What is the percentage of decent cells You're from old lap top battery packs ?
What's the lowest voltage cell you've ever resurrected and found worthy of keeping ?
how do you go about tearing packs apart ..any tips ? favorite batteries?
what's your best source for good battery packs ?
One pack - not a single usable cell. Its replacement, nasty, nasty cells I didn't like the look of so tossed them.
Older Toshibas seem to use 17670s.
the best packs i've found are Dells
Best cells are panasonic ,then sony.... almost all sanyo packs have been 100% dead .
Any and all tips appreciated
EDIT: yeah I saw that and I was somewhat desperately hot for a 17670 ..all i could scrounge was one and it was really low voltage ..really low .
I have a number that I refuse to go under and maybe i'm tossing some decent cells that might come back but I'd rather be safe than sorry ..i already think I'm pushing the low voltage limit ..curious on others opinions as to how low is to low .
Almost all of my good cells have came from Dell laptop packs. Lots of different colors and makers. I test them all with my Imax B6 and write the capacity on them and then use the highest rated ones.
I salvage my used cells from Dell laptops. Fortunately I'm the network admin and get my hands on all the retired hardware first (and usually only). They are still no substitute for new cells but as long as they test good and take a charge well they make great backup/reserve cells.
To open I just pry a screw driver or knife blade into a seam and break them open. The metal contact strips that connect them all cut easily then I just grab the strip in pliers and "roll" it off the battery terminal breaking the spot weld. I couple seconds with the dremel cleans off the burrs left behind from the weld and off they go for testing and charging.
I opened one pack from an IBM Thinkpad and I cut the hell out of my hands only to find all of the batteries were toast. Since finding Reverend Jim I swore never again.
"almost all sanyo packs have been 100% dead . "
Funny you said this, I have only taken apart 1 laptop pack and it was a Toshiba with Sanyo 18650's. All where junk. They also didnt seem to last very long, maybe 2 years before the pack was almost useless.
Maybe its the heat from the laptop itself or the way their charged? Honestly I don't know the average life of a laptop pack but all mine have been pretty short lived.
Opened two Sony laptop packs about 2 years ago and I got 50% good cells. I have been using those cells since then and it's been pretty good. (Sanyo 2400mah)
I can't give exact voltage etc but anything that didn't hold charge or got warm on charging was discarded. I pretty much have all the cells I need. I only have 2 protected cells.
2 dell batts...all junk
Do the same as JohnnyMac. After rolling the spot-welded bars off, I buff plus and minus ends with a dremel, to get rid of the sharp weld spots.
I don't mess with packs over 2 years old. Have salvaged blue, green, red, and pink cells, of most manufacture.
I keep paired, matched cells for multi-cell lights. Have two balance chargers, and 4 el-cheapo chargers.
New HP packs are a PITA to open, revealing the blue nougats inside. All others, I may manage without cussing.
Had to buy many flashlights, to use all the salvage.
I use a very sharp box knife to follow the seams around the battery packs, making sure I use multiple shallow passes, and a clamp on the blade to keep from going too deep. Tedious and time consuming. I then either pull the pack apart without much effort, or pull the pack apart with much cussing and grunting, as the silicone rubber sealant must be military grade. These packs I have to roll-off the plastic, much the same way the battery connections are rolled off the cells.
I've also used a dremel cutoff disk on the packs, but wind-up melting plastic, sniffing toxins, and getting a bath in plastic dust. Don't do that much any more.
Don't short anything internally, or you'll get a heap big surprise in your pants, to deal with later.
All is good.
Sanyo 18650 Battery Cells Distinction
white head, yellow head 1950mah
Blue head 2000mah
Red head 2200mah within the internal resistance: 53-58
Green head 2400mah
Light blue head 2600mah
Panasonic 18650 Battery Cells Distinction
model capacity color
blue cgr18650 1200mah
pink cgr18650 1350mah
yellow cgr18650hm 1600mah
orange cgr18650hg 1800mah
purple cgr18650HGL 1800mah
light green cgr18650a 2000mah
light red cgr18650cb 2060mah
light blue cgr18650c 2200mah
maybe some helpful info to have handy
panasonic and sanyo battery colors and capacities
some helpful info from your friends at cpf >> http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?229717-Low-voltage-on-18650-cell/page2
pryed out 6 pink samsungs 2 weeks ago PERFECT !!!!
all read almost exactly 3.88v the battery pack was 3/5 bars , aside from being PINK ! i ripped a few of the plastic casings a bit - wish there was some shrink wrap to use
any rate! my MF xml dropin exploded with light ! it draws 1.4A vs .7A with LiFePO4 at the tail.
thinking about cracking open another one from a different unit ...
frankly i was expecting a hodge poge of voltages - now i want a battery charger with a capacity tester
Outstanding, Boaz!
one pack, HP 12 months old minimal use . samsung batteries. 6 Good batteries
second pack./ Toshiba, 6 sanyo red cells. all useable but low mah . 5 years old though.
