Were these about to vent..?

I'm new at this, first harvest I did that looked like this...

Only salvageable 2 from the hp laptop battery pack I just harvested.

Those 2 seem to be fine. Sony US18650GR 8A, about 6 years old . Had 3.56v when first tested after removal from pack. Holding voltage for a week now after a full charge, 4.20v.

Li-500 says capacity is 2640mh on 1 and 2610mh on the other. They seem to work well in lights. But only will max draw 3.25amps at tailcap while my samsung's will pull over 5 in same light...

The first charge I used 1000mh to charge/discharge test and they did get very warm, but not to hot to touch, infrared thermometer said 116°. Subsequent 3 charges, they did not get warm at all, is this ok..?

Looks like they melted the covering and puffed up/expanded the metal battery tube/housing.

The girl that gave me the laptop for harvesting said it would only work when plugged in..?

So, was this a problem about to happen/vent, or normal for 18650 well used batteries..?

You said two were salvageable. What happened to the other two?

I don’t know what caused it, but it looks like they did get very hot at some point, and this probably damaged the cells, causing the high internal resistance you are seeing. Whether they are dangerous to use or not, I don’t know.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear.

6 total batteries in pack.
4 were damaged to me, (first pic) not usable at all. Didn’t do anything with them other than bring/leave them outside on my patio.

2 of the 6 looked fine, they are the ones in the second picture. Those 2 are the ones I’ve been testing/using.

Never said they have high IR. IR on li-500 says 53 & 35

Looks like rust / oxidation under the wrapper, maybe moisture problem?

Discount the rust, it is new and from me.
The rust is from me leaving them out on my patio for a couple days before they got into the recycle bin. It rained and they got wet.

Other than the surface rust and drops of water you see in the pics, the batteries looked just like that when I opened the pack.
All bubbled up covers (maybe slightly burned…?) and the metal battery tubes/cases are swollen puffed up.

Not sure about about to vent, but that does look like oxidation under the wrapper or the cell got hot and caused the wrapper to bubble. Either way, best to just dispose of them.

yeah, recycle them appropriately, the liquids inside are still flammable and the internal separator membrane between them will fail eventually, if it’s not already perforated by crystal growth.

Well they have high IR compared to your Samsungs. And getting hot while charging and discharging at 1A indicates high IR. Maybe they always had high IR. The fact that they didn’t get hot on subsequent charges I can’t explain.

[quote=EasyB]

Ya, was concerned about the heat the first time the 2 good ones were discharged/charged. But all subsequent charges/discharges (3) at 1000mAh have not caused them to even get warm.
Not sure if it matters concerning the heat on their first charge, but that first charge/discharged was probably the first time they were charged in years and they were at 3.56v to start with.

What is normal IR suppose to be…?

[quote=allcool]

And the capacity has not changed over the discharge/charge cycles?

Most chargers that give a value of IR do some sort of high frequency IR that doesn’t necessarily correspond to the IR we care about, which is DC IR. So I don’t really know how to interpret those reported IRs.

As far as DC IR, “high drain” cells like samsung 30Q and sony VTC5 have IRs in the 25 to 30 milliOhm range. Then less high drain 18650s can have IRs that range up to double or more of those IRs.

Its actually increased slightly from the first cycle, not a lot, about 20-30mAh increase from the first charge/discharge to the last.

Whats the best way to test IR…?

Can a DMM test IR accurately…?

The most direct way is to measure the open circuit voltage, then discharge the cell at some known current (1-5A or so) and quickly record the voltage of the cell. Then the voltage difference is the voltage drop from supplying a known current, then use V=IR to find the resistance of the cell. It is not super easy because you have to measure the voltage and current simultaneously so it requires a bit of a setup.

The IRs reported in HKJ’s battery database are essentially the DC IRs, so you can get an idea of the range of IRs.

OK, I did not know that. I just remember some reports of measured IR from these types of chargers not really corresponding to the actual DC IRs of the cells. Maybe HKJ tests this in some chargers?

At the bottom of HKJ’s review of the Li-500, he analyzes the IR test function some. It just doesn’t seem to be accurate or repeatable, which is why I tend not to pay attention to similar chargers’ IR tests.

http://lygte-info.dk/review/Review%20Charger%20LiitoKala%20Lii-500%20UK.html

Link fixed.

Well if you look at HKJ’s results, the IR test doesn’t seem to be measuring anything useful.

For safety reasons I would discard them all.

“Safety” means not discarding these, since they will eventually leak and may catch fire in garbage.

Recycle them properly or take them to a hazardous waste collector — if you’re using lithium-ions, there will be a safe collection point somewhere near you.

Look for it.

Emphasis added

https://www.americandisposal.com/blog/lithium-ion-batteries

+1