Cheap authentic battery packs to harvest 18650 cells

Yeah, 3.75 volts. Near perfect voltage for storage. I was surprised by that too. I have the cells resting right now to see if any will drop in voltage. I will then start charging and check the capacity of a few.

Sony cell info I have gathered from this site (appear to be 2200mah, 2004?):
Sony lithium ion cells look at the first two digits in the second row.

8A = 2600mAh
G7= 2400mAh
G6, 6A, 6B= 2200mAh
G5= 2150mAh
G4= 1950mAh

The last 5 digits of that row tell the manufacturing date.

digit 1: year. Q=2008, R=2009, S=2010 and so on
digit 2: month. A=Jan, B=Feb, …J= Oct
digit 3+4: day
digit 5: electrode history

Thank you for the info Jaidmaster. If I'm counting right, these cells were made on July 15, 2005. Seems quite possible as I would expect these batteries to be from old discontinued laptops. How my pack kept a voltage of 3.75 is something I would really like to know.

It's going to be interesting to see how they perform. If past history repeats, I expect that they will perform close to like new.

3.75V is right in the recommended long term storage range, and should equate to somewhere around 40% of it’s full capacity. The capacity loss at that voltage is very low… I’m no expert, but do recall seeing a table on li-ion capacity loss over time, and it starts out like a few % for the first month and drops from there. Does not seem unusual to me, and probably have some pretty good cells. If it was not charged to 100% before being packaged, even better. :slight_smile:
I think I have somewhere around 80 or so laptop pulls - it’s quite fun. And then finding the best ones for various purposes.
Good luck!

Man this is tempting. Buy one of these packs for using the cells in my ENB power bank and toss my well used laptop pulls! Question: what about this 9 cell pack for $12.99? Any thoughts on if this 9 cell pack will have similar capacity cells to the 6 cell one? I can't seem to find any capacity info for that 9 cell battery.

-Garry

The info I could find on this pack puts it at a 83Wh, 10.8V pack. This would indicate a 3x3 config, so probably 2600mah cells… 83/10.8 = 7690mah/3 = 2562mah cells…
Pack info from here:

Ah, thanks! This is tempting, but I just keep spending too much money. Hard to pass up though. Guess the issue with the 9 cell is that we don't know what cells are inside and we expect the Samsung 26F's 26C's in the 6 cell. Wonder what the chance is that the same Samsung cells are in the 6 cell.

DCH - how hard was it to disassemble that 6 cell battery pack?

-Garry

(EDIT Samsung model #)

I once got a lot of about 8 packs all the same part number and got Sony, Samsung, Sanyo and LG cells from them. Mostly LG and Samsung. One pack each of the Sanyo and Sony.
Edit: They were Dell PC764 6 cell packs…

I got it open easily enough using a 1” wood chisel, the sharp bevel edge inserts easily into the crack, the 1” width gives good leverage for a twist action to pry the seam apart. Not a problem took myabe 5-10 minutes and all the cells were out and separated.

Used a cut-off wheel on the dremel to touch the weld spots and get a smooth surface, kind of like surgery that was. :wink:

3 pairs, 2 were at 2.69V, 2 at 2.59V and 2 were at 2.42V. They all charged up well and are holding that 4.19V.

My Solarforce M8 pulls 6.77A through a pair of Samsung 20R’s (MT-G2)
It pulls 5.25A through the Sony UR18650FJ lap pull
These allow 5.75A, so they’re better than the Sony but less than the 20R. Nice compromise, 2600mAh is a good capacity. Happy happy happy!

Garry, my six pack is being a bear to open. It's like continuously welded/glued along the seams. I'm actually carefully biting off bits of the case using needle-nose pliers. I've opened up more than my fair share of packs and this one beats the bunch by far.

1” wood chisel? What a good idea DBCstm. I have a real nice set of wood chisels, but never thought to use them for that. I will try that tonight on the remainder of the pack. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks DBC! Those sound like some really good numbers for laptop cells! (And I caught my mistake calling these 26C's a 26F above - whoops.)

-Garry

LOL, You mean Sanyo UR18650FJ, don’t you? :smiley:

Don’t worry, it happened to me too. :slight_smile:

All those “S” companies, Sony, Sanyo, Samsung, it get’s so confusing!
Confused, but happy still. That’s not a bad way to be, actually

When I ordered 2 packs with the Sanyo 18500's and 2 packs of the (IIRC) Sony 18650's, they over-nighted it via Fedex.

Well I just placed an order for the 9 cell HP pack @ $12.99. I'll report back which cells it yields.

-Garry

The wood chisel worked great DBCstm. 1" does seem to be the best size. My pack was still a bear. I'm surprised I didn't damage any cells.

Did my first pull yesterday, it was an old, around 10 years, Acer battery pack, had 8x18650, all of them, except 3, reads 0V, other two are around 0.05V and sagging while on multimeter and third one shower negative –0.15V and sagging :D?!

Anyway, I suppose I have to get rid of them?

Im on my way to this shopping mall where they have recycling booth for electronics etc, will toss them there.

EDIT: Cells are labeled as hkifht5, have F at the negative end. Google gives nothing in return.

Hi all,
I received the $9.99 HP pack and dismantled it. 6 186500 Samsung cells, all between 2.72-2.78VDC. Charged up the 1st one on my new Accucell6, at 1A. Took about 4 hours, read 2300 ma. So far, so good!

This is the first time I’ve harvested batteries, spent a while with a utility knife, didn’t go so well.

@DBCstm: wood chisel, friggin brilliant! As you said, 1 inch chisel is just perfect for prying open the sides.

Voltages were all 2.4ish. Will charge one up tonight and see how that goes.

Well I got my 9 cell pack today and MAN was it a bear to get cracked open! Once I got the seam started it wasn't so bad. Kinda feel bad cracking open a mint condition looking unused pack! Anway, looks like Sony cells to me. Here are some photos:

Any info on these cells? Like dates?

Edit, here is a review thread of this cell - says it's a 2,550mAh cell.

-Garry