acer,etc…… what ever is there. When I started out was checking every cell. Got to decide for yourself what parameters are acceptable, mine were skipping any cells that are not at least 2400ma original capacity and have at least 80%+ capacity. First thing is pull the big sticker off and removing the thin plastic covers. This is a major time saver as there is access to the cells (not all but most) with the least amount of effort as in busting open the pack. This allows identification of cells and DMM access to check voltage. From there toss them or proceed to dismantle, charging & checking. It’s not for everyone and kind of like fishing with good and bad days.
I'm typing this on a Qosmio x775 as we speak - it's good to know I could cannibalize her pack, if the SHTF. 
Off-topic: the "brick" (charger) for this computer is literally a brick; it's the largest I've ever seen, period. I guess it needs to be large, outputting 19V at up to 9.5A... 
if you want to be selective, go for the ones most recently manufactured. Doesn’t matter what cells are inside if they’re dead, lost 1/2 their capacity or self-discharge like crazy. Or just take all of them, test all of them and take back all the duff ones. My hit rate is probably ~15%, with no rhyme or reason as to brand name packs vs. generic, brand name cells or plain wrappers.
As Mr. Gump said; “life’s like a box of chocolates”
+1 About 1 in 8 for me. Had a run on good Samsung pink 2600s like 15 good cells like almost new capacity over a month period. Used 12 for a 4s3p HID pack. Been dry lately but haven’t been hitting the bins as hard. Have plenty for FL use at the moment.
So just where is everyone finding these battery packs?
I get mine from E recyclers, costs them money to recycle them so they give them to me free :bigsmile:
Obviously the newer the better however most battery packs I get are 2400 or 2600mAh cells. Dell and Lenovo packs yield the best I have found so far (Sanyo 2600mAh).
Battery manufactures I have found so far:
Samsung
Sony
LG
Sanyo
FHG (or something…. Chinese apparently)
From:
Dell
Lenovo
HP (mostly Sony 2600mA green (past it))
Acer
Toshiba
No Panasonic yet 
I get mine from recycling bins around campus or the workshop in the next building. I’ve found Panasonics before, in older Macbook batteries (’05 ish), but almost all of them were toast or self-discharged. I have a couple that are decent.
So far I’ve never had a salvaged cell above 2Ah. Still useful, but if I need high capacity I’d rather buy new.
OK RF,
I just pillaged a Laptop pack with 8 LG Salmon colored cells inside.
2 Cells low voltage = Recycled responsibly 
6 Cells Good range charging now.
Pack states 14.8v & 4.4Ahr
14.8v/3.7v per battery = 4 x 4.4Ahr = 17.6 total Ahr / 8 batteries in pack = 2.2 mAh per battery??
Must be close, all the numbers came out even.
Now if I can figure a way to tell how much life is left in these, or any battery I have…….
Thanks for the help
it’s a bit simpler than that. If you have a 14.8V pack, you have 4 cells in series (4S). If you have 4 cells total in your pack, it’s 4 series 1 parallel (4S1P), so the pack Ah rating is that same as 1 cell (more cells in series = higher voltage, same Ah). If you have 8 cells, it means that they’re 4S2P. Doubling the cells in parallel (1P to 2P, for example) doubles the Ah of the pack. So if you know the Ah rating of the pack, divide it by two to get the capacity of the individual cells.
so, 4.4Ah pack in 4S2P = 4.4/2 = 2.2Ah per cell.
You all make it sound soooo simple…lol.
Before cracking open the cases, I suppose we could estimate the number of cells and mAh of the batteries by numerical bracketing. This may help choosing the potential quality of the cells inside.
Thank For the help
yup. If it’s 14.8V it’s 4S, if it’s 11.1V it’s 3S. If the capacity is over 2.9Ah or so, then it’s 2P. Most laptop cells are 2.2 to 2.9Ah in capacity.
I just salvaged 13 battery packs. I didn’t keep good track of which cells came from which pack because it seems really random. I had planned to note the name of the laptop and which cells I found in which packs.
I had 5-6 HP packs that were all very similar if not identical. Several must have been from the same model of laptop. After cracking them open, I found different cells in the packs. I expected to find pretty much all the same cells in the HP packs but it was not the case at all.
My point is, any advice about which cells are in which packs is going to be more a guideline than a hard and fast rule.
Probably the easiest way is just look at the pack. The bigger the pack, the more cells it probably contains. I had one large pack that contained 12 cells.
From Post #15 in this thread, here is the pics of the slavaged cells.
Obviously they were LG cells, Korean specials. I was happy.
The batteries came apart without issue, peeling off the tabs as I went. There was a gum-rubber type sealer over the metal tabs which was peeled off as well.
These were flesh colored, not pink at all.
Then I found the ‘salmon’ colored reference and the pics matched, even though mine were a lesser 2200mAh capacity I was pretty happy with my treasure.
Better pic of removed pair:
Do these numbers have any reference values…LGDS218650??
So far 3 fully charged to 4.15- 4.17v. 3 more on charger.
I have another pack which may be “Quiz of the Day” material…
I bought this aftermarket to replace a dead pack. Shortly thereafter the computer crashed…off a wall to a ramp 9 feet below. I saved the pack in a small bit of wisdom.
There is NO numerical markings on this pack at all, aside from the model/SKU numbers.
Looks like it would hold about 5 pairs of 18650’s
Any guesses as to which batteries will be inside??
Cheers
I took apart a 6 cell from an MSI 17” gaming laptop (about 3 years old).
They were Samsung ICR18650-24E
I don’t have any measuring equipment, but they seem to go well in all my lights.
I posted another thread about a special on a Dell Inspiron 6 cell replacement for about $18. Not sure whether to grab that deal.
I spoke to a friend who works for , a major mobile phone company. He told me their company uses laptops by the thousands, and their in-house Tech team sends at least 10 battery packs a month off to recycling as they fail.
As I do work for them on occasion, I will ask them about the possibility of working out a deal where I would pick up their packs and recycle them.