Some questions about my first attempt to salvage 18650's

Batteries and Chargers Rechargeable Batteries
1

Hello everyone. I am attempting to salvage batteries from some battery backups I have laying around but Im not 100% confident I know what Im doing. I took some pics of what I have and I was hoping you guys could help me out. First of all, I just want to make sure that these are 18650’s that I can use in flashlights. The dimensions are right and the voltage works out to 3.6, but I just want to be sure.

My other concern is whether the batteries are any good or not. I have a lot of these battery backups but so far I only took apart the one in the pic. I put the batteries in the charger and the lights are showing full charge after just 15 minutes, but the batteries wont power anything. Does this mean that the batteries are bad? Should I just leave then to charge for a few hours? They’re not protected but the charger supposedly makes up for that and shuts them off before they get overcharged.

Lastly, they have contacts soldered onto the ends of each battery. I have gently removed as much as I can but I cant get it all off and I am afraid to damage the battery. Will this affect usage?

Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.

http://postimg.org/image/bs64v6kjv/

http://postimg.org/image/oyvkupg97/

http://postimg.org/image/jyy4mramj/

http://postimg.org/image/gcsba4497/

http://postimg.org/image/isu4nymbv/

EDIT: Sorry about the pics. I just cant get them to work when I use the forum tool, so Ill just link them.

2

What are the voltages on the batteries after you take them off of the charger? They should be ~4.2V.

Also, can read the markings (numbers and letters) on or under the red plastic covering? Does that says xxxx-18650 or something like that?

The casing you showed seems to show “Lithium ion” but the 3.6V (10.8/3) sounds more like LiFEPo4?

Jim

3

Not sure what the cells are but at least they are Japanese cells.What was the voltage of the cells when you took them off the charger.I’d spend more time looking at the pictures but keep getting distracted at the bottom of the page. :wink:

4

Thanks for the reply. The text under the red plastic says ” C IHAFJT4 028358”. Its the same on all 3. I’ve never heard of LiFEPo4 batteries before, but when i googled them just now it seems like they’re usually 3.2v? After leaving them on the charger for a while I was able to power a cheap xml-t6 light with one of them if that helps. It seems that Li-po batteries are commonly 3.6v but the package does say that they’re Li-ion.

5

I don;t have a multi meter handy at the moment, I’m going to have to look for it tonight. Ha ha, it was the only site I could find that allowed me to hist without an account since imgur was not working.

6

Look like a 2200mah Sanyo. If you look at the wrapper at a angle, you should see some writing. Sanyo UR18650A for example.

7

Salvaging laptop batteries will cause you to purchase more flashlights to use all your batteries .

Yep .

8

You can use a Dremel to carefully grind off the spot welded material.

9

You are 100% correct. I didn’t see it before because it was covered by tape on 2 of the 3 batteries, but yes they are indeed marked with UR18650F I38. Thanks a lot.

10

If I open all these backups ill have about 30 18650’s. I’m going to need a lot of new lights.

11

Ill give that a shot, thanks.