Anything above 3 volts is usable, I’ve revived cells below 2volts, and they are happily being used daily In my own lights(single cell), as mentioned above pick up a hobby charger if you want to harvest laptop batteries, then you determine the available mAhours in each cell and then accurately group them in batches.
No need to charge them in pairs in the i4 , the charger will simply finish the lower capacity cells first.
I’m using cells with 800mAh quite nicely (originally 1600Ah and 2200mAh), toss any that don’t keep their voltage above 4 after a few weeks.
Wow, never would have thought of that! I’ll try it on the ones coming in from ebay…thanks Mr. Blinky!!
Not damaging a single cell in extraction can be done. I can’t remember the last time I even scratched a cell. You just need to go SLOW. This isn’t a race. You don’t get a prize if you extract the cells in 1 minute, although that would be nice.
It’s actually the opposite. The object is to NOT damage a cell. If that takes 15 minutes … Oh well, that’s the way it is.
ALWAYS pull AWAY from the cells. Never rest your pliers against the cells to use them as leverage. If all you can do is snap off quarter size pieces of the pack, well, that’s all you can do. You’ll get ’em out eventually.
I’ve tried the twist method, but found the chance of damaging cells too great. They smash up against each other. I +DO+ need some of those fancy pliers though.
I will use a dremel cutting disk sometimes. Some packs are kinda boxy and allow you to safely undercut, so the blade stays away from the bottom of the battery. Hard to explain.
I don’t cut the whole pack open with a dremel. Just allows me to get a hold on a corner or whatever.
Also, many times I grab a piece of plastic with needle nose and then keep turning the plers so I end up tearing off a strip like an opening key will on a sardine can. The pack plastic ends up wrapping around the pliers.
But once again, go SLOW.
Also on the subject of removing glue, I have found that edge of a wooden chopstick works wonders. Or maybe some other small piece of wood. The wood is soft enough to not scratch the label but is hard enough to chip off the glue.
Truth is, I have no idea how the chopstick works. Sometimes I use the square edge to physically scrape off the glue. But other times, I just rub the edge briskly over the glue and it breaks up and falls off. I know this sounds like it can’t work, and you’re thinking your thumb is just as good. Trust me, it’s not. Chopstick is MUCH faster.
This ^
Chopsticks? Hmm. I think that we have a few (like HUNDREDS) around here somewhere :)…
Also, after I do the “sardine can” think to pull the tabs off (using needlenose), I just take the flat side of the needlenose, and tap the (hopefully small) pieces of the tab that are still sticking up off of the contacts. The tab metal is pretty thin, so I end up with a pretty much even contact.
Youd’ think you’d mess up the neg poles more if you twist the spot-welded tabs, but the opposite is true. Twist in a circular motion, while pulling out. I have found that the bottom pops out more often, if you roll the tabs around your needlenose like a sardine can lid. It’s better — like I said — to pull but also twist in a circular motion.
I mean — whatever works for you — but the twist-and-pull method seems to keep neg-pole deformation to a minimum.
Also do it quickly with a wrist twist. The quicker the better. The welds will pop off, but the bottom will stay flat.
The one (and only) pack I’ve done so far was maybe a worst case type thing. There was no room to do much of anything without running into the batteries. I now have a Dremel at my disposal so that may help, but every other pack I’ve seen had an area to work on that wasn’t right up on the batteries. Should receive the one from ebay this week so I’ll review all your helpful hints before tearing in to the new battery pack. (it was good to have one to practice on that didn’t matter as much)
>>>>>>There was no room to do much of anything without running into the batteries. I
Yes, you can’t use a cutting wheel when the pack is roundish and curves with the batteries. And you don’t need one with these acers because they’re so flimsy.
But if you look at even the acers for just a “what-if” kinda deal, you can see where an edge is squared off and not rounded. Because a battery is round, if I cut into the pack at the very bottom edge of that square side, going in just enough to cut the 1/8” plastic, the wheel will miss the bottom of the battery by quite some distance. Okay, now if the other opposite edge (running the LONG way) is also squared off and not curved, I can also go in and cut that lengthwise. Now, I only have to snap off a couple inches of uncut plastic on the ends, and the whole pack is breached, and the batteries just about fall out.
Man, so easy to do, but so difficult to explain. :–0
Also, anyone planning to do tool packs, do yourself a favor and get some torx bits, especially the torx security bits, also called “tamperproof” bits. They have a hole in the center, like thissa one here:
Save yourself a lot of colorful language and trying to drill out the torx screws, which just pop out with the correct tools.
These cheepie sets fit the screws in about 99% of the tool packs I run into.
Hope this helps!!!
Man, I’m hoping the Acers are flimsy, the HP pack seemed pretty stout!
Thanks yet again Ubehebe, this thread is one of the MANY reasons I loves me some BLF! :party:
Drill packs are tough as nails .....i had a few and wanted the batteries out ...'Right now ' i took and used really sharp shear cutters and nipped the plastic all the way around the security torx screws ..It looked like a rabid beaver gnawed his way around each corner and then across the top . I've done it twice ..You just need a proper tool
Don't try to clean up your welds with these .It will work but will ruin your shears .Use needle nose .like ubehebe said twist them more than lift and most welds just pop off .I use a small hand file and knock down any remaining edges on the weld spots
If you’re Googling , those are called “Flush Cutters”. The XCelite ones you show cost <$10 almost everywhere. I love ‘em! Used mine at work today! They break, rather violently and quite suddenly, at the point where the ’brake’ press bent the jaws to bring them together, but they’re so useful and so cheap, I don’t usually bother taking them back, just pick up a new set. Usually when a jaw breaks off, it ‘pings’ away with some force — and it’s Quite Sharp. The “Safety Glasses” warning is no joke.
