Are these IMR's any good?

I have a chance to get 3 new 12v Ryobi Li-ion batteries and a charger for $21.00. A web search indicates the packs will contain the batteries in the second picture of the below link. Chinese cells labeled LS IMR-18650BB. Anyone know anything about these specific cells?

http://dewaltownersgroup.com/index.php?topic=407.0

I would certainly go for it, I'll admit I don't have any knowledge on those cells though. If you don't want it, I'll buy them from you. :D

Never seen em before. Did you google em? All my ryobi batteries have been samsung or sony.

Information for future Ryobi Li-ion 12v battery purchasers:

Batteries labeled, “Battery 130503001” have Sanyo UR18650SA cells

Batteries labeled, “Battery 130503005” have baby blue cells. I could not find any markings on the visible parts of the cells. The pack also has the number CB120L. This is probably the charger that should be used for it. The pack specifies 14Wh.

>>>>>Batteries labeled, “Battery 130503001” have Sanyo UR18650SA cells

I lied. I DID get some sanyos before in a string trimmer or lawn vac pack. Mine were UR18650W2 R2111 and they were the typical Sanyo red but with a PINK ring around the positive pole. My notes say those were 1500mah high demand. I think yours are the 1300 mah version. Called “high power” cells here.

Mine were pretty good. Not for use in a Keygos ke-5 or XM-L2, but fine for lower demand lights. In fact as luck would have it, I have one right now in a Keygos C11 that I use as a computer light bouncing off the ceiling. Lasts about 1.5 hours easy on medium.

Sounds like you did okay! Congrats!

I just bought a new makita impact driver and screwdriver combo and it looks like some of the newer li-ion packs have switched to normal li-ion cells. I saw some packs advertising that they had 3000 mah cells in them. Hope the contractors hurry up and start throwing those packs away in the HD recycle bins!

Yeah my ryobi drill packs all had Sanyo lmrs in them ..UR18650SA

in some places they are listed as 1500 and others

1300 I think 1300 is the right number ..that said ...

the quick and dirty answer is ...ALL LMR's are good

the sanyos are stout and tough as nails ....Something I never

expected from a manufacturer like ryobi

They have low internal resistance and although they don't have a big capacity they dump amperage fast and will make direct drive lights brighter than normal lithium ion batteries .

Everybody needs a few in their collection of batteries

nice score

Maybe not so good a score. The date codes on the sanyo cells are 2007 for one pack and 2008 for the other sanyo pack. The packs look unused. Maybe they were display packs. Maybe someone bought them, swapped the innerds, then returned them. I’ll capacity test them and then decide if I should return them. Just need to find a pin out diagram for these batteries.

Thanks for you input folks.

Good luck on the pin out. I could never get any reading out of tool packs or battery packs using the pins and a DMM. Hopefully your knowledge of electrical engineering is more than mine.

Obviously if yours had it, you would have pushed the button and been done with it already, but both my lawn tool packs had a battery tester built in. You pushed it and it told you how charged they were, and in my case they were fully charged.

Yeah, at 2008, they could be el deado. Then again, I have had Sanyos that stayed at 4.20 for a couple months, so you might still be at like 4 volts or soimething. I’ve also had packs that were 4-5 years old with ducky cells. And I have also had packs with year-old cells that were dead.

Good luck!!! Hopefully the BLF force will be with you.

It’s a safety mechanism that many, if not most li-on packs have internal circuitry that cuts off voltage to the contacts unless installed in the tool or charger…in other words, no voltage is externally detectable even with fully charged cells, so you can’t really tell if the cells are good or bad.

Not sure about Ryobi, but most of the newer tool packs I see are screwed together and the battery module can be carefully slipped out to test the voltage directly from the individual cell terminals.

But these tool batteries are so well made, and so good for their intended use in their tools, and expensive to buy as spares, and only mediocre in a flashlight, that if the cells are good, I can’t bring myself to tear down the packs for the cells.

If I had a few spare Ryobi batteries, I’d buy a Ryobi drill, or resell them to a drill owner who would really appreciate them, and take the money and buy a few brand new cells that are better for what we are mostly doing with our flashlights.

Just my thoughts…

Thank you Top Cat. That is a clever idea. I’ll consider it.

These packs use no glue and are easy to disassemble. I’m impressed with the quality of the design. Seems like the safest way to have a 12v configuration.