I tear mine apart with my hands. Works better than cutting the wire as I was getting sparks.
I would not bother doing it if I was in the US, I would buy Rev Jims instead.. Isn't really worthwhile unless the pack is not old. I would not risk reclaimed batteries in multi cell lights.
Scavenged many hp laptop batteries that went bad. Usually there are 2 dead cells and 4 worth keeping. I toss all that are below 2,8V resting voltage. Usually i get sony cells rated 2000-2200 mAh. I think the good ones still hold around 2000 mAh. However i dislike any non protected 18650 cells. At least for gaving them away to people who will forget to respect li-ion technology 5min leater after getting their new toy. Perhaps those can be good to build battery packs with a combined protection circuit in a perhaps 2S2P configuration. Nothing to power at that voltage so far. Would love a 12 solution but dislike 3S configs wholeheartedly. Better 4P2S and a boost circuit of some sort. Efficiency loss vs safety is still reasonable.
In keeping the “B” in BLF, and in the spirit of keeping our green side up, we should have a separate grouping or ‘sticky’ for making use of tossed laptop packs.
Personally I am finding this to be quite the treasure hunt when I can plunder an old pack to find some interesting goodies within.
The China made replacement packs have been pretty disappointing, however I suppose that is to be expected…
I will post pics and results of some more of my adventures as soon as my new charger/discharger arrives.
Great posts guys!
- So far about 1/2 of the cells I have found have both good initial voltage, over 2.5v, and hold voltage off the charger.
–2.02v. was the lowest I have kept. However, I will try and slowly awake a batch of 12 newer Moli’s I dug out that were under 1.0v…
Extracting - The top or wide edge is usually the seamed edge. I take my sharp 4” pocket knife and start to work on the corners, keeping away from the batteries, until I can crack the case and pull it apart. Then I lay the batteries out of the case, cut any wires I need to get them out and apart, and really just carefully pull most of the tabs apart. I use a good smaller vice grips for added pinch and leverage to get off some of the tabs and tab pieces. Then use a small diameter tree shaped diamond coated Dremel bit to clean weld bits off the ends, being very careful not to take any of the original tab surface. Hot glue is a PITA when found between batteries. Carefully cut and peel it off as it will shred the battery wraps. Double sided tape can be testy, keep slicing it away from the case until you can remove the batteries.
Favorite batteries so far Salmon/Flesh colored LG 2200’s tested wonderfully from a 7 year old HP laptop.
- Our township electronics recycling center has been an excellent source, as well as a friends company tech assistant who has collected a few without issue in trade for a LED 18650 powered X2000 DX light.
I have broken up 5 Lenovo Battery packs.
Its important to look for Lenovo since they only bought out IBM in the past 5 years the packs are usually in good shape.
4 of the 5 Packs had Sanyo 2600mah with the light blue tops
the other had Sony Green US18650GR in them
I have had great luck with the laptop pack recovery game. Have only had to recycle 6 of the ~40 Sanyos recovered, and the Sony’s all charged up from just over 3V and are holding their charge just fine.
The 6 Sanyos that were recycled were between 2 and 2.5V. I don’t have a hobby charger yet so its easier for me to just recycle them.
I have salvaged 15 packs with an average cost of $1 per pack. I got about 115 cells total. Out of those, 15-20 were total junk. 15-20 were borderline so I just taped them up and put them aside for emergencies. About 80 decent usable cells that seem to preform better than the cheap 18650s that DD and others sell.
A decent condition Sony, LG, Panasonic or Sanyo cell will probably be better quality than a $4.00 Ultrafire red label POS.
So 80 good cells for $15. That’s less than $0.20 each. Even if your standards are very high and you toss 90% of the cells, it’s still the best bargain out there in 18650.
It’s potluck and many cells will be damaged or worn out but some packs are perfectly good or at least have some really good cells in them.
I am still using the very first salvaged 18650 cell I ever scrounged. It was from my 8 year old Toshiba laptop and it works fine. I can drop it in any light and won’t be able to tell the difference in brightness or runtime. That’s good enough for me. I don’t have a hobby charger.
I have opened 13 laptop packs in the last two weeks and the results are far better than I would have expected.
76 cells with 69 of them above 3.5 volts. , 6 at 2.8V and 1 at 2.1V.