The ones that don’t break cost dozens of dollars! (EDIT: Not “ALL”…)
Everyone who works on wee electronics should have a set, no BS!
(EDIT: These are the style that doesn’t break as easily for rabid beavers and Dimbos, and they’re quite cheap. Thank you for sending me to look them up!)
+1
But wait, there’s more!
The smallest of those “tamperproof” ones fit the fasteners on Hard Disks, which are an excellent source of extremely powerful magnets and a reference-flat surface if you do the “Scary Sharp” system on knives… (You just gave me the idea of mounting a disk on a disc sander, which would make a powered “Scary Sharp” system…)
If you hack drivers, the HDDs circuitry is loaded with goodies…
(batteries… HDDs… Power Supplies… I’m starting to feel like a Tommyknocker here…)
I second the coolness of the hard-drive magnets. These things are way powerful, and if you are about to toss a broken hard drive … DON’T. Get some torx driver tips for all of 4 bucks and harvest the magnets.
But be careful. Fridge magnets they are NOT. In fact, have fun getting one OFF the frdige if you stick one of the really powerful ones on there.
Two of these magnets can snap together and do some SERIOUS damage if they happen to catch a fold of skin.
Friend put his Ipod on top of his dresser a little too close to the …… CLICK. Magnet attracted the Ipod, and that was the end of the ipod.
Also watch out for flat-screen ANYTHING with these magnets. If you see the magnet deform the flat-screen image, you are too late. Toss the screen. You just damaged it beyond repair.
Needless to say, keep it away from any other magnetic storage devices like hard drives.
I use them to look for meteorites. Attach one to the end of a cane. Wave it like a metal detector a couple inches off the ground. Most meteorites are atracted to a magnet. But so aren’t bottle caps, nails, detrius and even magnetite and iron mineral in the ground. I haven’t found a meteorite yet, but I know guys who have!
Uses are only limited by your imagination, and they’re FREE! Usually 1-5 in each drive.
You could also bypass the torx bits and spend hours drilling the screws out and whacking the drive with mallets and trying to cut them open with aceylene torches and diamond saws. 
Ooops! Thanks for catching that! Danger, danger, danger! I would have hated myself for talking someone into doing something that got them hurt, even a “blood blister”!
Before you go out, wrap a couple of scraps of plastic or cloth over the tip & tie them in place… That will at least make the magnet easier to clean. PS: If you find Magnetite, there’s Gold nearby …
A few of these in a sock can lift a couple of handguns up from an old well. Don’t ask…
I put them around the inside of the top of my toolbox. Then when I stick a tool there, it won’t stick hard, but it will wait for me to pick it back up again. Sticking one to a tool makes it temporarily magnetic. Obviously nuts/bolts/screws end up there “on their own”. On my plastic “to go” box, one inside/one outside hold each other mostly in place…
You can locate studs and other things in walls by sticking these to the nails used to attach the wallboard. They’ll hold a few sheets of paper or a DVD there, too!
And, of course, with some judicious breaking with pliers, you can put them on the ends of flat-top batteries!
Tip, older Hard Drives have bigger magnets.
>>>>Tip, older Hard Drives have bigger magnets.
Yes indeedy. Some of the old conners have HUGE magnets. Ditto for the old maxtors.
Don’t forget the torx screws UNDER and HIDDEN by labels on any drive, especially the one in the center of the spindle.
You can get most magnets off the weird steel brackets with a careful whack of a hammer on a selectively placed chisel. Careful about rrying to slowly pry them off. They chip and break easily.
Don’t try and melt the glue to remove the magnets. The heat kills ’em dead. I know cus I tried. Ooops.
BTW, you will void the drive’s warranty if you remove the cover.
Anybody have a common or unique use for the old aluminum drive cases? Those flat lipo bags might fit in there just fine …
You guys are cracking me up! Please do put all the plastic pieces in the recycle bin…
I use the magnets from old hard drives for many of the listed purposes. Clip one onto an adjustable lamp head for an easy to grab tab that keeps you from burning your fingers on the hot lamp. I have an old locker for storage, a hard drive magnet inside the door holds things like scissors where they’re easily found and a snap to put back where they go.
And yes, they can really cause some swearing if your’e playing around with a pair of em and they bite ya!
Keep one on the inside of the toolbox lid. As mentioned, to hold a tool or nut/bolt for a quick grab when needed. Also had it save me a mess once, a small plastic container of 1” wire brads broke when the lid of the box closed on it, the hundreds of little wire brads were all contained right there on the magnet instead of dumped into the top tray of my tool box.
The only pack I cut apart so far was one that had to go back together. I sliced the seams with a utility knife to “break” the pack. In this case, I needed the pack itself to make an external battery supply for an older Pro level camera. Gutting the pack and installing a microphone cable with quick release plug lets me put the pack into the camera and connect an external lithium polymer battery pack that will run the camera for several days of constant use.
The Acer Aspire battery arrived an hour ago, It’s now mostly in the trash and I have six nice, pretty purple-wrapped cells in front of me. I voltage tested them and have:
–2 @ 2.62v
–2 @ 2.56v
–2 @ 2.51v
My question is, do these batteries have to be paired now or should I charge them first? I don’t have the funds to buy a RC-pack charger so I can’t fully ascertain the capacity of each cell, but this battery was sold as new and the seller has great feedback.