10 18650s at HD for $22?

thats how i measured mine. loaded them all in one half, and tested away. will be a project for another day, but saving them. keep one on the shelf by the light stash, and one by the charger maybe for depleted cells
also saved the life meter from it haha. and got a handy dandy 40a fuse. destroyed the circuit board though. used the brute force method on it. thought thats what was holding the two halves together

edit:

this may be of use to anyone doing this. mine are p49a - dec 2011 from my take of it

I got two of them there! :D There was one left as I walked away and I saw another guy walk up to get it. thanks for the tip on their location, the guy I talked to had no idea where they were.

That thing was a PIA to take apart, I felt like I was defusing a bomb or something... So how do I get them out of the plastic carrier?

theres hidden phillips screws between the cells from the ps/neg side

Are the tabs holding in the plastic carrier?

I have just started tearing apart the plastic carrier, I will add that these cells will also max out my DMM in my septuple XM-L. Now I finally have enough good IMR batteries to power all of my multi-XM-L P60s. ;)

I’m looking forward to seeing how they handle my xml2 and 3.5a nanj… Hopefully better than my current cells

I just have one question because I am curious and don’t have those batteries in my HD’s. Please don’t take this as an opportunity to start a Li-ion safety war. There are plenty of threads going right now for that. I think most here would just assume that type of discussion stay in those threads.

Do the battery packs appear to have cell balancing circuitry? From what I am reading, I’m getting the impression that they don’t. If not, maybe the manufacture used a type of cell that mitigates the risk. If so, those might be some tough cells. Another plus if that is the case.

Scaru, have you run a discharge test on the cells yet? Are you going to?

-Garry

from what I can tell they are being balance charged, but in packs of2s.not perfect but better than nothing and yes I will be doing a1 amp discharge tonight

Very interested to see the results. Seems if you buy these cells bulk, they are from about $3 up. Couldn’t really find any singles for sale in a quick search last night.
Got to clean up the spot welds tonight and start charging them up.

Found the following info at this site:

Specifications

1. Model: UR18650W2
2. Nominal Voltage: 3.7V
3. Nominal Capacity: 1500mAh
4. Place of Origin: Japan

UR18650W2 High power li ion rechargeable battery 18650 3.7V 1500mAh

Description

1. Nominal Capacity: 1500mAh
2. Nominal Voltage: 3.70V
4. End Voltage: 2.75V
5. Charging Current (Std.): 0.7C(=1.05)A (0 ~ +40°C)
6. Charging Voltage: 4.20V
7. Charging Time (Std.): 3.0hours
8. Discharging Current (Std.): 1C(=1.5)A (-20~ +60°C)
9. Discharging Current (Max.): 15A
10. Internal Resistance: less than 50Mω(AC Impedance 1kHz)
11. Weight: less than 47g
12. Surroundings temperature range for shipped battery
less than 1month: -20 ~ +60°C
less than 3months: -20 ~ +40°C
less than 1year: -20 ~ +20°C
Note: Percentage of recoverable capacity 80%

-Garry

Looks like everyone’s pestering Scaru, so I’ll add my pester. Love to know at first click whether there is any lumen-output difference in these tool cells as compared to — say — a panasonic 2600 — if Scaru has a minute to try the same in his famous integrated bathroom. In other words, Sanyo 1500 in a light; click it on; take lumen reading. Panasonic in the same light; click it on; take another reading. Are they different? The same? Well, maybe it doesn’t have to be the exact second the light clicks on. Just as long as both readings are taken at the same time in both lights.

At first I thought these produced a dimmer light than a 2600, but after a couple minutes of playing around last night, I’m not so sure. I only tried a couple EDC tube lights. Did anyone else try to see any difference?

I found a couple of these at my hd…what kind of screw driver is used on the outside? don’t want to have to resort to bashing it with a hammer :face_with_monocle:

>>>>>what kind of screw driver is used on the outside?

I believe they’re called Torx security screws or Torx tamper-resistant screws. Torx screws are bad enough trying to find the right-size driver. But these have the added security feature of a raised dot in the screwhead so regular Torx drivers won’t work. I don’t know if HD has these drivers. I got mine on ebay a couple years ago.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/33-PC-Security-Bit-Set-Hex-Torq-Torx-Tamper-Proof-/380599819653?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item589d845d85

I don’t know this seller. Just the first one I ran into. I saw some Torx TR drivers at a mom-and-pop hardware store a couple months ago, so you never know where you’ll find people who want to take apart things they shouldn’t. :wink:

HD or Lowes does carry these bits, but I would just cut them off with my dremel were it me. J)

okay thanks! I got them out with some small flatheads. you guys weren’t joking about sparks flying…wooo! that was exciting :~

I ripped all of the metal contacts off, but how do I get the little dots of solder off? will it hurt to take an iron to them?

You can sand/grind/dremel them off. If you use an iron be very very quick with it and cool them off rapidly.

-Garry

It’s not solder, they are spot welded on…

>>>>>will it hurt to take an iron to them?
.
YES it could destroy them!!! DO NOT DO THAT!!! It could melt the bag inside the battery and start a “vent with flames” sequence at worst. Or it could just ruin the battery.

(You can get away with +quickly+ putting a blob of solder on the flat-top. The positive terminal is somewhat thermally separated from the battery innards. But the neg battery end is right against the rolled bag inside the battery.)

I use a dremel and VERY CAREFULLY remove the burrs. BUT CAREFULLY. The battery case is very thin metal. If you break through, it could be dangerous. Others may have other ways of dealing with the welding detrius.

On the “sparks flying,” you do really need to be careful when doing this. I was kinda joking about it before, but a short for 5-10 seconds (maybe less) could start a hard-short runaway and you could have a vent with flames on your hands. It does not take much to get a li-ion battery to immolate. SO BE CAREFUL. What is particularly unnerving about disaasembling any of these packs is that if one cell vents and gets going, it will undoubtedly take the other cells with it. The heat and flames will spread to the other cells and set them off; electrcity doesn’t have to be involved at that point.

Don’t mean to soapbox or criticize. Just don’t want to see a flaming BLFer. :wink:

Scaru said it was like defusing a bomb, and he’s pretty close to the truth!