I have been reading about the harvesting of 18650’s from laptop battery pack pulls, and decided to give it a shot at Lowes. They have a recycle bin as you walk into the returns area. I tried to be discreet and pulled out 2 packs and a bag of NiMH cells. One laptop pack looked old and tired but the other looked new. The NiMH cells looked good, but that doesn’t mean much, just that they look good.
Here is the old tired DELL
Then the new looking HP
It seems to be dated 2010/2011, if that is true, it could be fairly unused.
Also from this pic, you can see that the cell origin is japan, perhaps Sanyo’s inside?, and further processed in China, assembled?
Anyway, after tearing them apart, the tired looking DELL had tired cells, usable but tired.
The HP did have good cells, on average 2100MaH, and I think they are Sanyo’s. Very pleased with that pack!
The NiMH cells charged up and seem to have good capacity, got 6 “C”, 5 “AAA” 1 “AA” and 2 9V
The C cells are perfect for my 5C Defiant!
After I brought them out to my van I went back in the store to look around for clearance specials. I do this regularly and have posted before about what I netted.
Once again I scored BIG!!! All that you see in this next pic cost me $10.32
Some of the items were marked on clearance already but rang up at even lower prices than marked, others were marked lower, but rang higher (I got them to correct those).
The long handled 20oz hammers list for 19.95, they were marked 4.74 but rang up for 47 cents
The blue Kobalt rip hammer was 36 cents
The 2 Bostich hammers listed for 29.95, each rang up for 1.44 each (I know, pricey)
They Nicholson files (now made in Mexico) were 12 and 16 cents each, the file handles were 16 cents
Stanley mini wonderbar - 18 cents
light socket - 19 cents
prybars - 22 cents each
Kobalt round files - 23 cents each
5% off for using my Lowes card brought it all to $10.32
In the tool section I first saw this. It was the tage for the 6” Nicholson bastard file
There were about 20 of them, I wasn’t a pig, I only took 7. I did take all the hammers though.
This was the Newington, CT store. A point I want to make is that once you know that a particular SKU number is on clearance, you can use that number to check other stores for price.
Here is that same file at the Bloomfield, CT store. If they don’t sell at this price they will be marked down further in the future. (The Newington store, now out of stock, shows the original price of $4.97 because they are available online still and you can order one and pick it up at the store. The store inventory has cleared out.
Wondering if you could take a ride down to the NL/Waterford CT Lowes store one day soon and walk the aisles… try and dispell whatever *bad karma*is down there, I have never found anything like that, EVER! Good on ya!
PS My wife would say its because my eyes are on the ‘wrong items’…what do you suppose she means by that?!
You mean if you were in a store with her and suddenly shouted out “WOW look at that one” she wouldn’t think you just saw a great bargain???, mine would.
Apparently I am incorrigible… (course I would try and never say anything out loud, though there was this one time, I said, ‘great rack…’ I paid for that for a bit, don’t you know.
I have been a ‘shopper’ all my life, now I shop knowing all the items I really want are out of reach on the top shelf…forever.
I think dchomak’s Lowe’s is in the Twilight Zone. Apparently, he can cross over at will.
Edit: I hope no one has their shorts in a bunch over this vid, especially our dear brudder dchomak. Just trying to bring the funny. I am impressed that he can go where no man has gone before, and return with loot and photographs.
Yearly checkup, everything is OK. But when I left his office I do what I usually do when I have the time. I used my GPS and found that there was a Lowes less than 3 miles away and also it would only add about 2 miles onto my trip back home. Because I made that score at a Lowes recently, I figured there was a chance that this other Lowes (about 20 miles from home) may have some tools on clearance. When I walked in, I was greeted by a dark haired man smoking a cigarette. His name was Rod. He told me to say Hi to his friend Wilson ( I didn’t know they allowed employees to smoke in the store)
I was too late for most of it, here are pics on what I missed.
These are all files, some of these I snagged the other day at the Newington store and I got them cheaper than these. Others either were not yet on clearance or already were gone, I don’t know.
What I didn’t miss out on was the 6” Nicholson for 12 cents. At the Newington store they had about 20 and I said in my original post that I was not a pig and that I only took 7. Well, this time I was pigish and took all 8 that were left. I also picked up this:
Why?? for parts of course ( it was the only excuse I could think of)
BTW, Just as an example of how this works at Lowes, in my original post I showed a screen capture of the Lowes web site for the 6” Nicholson file that I picked up for 12 cents. At the Bloomfield store 2 days ago it was on clearance for $1.24, down from the retail price of $4.97. Now 2 days later, it is on the web site for 31 cents.
So my point is that there are things going on all the time and that they change prices frequently.
Here are screengrabs of the same file at the Hanover, PA and York, PA stores
( I didn’t know they allowed employees to smoke in the store)
