10 18650s at HD for $22?

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!

Yes, that's right. Sorry I responded without realizing it wasn't solder (would have dawned on me had they been in front of me to see). Hope I didn't lead lgr45 to try it!

-Garry

Thanks for the heads-up. I just got back from my local Home Depot where I picked one up. It was a shame to break open a perfectly good battery pack, but when I saw the 10 beautiful 18650's, I didn't feel quite so bad. I removed them from the case, got them all cleaned-up and now 4 of them are sitting in the charger.

Now I just need more flashlights

haha ok I will just leave them as-is. i figured an iron on them would be pretty sketchy but wasn’t sure. all of my cells are reading 3.65-3.66 V! only tore down 1 pack so far. still waiting to decide what to do with the other. the store I went to had one left after me, and another store across town has 8 left in stock. seems to be a bunch around here (Indianapolis, IN)

yeah it it's extremely dangerous with all the wires that are so close top each other I shortest it for half a second and sparks flew and it took a while for them to die down. Easily the hardest pack I've ever had to take apart. However I'm really excited about these as I now have20 of them.

I was very careful and had no shorts. I started by removing the wire st the top, and then carefully turning my needle nose to wrap the tabs around them. Was still pretty hairy. They did not want anyone getting to those cells lol

I usually dissemble packs outside, so I can toss the thing FAR away from me if something shorts. Those thick wires coming off the tabs in this pack are particulalrly hairy. I cut them all first, which probably wasn’t a good idea, so I had a forest of live wires looking for my needle nose pliers. Probably better to do one at a time and rip each set of tabs off before continuing.

I agree with Scaru. I have done maybe 35-40 packs at this point, and this one was definitely the most involved and hairiest.

Great find! I will be visiting my local HD to see if they have any left.

Has anyone confirmed if these batteries actually make a flashlight led brighter?

I don’t think it would make a light brighter unless it wanted to draw more amps than another battery could handle

@Pulsar, yeah that is true. I need them for my multi-XML P60 lights.

I’m a little late to party on this one. Got mine this morning, my store had 3 in stock “but they don’t have a home”. Where have we heard that one before? :stuck_out_tongue: Anyway, a clerk and I found them on a top shelf in a plain unmarked box. Lucky. There’s 2 more and only he and I know where they are, so they are safe for the time being.
I had read this pack was hard to break into, but I thought that for me and my drill press - no problem. Even so, it was VERY difficult. What I did is use a 3/8” drill to drill off the tops of the security torx head screws, probably just like everyone else. When I was finished only 9 of the 10 cells were good. Here are the pics to show how dangerous this kind of activity can be! I was lucky twice.
First the pack removed and stripped of wiring, no sparks for me!

Next, after I split the pack by removing the 2 screws holding it together. (when I found them I actually shouted out. Thank God, phillips head)
All but one of the batteries slid out. Upon closer examination, I noticed that the one that did not slide out was behind what was left of one of the screws I had drilled out. I figure that when I was drilling the head off that screw, the bit caught hold of the head and spun it right thru the back of the casing and into one of the cells. So I took a Stanley knife and carefully scribed a line in the plastic so that I could grab it and “tear” it away. Sure enough, that’s what happened.

See how easy it is to screw up (no pun intended, really) when doing something like this. The funny thing, the whole time I was breaking into the pack, I kept stopping and using the on board battery checker to test the pack to make sure it wasn’t getting damaged. How handy that was, I thought at the time.

BTW, all the cells were charged to exactly 3.66 volts, including the damaged one. So I got 9 good cells. I lost out on 10, good thing I saved 5 for using my HD credit card.

The first 4 (I put in the charger this morning) are now fully charged. I put one in my Olight i6 and I can't tell a difference in the brightness between it and my "Panasonic Protected NCR18650A 3100mAh 3.7V" Battery.

For some of my work, I need Torx screw drivers. They came in really handy today. It's unfortunate that other people have had difficulty removing these cells, I found it quite easy thanks to the torx drivers.

If I were to do it again, I would, however, wrap my pliers in tape before trying to remove the terminals (I got some sparks).

>>>>(I got some sparks).

I don’t know waht is the most disconcerting, the sparks shooting like little comets 5 feet from the batteries OR the LOUD snap crackle and pop arc-welding noises that accompany the sparks. You wouldn’t think 3.6 volts would even be capable of producing a spark.

Then again, an electrician friend and I were troubleshooting a short in my house wiring. He went to cut through Romex coming directly from the pole — so no circuit breakers. Last thing I heard him say was: “You turned off the power right?”

Then he disappeared with a thunderclap inside a brighter-than-god glowing purple orb of plasma, like a mini-sun or magnesium on fire, like three feet in diameter.

No, Rick, I did NOT shut off the power. You never asked.

I honestly thought he was dead, but the pulsing orb disappeared in a second and there was Rick’s face, with singed eyebrows and hair. It would be months before any grew back on his arms.

“heh heh oops” he said.

I had NO idea that 120-volts could produce such an intense effect! I do now.

Still have the wire cutters he used up in Death Valley somewhere. Pretty much melted the cutter part. Handles were very well insulated. Probably what saved his life.

But the day wasn’t over yet …. He went on to do several “atomic situps,” which involve unintentionally grabbing a live 120 circuit while lying down. BOY did he ever sit up fast, hence the “atomic situp” description.

Wasn’t one of his best days. He STILL blames the melted cutters on me for not shutting off the juice. :–0

That is friggen' hilarious!... probably not as funny to Rick.

Wait, there are screws holding the plastic together? Where are these mystical screws? I've been tearing mine apart with a pair of pliers...

There are 2 screws, down in between the batteries holding the 2 pieces of plastic together. Removing them (and removing the metal 'leads' attached to the batteries), makes disassemble quite easy.