Just recently joined this awesome forum to fuel my flashlight obsession
However, my flashlight collection was completely based on AA batteries as I believe in using batteries that you can buy in any store, anywhere. My EDC is Jetbeam BA10 (awesome light) which I feed with different brands of NiMH and some NiCd that I still own (I know, I know but they allways work fine) and I also own a bunch of Mini Maglites that have Terralux (great) and Nite Ize (bad) upgrades.
Anyhow, I ordered a SK-68 and wanting to test it (and the BA10) with Lithium 14500 I ordered a couple of cheap 14500 Trustfire Flames and TR-001 Charger from DX for a total of $13.89. Then I found out here that laptop batteries packs are made of 18650 bateries and most likely one will find good batteries inside a dead battery pack, I went to disassemble two 6 cell and one 9 cell battery pack.
The result is five bad batteries (measuring less than 1.2V) and sixteen good batteries (two measuring 2.99V, the rest 3.3-3.6V). Pink ones are made by Samsung and green ones are Panasonic. So now I have fifteen free 18650 to play with
So my questions are?
1. Are these batteries just as good or worse as the ones you can buy on DX (say Trustfires)?
2. Will I be able to recharge these with Trustfire TR-001 Charger or do I need something better like Pila IBC?
3. When I removed contacts some of the batteries have very small pins sticking out and some have bottoms very slightly deformed during the process of removing contacts. I hope these can be seen from this picture. Will this cause any trouble in operation?
Anxiously waiting for your inputs. Thank you in advance.
http://www.samsungsdi.com/battery/cylindrical-ICR18650-26D.jsp
the other samsung seem to be 2600mah.
the panasonic are unprotected cells and have good reviews.Whether or not you should use them i cant say i would wait for a reply from a more knowledgeable member than myself
You should be able to use them just fine. I would get the Sysmax i4 charger. It’s more reliable than most other chargers.
In any case KEEP an EYE on the batteries when you charge them as they are unprotected and of unknown reliablility!!!
Don’t leave them alone while charging!!!
Check their voltage level frequently while charging and NEVER let them get above 4.2V
They have been known to explode if handled incorrectly!
NEVER use unprotected cells in any light requiring more than a single cell!!! This is due to over current. If one cell is charged to a higher voltage than the other it will try and charge it up. This causes a massive current flow from one cell to another resulting in explosion.
BE VERY CAREFUL WITH UNPROTECTED BATTERIES!!!
That being said, I have harvested MANY laptop batteries and have had good luck, but I have been careful (as noted above).
Looks like you got some good batteries there, congrats!
The cells should be fine I just don’t want you to get hurt.
The light you looking at is a C8 model with an XML-T6 CREE diode. You can get them for anything from about $8 to $15. Don’t believe the 1600 lumens. More like 300-400 (I think?). I have a few of them and they are pretty nice.
There are all kinds of single cells out there. I like the Ultrafire W501, 502 series of lights as they can accept a P60 drop in and are pretty rugged. The drop in is just that: open up the top and drop it in! I hated the strobe and sos modes so I got a drop in for my W502B that has only three modes (L-M-H) with an XML-T6 and it is now my EDC.
IT departments, Best Buy battery recycle bin in front of the store, ask the Geek squad guys inside as well. Any computer repair shop, city/state electronics recycling facility….
And as thebigboss78 said, ask your friends. I have gleaned half a dozen from friends and co-workers yielding about 30 good 18650’s.
I get mine from the recycle bins at work and the workshop, although I’ll have to try Best Buy to see what they have. My best find was 2 Macbook Pro li-po packs with 1 dead pair each, the remaining 4 of each pack all tested to 3Ah and will soon get wired up into a battery for a nice drill a friend gave me. I’ve never found 18650s with more than 2200mAh remaining capacity though, but I can’t complain.
As for testing, charge them up to 4.2V and let them sit for a week. Recycle any that drop below 4.1V. Charge ’em back up and discharge them with a known load (like a torch that you measured the tail cap current with), making sure it keeps cool. That’ll give you a rough capacity. I personally recycle ones with <1Ah, but they might still be useful to some people. Funnily enough, I had a bunch of cells that passed the self discharge test with flying colours but only had 3-400mAh capacity.
Grind off those sharp pokie bits with a dremel. Not only do they cut into lights, they also do a good job of cutting into fingers.
If you’re worried about using unprotected cells, you can always buy protection circuits off Fasttech or DX for less than $2, solder them on and rewrap the cell. Other than that some basic common sense and precautions should keep you safe.
Don’t be afraid about using these cells. In my opinion Samsung SAMSUNG ICR18650-26x is similiar or better than most of popular on this forum Sanyo UR18650FM and MUCH MUCH better than any Trustfire/Ultrafire cells. You are lucky man that you found 2600mAh on batterypack. It’s hard to find in laptops battery 18650s with more than 2200mAh capacity.
You can use TR-001 Charger but first you need to test it. It should stop charging at 4,20 but tollerance for Samsung is +/- 0,05V so when charger ending for example at 4,24 it’s not a problem.
As mattthemuppet said you can buy protection circuits off Fasttech or DX or you can buy flashlight with built in voltage protection.
I'm desktop support for a large number of users and I'm responsible for disposing of defective laptop cells. Any that come through me get opened up before they go into the recycle bin for disposal...
Grind the little nubs off with a dremel. Like stated earlier, only use the salvaged cells in single-cell lights. I typically save only the best salvage cells for use in high-power XM-L based lights. I use the older ones in XR-E or XP-G based lights. I have a few very good sanyo cell s I use in my C8 as they are capable of higher currents in the DD-high, but you have to be careful about not over-discharging as they have no protection circuit.
