Which laptop battery pack yields the best, highest capacity 18650's

Hello Guys; you gave me an idea; if got an old Acer laptop; this one got a 10,8v 4400mAh battery-pack. See link of picture for detailed info.

http://s9.postimg.org/b9vvnb9zz/batteryacer.jpg

Maybe it is a smart idea to harvest the 18650 out of this pack. But maybe the Sanyo 18650 aren’t worth getting out of the pack. Hopefully someone can help me :smiley:

Well, my guess is that you’ll find 1500mah cells if there’s 9 of them, or 2200mah cells if there are 6. But the pack looks kinda old. I got 6 LGDB1 cells from an ancient (7 year old) pack, and the work just fine but lose their charge faster than my newer cells.

How about the other way around?
How does the protection/electronics in the notebook pack behave?
I mean, I have a big notebook, the working time on the pack is not very long.
I bet that is I open up the battery pack there is space.
Can I just put in high capacity cells to get longer runtimes? Go from 6 cell to 12 cells if spacepermists and from 2600 to 3400mAh?

@ Ansarogu; thanks for your answer. I will check the batterypack; my father has same the laptop with a non working screen. I can use his battery; i think it also in better condition.

I suppose it could be possible, maybe not the whole 6 to 12, simply because the battery pack usually don’t have “free” space. But i guess you could go for a replacement of the 6 cells for higher capacity ones. Just keep in mind the cost/performance/benefit of such a thing, not to mention the careful disassembly of delicate electronics etc.

I got 6 red batteries out of the acer laptop pack (2200mah). I testing now 4 in my Liitokala Lii-500.

How do you identify the right model Sanyo batteries ?
The battery got this serial number: first line; MCUA14 and the secondline: 064463 with an big B above the serial.

I made a picture of details: maybe someone can help me with this?

http://postimg.org/image/ve8nzv69t/
http://postimg.org/image/577h3wo01/
http://postimg.org/image/a74xbutmp/

I couldn’t find anything on google. I guess it’s time to put them through some testing!

Since you say the pack is rated at 2200mAh, then they are probably standard 3.7V Sanyo UR18650A / R1112 cells. However, most of the Sanyo pulls I have seen with the purple insulating ring have been the UR18650ZT cells, which are rated at 2800mAh. Strange.

There’s an older pink wrapper Sanyo cell with a purple top that was commonly used in laptop packs a few years back. I’m thinking it was a 2250mah cell and I sometimes found them in packs where I expected to see red top Sanyos (2200mah). Some info on older sanyo cells from Boaz here.

Hey guys, i just cracked open a Lenovo battery pack and found 9 Panasonic ncr18650 MH-12210 grey color cells.
According to the info i found, these are 2,900mah cells.
I’d post pictures but i still don know how lol.

you are probably correct.
time to test them out.
are they above 3v each?
do you have an analyzing charger or a hobby charger?
and to post pics you have to host them somewhere and paste in the link using the button with the sunset pic in it.

Hi there snakebite!
The only charger that i have is the Xtar vc2, all the cells showed 3.46v~3.50v. According to the charger, most cells where charged to 2,840mah+. Each pair took about 5 hours on a 500ma current to charge.

sounds like winners to me.
my next step would be discharge at 1a to 3v and see what they deliver.
vc2 can only tell you what it put in.but its a good sign.

Nice score! I have a shed load of those and they take recharges forever and never die. :beer:

Hi there! They do seem to hold their own in my stock Convoy C8 (which is the main reason for me having the need for these cells) so that’s good, i charged them all up and have been rotating their usage. But for now they seem like really good cells!

Excellent Resource !
Also Individual 18650 capacity formula? | Best brand laptop battery for 18650 cells?

So, the formula to calculate individual cell capacity of a random Dell laptop battery:

Capacity: 85 WH
Rating: 11.1Vdc
85/11.1 = 7.66
9 Cells (3 parallel x 3 serial)
7.66/3 = 2.55
rounding up = 2600MaH cells.

Another:
Capacity: 58 WH
Rating: 11.1Vdc
6 Cells (2 parallel x 3 serial)
(58/11.1)/2 = 2.61
or 2600MaH cells

I found those cells in this one “Dell Latitude 60Wh Laptop battery T54FJ” one of my favorite pulls :slight_smile:

Excellent Resource !
Also Individual 18650 capacity formula? | Best brand laptop battery for 18650 cells?

So, the formula to calculate individual cell capacity of a random Dell laptop battery:

Capacity: 85 WH
Rating: 11.1Vdc
85/11.1 = 7.66
9 Cells (3 parallel × 3 serial)
7.66/3 = 2.55
rounding up = 2600mAh cells.

Another:
Capacity: 58 WH
Rating: 11.1Vdc
6 Cells (2 parallel × 3 serial)
(58/11.1)/2 = 2.61
or 2600mAh cells

Another:
Device: 2009 MSI Wind U100
Capacity: 49Wh
Rating: 11.1V
6 Cells (2 parallel × 3 serial)
(49/11.1)/2 = 2.21

The first 2 laptop battery packs I tried opening had the following:

1) HP PH06 [2010/03] 10.8v 4200mAh
10.8v 47Wh
6 cells (2 parallel x 3 serial)
=> 6x Sanyo UR18650A (2200mAh) [actual]

2) HP MU06 [2011/02]
10.8v 47Wh
6 cells (2 parallel x 3 serial)
=> 6x Samsung ICR18650-22F (2200mAh) [actual]

3) I’m just wondering what the laptop battery pack with the following labels will contain
(this laptop battery still in use, no plan to dismantle yet, but I’m curious what it may contain)
Lenovo (ThinkPad) 2012/05
11.1v 5.6Ah 63Wh
LG Chem 112711 11.1v 5300mAh min.
=> ?? 6x LG 2900mAh??

2650mAh
or 2600mAh actual.