Is my battery collection stored safely?

Hi,

In the recent 2 years I have been collecting 18650 batteries and I have arround 500 now.
They all come from laptop battery packs, that I picked out of the recycle bin.

I only pick out the ones that still have a charge above 2.5V, then I charge them and let them sit for 48 hours.
If they don’t drop below 4.10V they get a sticker with the info of each single battery.
After which I give them a transparent heat shrik to keep the sticker clean and the battery safe.

They are placed in a plastic container, in 7 rows of 6 with a piece of hard plastic between each row to keep them better organized.
Every 3 months I check them for signs of rust or anything else that I can spot on the outside.
They are kept in a wooden dresser, in a room that is never above 25C.
Every 6 months I check them for charge and where needed I top them of.

I keep them all at full charge in case of a power outage, so that I can charge my phone and run my lights.
I know that that will eventually take storage power away from the batteries, but they were free so I don’t mind.

Here are 2 pictures:

Recently I have been getting some Anxiety problems for the fear of one of them spontaneously combusting.

So hence my question.

Is that fear just or am I doing everything right?

Thx

Everything looks OK to my noob eyes but I keep them in a metal cupboard so in case something goes fubar there’s no wood to feed the fire.

But darn, you have more batteries than all the vape shops in my town combined. :+1: :heart_eyes:

Are you expecting a very long power outage?

You have enough stored energy to supply electricity to a small town for a week!

I would add a small bag of silica absorber to each box to keep humidity levels low.

BTW what are those silver boxes in the left 1st picture?

Quirky and fascinating, and a positive hobby. Your collecting is awesome, would you mind sharing how you got started?

As a layman, it seems that your storage is effective and safe, as far as I know, individual batteries don’t just go nuts on their own, when isolated.

don’t keep all the batteries in one place.
don’t keep them on wood.

Well, keeping li-ion batteries at or near full state of charge is known to degrade them fast. See BU-808: How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries & BU-808b: What causes Li-ion to die (Battery University).

Cheers ^:)

Yes, they look fine.

Just think of the millions of laptops sitting in all sorts of places for 10-15 years now with these cells in them. You don’t hear of them randomly combusting and they are even stored in series and connected to the laptop!

Not only that but a lot of those cells from laptops still work even after those horrible conditions. People overthink cell storage IMHO.

Keep them dry, cool and charged when they go into storage and I have a feeling they will last a REALLY long time.

Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.

I agree with the suggestion to add some silica absorbant packs to the boxes. If you are really worried find some ammo cans. They are designed for long term storage.

While Barkuti is right that long term storage at full charge is sub optimal, you have no $ investment in these cells and clearly have a good source of more.

If you can strike a deal with your power company to inform you ahead of time about upcoming power outages and thier duration you could charge them at that point, but anyone has that accurate a crystal ball is going to be using it on the stock market rather than the power grid.

True and if planning on storing them long term, then some absorbent packs would not hurt but are not necessary either.

Ammo cans are a great suggestion if you either find the plastic ones or put a plastic liner of some kind in them to keep the cells from being able to short.

Ideally besides keeping them at their “storage voltage” keeping them in the fridge will also prolong their life but I guess this depends how much your fridge space is worth. Personally I keep all my cells not being used in there but I have plenty of fridge space.

“Sub optimal” is a misnomer, it is in fact much worse because you're slowly killing the batteries. After some years of plugged at the wall duty for my nx9420 laptop, I gave some unplugged use to it; and even if its batt-pack still held some decent amount of charge, after a few handfuls of cycles the thing just died overnight. :((

In my opinion, you may be storing half-dead cell corpses by consistently keeping them at full state of charge, which may crumble upon trying to put 'em at service.

Cheers ^:)

Looks good to me, don’t see anyway for the batteries to be able to short out. And since there all free and you have unlimited access to more I’d keep them charged up as well. When stuff happens you don’t need batteries at storage voltage you need full batteries or nearly full batteries. They will still last a very long time like that. And the loss is very slow. If they survived the heat and torture of laptop duty sitting in a cabinet isn’t going to just instantly kill them will take years. I keep all my batteries charged as well. If I get 2-3+ years from a $3-5 battery I got my money’s worth.

looks fine.
btw i keep plenty charged and lots in reserve at storage voltage.but i have solar.as i need the cells i can recharge easily.
this way i am not only ready but my reserve stays in better health.

You have to ask yourself, “what’s the worst thing that could happen?”

As you’re now set up, if any single cell overheats, you have got to know when not to inhale.

Okay, I’m risk averse — I repack my parachute regularly, don’t fly the hang glider anywhere near power lines, walk the landing area before flying into it to look for hidden obstacles, wear the helmet, keep the radio battery charged —- you know how the precautionary principle works. Being careful need not lose the thrill you seek.

Others may not feel as, how shall I put it, terrified to see how you’re storing all those cells.

Honestly, I wouldn’t want to be spending the night in that house with that load of volatile material closely packed in flammable containers.

Your mileage may indeed vary.

Do you have a link to anything that shows li-on batteries failing when not in use or being charged? Not saying that hasn’t happened but I haven’t seen any data on it. One does have to be careful but there are also lots of items in the household that are potentially dangerous. For example laptops, cars (lead battery and gasoline), worn electrical circuits, gun powder, primers, bathrooms (seriously, I bet more people have been killed/injured by slipping in bath tubs in one year than by lithium batteries ever), etc.

Getting out of bed each morning is……dangerous :frowning:

I’m the same in that I have many stored at 3.7v and about 20 fully charged. I live in earthquake land (San Francisco) and if there’s an event I don’t want to be looking around for batteries. And I have a solar charger that I know works with my Miller and LiitoKala chargers.

If the fully charged batteries die in a few years I just chalk it up to a cost of keeping emergency supplies on hand.

The one li-ion I’ve had fail, had failed in my storage box — left a smear of brown all around the vent holes

I found it that way, probably months after I’d last opened the box — which was and is decently thick metal, stored in a nonflammable area.
It was a small, old cell and had been stored with a good bit of air space around it, so if it heated up, it never got hot enough to catch fire.

This is a known failure mode — once crystals begin to form, they slowly grow larger, and one may puncture the membrane between the reactants, at which point you get at best a severe degradation in capacity, and at worst a leak between the chemicals, so they start to react fast and begin to heat up the cell.

That happens … eventually. Not right away. Surprise!

Look this stuff up, e.g.

Look at the aircraft fire reports, they mostly happened with cells in transit — stored the way you store yours, closely packed together.

I’m not going to argue about this in yet another thread.

Seriously, you can look it up, and should understand how these cells work.
Remember you mostly have no idea what is actually inside the shrinkwrap, how carefully made or with what materials.

I keep around 30 batteries always charged up. I just rotate them in my flashlights. Each battery is drained once a month at minimum just to keep the chemicals from sitting for to long. Keep them active