Battery Pack Deal

Batteries and Chargers Rechargeable Batteries
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Note: see post below. Voltage of the cells recovered from one of these packs is marginal. Might not be such a good deal after all.

I’ve been scouring Ebay for deals on new old stock battery packs to tear down for inexpensive 18650 cells. I’ve accumulated a backlog of packs lately, but I still keep an eye out for good deals and post about them to my blog.

I thought people might be interested in a post on some dell 80Wh packs that were recently listed for $14.99 and free shipping.

I haven’t ordered any, so I can’t say for sure what’s inside, but based on the specs and markings, they should contain 9 cells from either Samsung or LG with 2,400-2,500 mAh capacity each. If you are looking for higher capacity cells, you should look elsewhere, but these packs look like a good value at $1.66/cell $0.19/Wh.

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Thanks for the heads up, but shipping kills the deal :open_mouth:

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Ah, bummer. Shows as free to me, but I’m in the lower 48.

Is shipping from canada any cheaper for you, I wonder? If so, these 94Wh IBM packs might be interesting. Should have nine ~3,000mAh cells for just $19.99. Except that shipping to Seattle is $25.

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Shipping is 30$, I’d jump on these if free shipping. All the mail here is air, but I’ve gotten other laptop packs shipped for free, probably depends on the store.

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I got mine today, all the cells measured 1.7v to 1.9v. You may want to look elsewhere. They are LG

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New cells can be good, see if they charge well. If it were a used pack you'd probably want to recycle them.

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Also, if your charger does low voltage detection, it may not be willing to even start charging the batteries at that voltage. I have a couple of el-cheapo chargers that don’t check for low voltage (apparently) and I sometimes will try the battery in one of them for just a few secs, and then check voltage. If the voltage jumps up, then I still the battery in one of my “regular” chargers.

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That sucks, thanks for the report. Updated the OP here and the blog post with the warning.

If it were me, I’d still check to see how they did after a gentle charge. I have some panasonic cells that were in that range that have been holding charge well.

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I’ll try charging them later

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I’m currently charging 2 cells at 500ma, checked them after ten minutes and they are now around 3.4v. They are LG DA2E, should be 2400mah.

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Just curious if you had any more intel on how these cells have done?

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Usually, if you have a cheap “Trustfire” charger somewhere, it will start the charge for the lower resting cells when you get them out, then move to a better charger.

Did you end up getting a pack with 3,000mAh cells?

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So I’m new here but i just got these lg cells (now its down to 13.99 a pack). They are def OLD, I’m a little hesitant about them right now I accidentally ripped the casing with my fingernail. It’s brittle. They arrived between 1.65 and 1.89, I have them on the charger right now and so far they’ve taken 1100 mah a cell and im guessing with how many amps there taking there going to take probably another 700 (but thats pure specualtion I’ve been surprised before). If anyones still interested in how they do let me know I’ll post some updates.

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what charger are you using, and how far out in your driveway do you have it set up to charge these dubious cells?
You need a good extension cord to get it well clear of anything.

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I’m using an imax b6 and actually so far i’ve charged 5 with a pretty much identical 2200 mah capacity (im using a little more juice than the recommended 10% for capacity testing so the true capacity might be a little higher) and they all charged up to 4.20v and have stayed there since yesterday, they seem pretty stable. The same company has some 8 cells marked Panasonic listed as 2700 mah a cell, for 14 a piece. I’m thinking about getting a dozen or so to make another 48v battery and then getting a front hub motor to go with my rear hub motor. 50 mph on a bicycle? yes please!!!