One of the Sanyo packs won’t charge. The other only charges to 12.3-12.4 volts. The Chinese cell pack only charges to 12.1-12.2 volts. So they’re a little tired. Tempted to mod the dead pack so that I can balance charge 3 individual cells at a time. Just need to make sure the charging current is not too high for non-IMR cells. The charger runs a test routine at first. Would be nice to know what all is involved in that test.

>>>>>One of the Sanyo packs won’t charge

:frowning:

12.1-12.4 is where either the charger or the internal circuitry cuts them off, they may be specifically designed to not charge to full capacity to prolong life span. 12v is all you need. The internal protection boards on these can be very sophisticated. Likely, low-voltage - high-voltage - temperature minimum…

Can you imagine the liability if one of these tools blows off a worker’s hand?… and I’ve never heard of that happening.

The dead pack may have a bad or dead cell, or may have just tripped the internal circuitry below the safe limit cut-off. In other words, the cells could be good but below minimum voltage to activate the charging voltage. That is almost guaranteed to happen if they are stored for a long time and not charged every 6 months or so.

If you test the individual cells and they have some voltage but are low…say like around 2.0V, the charger might not charge them until you apply a little current directly to the cell terminals to get them back up to 3.0V, then the charger will kick in. That may only take like 5 minutes.

I believe the Intellicharger works the same way?

Good points TC.

>>>>That may only take like 5 minutes.

More like 30 seconds. Ninety-nine percent of the time, if I have a cell below what the I4 will charge (2 volts?), if I put it in a trustfire or ultrafire charger for literally 10 seconds (1 minute at the most), the li-ion cell will zoom up to about 2.8 volts and become chargeable in the I4. There is some white paper about this that I lost the link for. If you don’t charge li-ion batts for a long time, they have one last-ditch trick to save themselves from chemical death and they switch into sleep mode, or something similarly named. This does NOT involve ANY electronics but is somehow chemical. I believe that occurs right around 1.8-1.9 volts. I do not know how long this sleep mode lasts before they slide into cell death. Darn. I wish I hadn’t lost that link. It was a white paper from Moli or Panasonic.

>>>>>The dead pack may have a bad cell,

And TC is right. I have seen this many times. In fact, I would say it is the number one reason for packs tossed in recycle bins. One cell dies and the internal cicuitry won’t charge the pack. But all the other cells are ducky.

I just got an HP pack that actually gave me a warning onscreen because it fit in one of my laptops. It said that there was a problem with the pack and it should be replaced. Sure enough, when I cracked the pack, all of the blue Samsung 2200s were fine …. except one, which was .60 volts and killing the total voltage. Pulled the good cells and they have all been working fine. I run into this, as I said, quite a lot.

>>>>> may have just tripped the internal circuitry below the safe limit cut-off

Seen this too in Makita or Bosch tool packs. The famous bad firmware. If you dig around the tool pack boards, you’ll find it. Cells are fine but firmware says they’re not. Good for us though ’cus the reclaimed cells work just fine. :wink:

Hope this helps

Thanks Top Cat and Ubehebe. That would be nice if the pack just sat too long on the floor never charged. Sleeping cells seem to have long shelf lives as ohaya’s Ebay thread discovered. Either way, I’ve committed myself to this purchase. One way or the other I will make it pan out. I’m thinking these 12v packs are being discontinued because none of the current products use them. Probably a good time to be periodically visiting your HD clearance areas.

Physically they are really beat. Of note, and the reason I found this thread, is that 2 of the packs have Chinese cells and the third pack has Sanyos. All three packs P104’s. I did notice that the packs with the Chinese cells have a serial number that begins with “CS”. The Sanyo pack begins with “G” I am in the process of testing the cells now.

Even though they are beat, I figure they must be better than my OLD and beat NiCd’s. I am at this point hopeful that they are.
BTW, this thread is 9 months old. How did that 12V kit work out for you ImA4Wheelr?

You know, I ever pulled the Chinese cells out. I have the pack still and it is on my list of things to do, for 9 months now. lol

The other cells were a disappointment, but I never really checked them out. Some wouldn't take charges. Some wouldn't charge to full voltage. Those were recycled. Some took full charges, but I never tested or even used them. I may try to discharge test a couple this weekend if I can. Going up to my parent's house for part of the weekend. So it's iffy. I'm curious now though.

Hope they work out of you. Please report back on them.

EDIT: mixed up cells. Will report later.