26650 efest at 3.01v should I dump it?

I accidentally drained my 26650. Should I dispose of it or safe to recharge and reuse?

At 3.01 volts? Nah, that’s not even a “normal” complete drain. Most cells are good down to 2.8V in normal use, and some can even drain down to 2.5V safely. Just charge it back up and use it! :sunglasses: :+1:

Then again, if you’re worried about it, I can give you my address and I’ll dispose of it properly for you. :wink:

@trailhunter, the lowest absolute safest voltage is 2,5V.

Did you have a hobby other than flashlights before?

Phew ok, was concerned I over drained my precious battery. Thanks for the feedback!

What is a “hobby”?

Drones, knives, etc.

Not quite. At least Sony (VTC6) and LG (HE2) specified “2V minimum” for some of its cells.

And I'll be honest. I harvested a few Samsung ICR18650-26C cells from a laptop pack months ago. A couple of its cells were a bit below 2V, and some of the others were pretty low too. I discarded 2 cells after some tests (the lowest capacity ones which also showed slightly worse self-discharge). The remaining cells were kept in a box. Some weeks ago gave 'em an equalizing charge to observe their self discharge ratio. For now there are small differences but overall they look pretty good.

I’m kidding :slight_smile: … yes and I need more springs!

Cells begin to get damaged below 2.5V.
At 3V isn’t not even fully discharged.

That’s the resting / idle voltage, isn’t it?

I notice that after draining batteries in a flashlight, the voltage often recovers a bit (eg. I often test battery capacity on the MC3000 drained to 2.50v, but after awhile, the voltages begins to recover. High-drain good batteries can stay below 3.0v for quite some time after getting drained. But higher-resistance or poor quality batteries tend to jump very quickly up to higher voltages.

Say if I drain to 2.50v, but then let it stay that way for 1 day or several days, will the battery start getting damaged? (the battery voltage probably would have recovered to 3.0v or higher after a few days).

Everyone comes here and sings his/her particular son. The question is, what do you want to believe or how do you believe on a subconscious level? That's what matters.

In the above case, I wouldn't care. I've super slow drained batteries to around 2.5V (using an old 219B testing emitter as load) and the battery voltage recovered to nearly 3 Volts. It also recovers much faster than that.

Do I think there's many scaremongerness in all of this? Probably. ;-)

+1

It warms my heart to see how helpful people are in BLF, even to the point of properly disposing of dangerous items :slight_smile:

I have tons of rifle primers lying around in my garage. Perhaps someone will dispose of them for me :partying_face:

Is this why DavidEF has an awkward amount of batteries?

I’m willing to dispose of any extra Benjamins one might have lying around. I’d even pay the postage. :money_mouth_face:

no, that is a normal discharge to 0% capacity. 2v would be something to be concerned about.

Yeah it depends on the battery ....but the newer cells are generally 2,5v is empty // and older cells were 2.8v .

the thing to do is give them at least a resting voltage of 3.7 volts and not leave it at too low of a voltage .At 3.1v. you have nothing to worry about .

Send those to Taofledermaus and let them “dispose” of those in a spectacular way! :partying_face:

Probably. :open_mouth:

I really do have rifle primers I want to dispose of. Free to anyone who wants to pick them up in San Francisco, CA (hazmat shipping would be a killer).

970 - Winchester WLR
140 - CCI 200
12 - Remington 9 1/2

Maybe I’ll post this in the giveaway sub-forum.