Got hands on 9 18650's from a laptop battery

[garrybunk]

I assumed based on statements in the OP that the pack was used and had gone defunct.

EDIT (cross-posted): Now that changes things slightly. Brand new never charged cells have been reported (i.e. I can't say myself) to be ok from around 1.5v up. I did receive a brand new never used pack that came with cells at 1.6v to 1.7v which seem to charge up ok and maintain voltage. The advice given to me (post #53) was:

@Jaidmaster

Garry - from my notes, it has been suggested to charge them to 3V and let them sit a week - if they have fallen below 2V, it’s a dud. Here is the quote - I am very sorry I did not keep who the original poster was, but all credit goes to them. In addition to the many rules posted here for using laptop cells, I have a few comments from the past 2 years of recovering laptop batteries. 2.5 volts is a good low voltage threshold for safety circuits, however I have found 1.50 volts to be the absolute limit for cell cutoff extracting from packs. One way I test cells that suffer from low voltage is to charge the cell at 0.05C until the cell reaches 3.0 volts. Once there, remove the cell from charger and let stand for a week. If it falls back below 2.0 volts, it’s a dud, if it’s above that, most likely no damage has been done and can be charged normally after that. I have come to this conclusion after evaluating >500 cells and having fully cycled every one of those cells for capacity check. The only exception to this is if you accidentally short a cell trying to extract it while it was under 2.5 volts. It may very well be a good cell even though it reads under 1.5 volts. Just use the above procedure to check it. One nice advantage for this test is that there is almost no risk of fire as the energy stored in the cell for this test is almost nil, the big reason I prefer to do the leakage test at low charge instead of full charge listed in this thread. The charge leakage in the 2.0-3.0 volt range is also highly sensitive as the cell generally only takes on about 50-100 mAh in that range. A leakage rate of a hundred microamps will be easily noticed over a week. The full charge leakage test is a good second test however, if it passed the low voltage leakage test.

-Garry