Help with cell and other questions

S

starhawk

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Sep 19, 2021
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Hello! Forgive me, I'm new here, this is my first post. I hope I'm doing this right!

I have a number of cells here that I need to test for a project -- six teal ones marked --

ASO FM1L224EH 8219##

(last two digits differ on each cell, so likely a serial number)
-- plus six more blue ones marked --

PH Great Power Li-Ion
ICR18650 2.2Ah-AF 3.7V
20161028

-- with the date or lot code centered and the rest of the text, erm, not so much ;) plus four MORE cells, very old ones (these came out of a rather damaged pack, I could only save about half of it, from a Pentium III Dell Inspiron) with sort of red / burgundy wrappers, marked longitudinally (!!) --

FKAF4
0####

-- with the bottom number likely being a serial number. The leading F on the top is aligned with the second digit, and there is a "C" hovering above and a digit hovering below each. The serials (?) and digits for each that I have are --

027449 / digit "4"
027671 / digit "2"
037210 / digit "5"
037414 / digit "5"

-- aaaaand finally (yeesh!) an octet of Walmart's (in?)famous Westinghouse (lol) "2000mAH" 18650s that I got for $15 per 4pk here. Photos later, if that's OK -- I'm tired and I want to be sure I'm in the right spot first.

I do have an equipment question, though -- I've seen what can happen when stupid people do stupid things around these cells (thanks, YouTube), and I know that, like anything else dangerous, if you treat it with ignorance it will mock you and hurt you, but if you treat it with respect -- including that which involves taking the time to understand how to treat it right, you will be just fine. I come from a background in electronics and PC hardware, but this is an area in which, to be honest, I know very little -- and the cost of my nerdiness is, erm, I'm on a fixed income in a tiny apartment. Money's tight.

Can someone kindly suggest what the cheapest trustworthy equipment set would be that I could get to reliably determine capacity of each cell individually, preferably on Amazon (I live in a small town in the upper end of the SE US, and they don't let me out much) and what a safe test procedure would be in order to use it?
 
Continue to research lots of reading here
Cell database
secondlifestorage.com

Cell Database

secondlifestorage.com secondlifestorage.com
testing procedures
secondlifestorage.com

Cell Testing Procedures

I'm very new to all this and have only contracted the powerwall bug a few weeks ago.:sick: I'm reading everything I can and watching powerwall videos like it's some kind of porn. :D What I'm having trouble with is the procedure for testing cells. Here is what I understand so far: 1. Test...
secondlifestorage.com secondlifestorage.com
secondlifestorage.com

18650 Harvesting Flow Charts

As a community we all have our different ways of processing cells and I wanted to take the opportunity by starting this thread to find some common ground on how we all should harvest cells. This is not meant to be a "be all end all" but more of a guide for new members and maybe some senior...
secondlifestorage.com secondlifestorage.com
use only one brand and model testers
LiitoKala Lii-500,Opus BT-C3100

Rather than buying cells at walmart look at:
batteryhookup.com

Genuine Lithium Batteries for DIY Projects

Battery Hookup
batteryhookup.com batteryhookup.com
www.batteryclearinghouse.com

Products

www.batteryclearinghouse.com

Later floyd
 
Floyd, I appreciate most of your advice, but are there alternative battery testers -- or multi-device setups -- that are comparable but less expensive? My budget is *extremely* limited. Think "stereotypical college ramen diet guy" low. I'd prefer not to get into exact details as that tends to hijack threads and I don't want that any more than the mods do, but something in the $20-or-less range would really be strongly advantageous here.

I'm not Linus Tech Tips, I'm the guy who gets castoff laptops from Grandma down the road and beats them back into working order again with whatever I can get online or scrounge out of the local eWaste bins (with permission) and thrift shops so that I can get online. My best machine is a secondhand Dell XPS 15Z with overheating and display issues and that heap's from 2011. The backup box is an HP Mini 5102 netbook with a battery that leaks like a sieve -- maybe if I can get some of these cells tested I can rebuild it; replacements are about the price of those testers and I can't justifiably afford either one, really. As tortuously ungodly ploddingly slow as it is, its portability is so high that, simply given that it boots and is generally usable, it's too good to toss.
 
Moved to new thread as your question has more to do than just finding an unknown cell. Please keep threads on topic.
 
Ah, thank you! and apologies.

As stated previously, I'm new here. I didn't know. I'm sorry, and I'll try to do better from now on!
 
You will need a 18650 charger in addition to the testers listed below. You can build a charger with TP4056s and a 5v power supply. There are many pages on the tp4056 and variants.

XH-M240 Battery Capacity Tester for 18650 Lithium Discharge Energy Testing Meter Digital Load Battery Monitor - - Amazon.com

XH-M240 Battery Capacity Tester for 18650 Lithium Discharge Energy Testing Meter Digital Load Battery Monitor - - Amazon.com
www.amazon.com

HiLetgo Battery Capacity Meter Discharge Tester Analyzer 1.5V-12V Battery Capacity Meter Discharge Tester - - Amazon.com

HiLetgo Battery Capacity Meter Discharge Tester Analyzer 1.5V-12V Battery Capacity Meter Discharge Tester - - Amazon.com
www.amazon.com

Later floyd
 
...hmmm...

That HiLetGo tester looks PERFECT... as for the charger... I have a couple "power bank kit" type PCBs in the drawer from a project that never got off the ground (I have a few of those projects, lol!) and *somewhere* if I can find it, I've got a single-18650 power bank, one of the "Verbatim" ones Walmart was selling for an absurd price for a very short time a few years ago lol... I bought it when I had a little cash to splurge because I was curious. It's basically a single-cell power bank kit with a free sample cell lol, swapping cells is super easy. I bet I could set up either one as a charger, for exactly zero bux, job done. I've plenty of time on my hands, so that's not a factor here.

EDIT a few moments later to avoid double-posting lol -- I've bookmarked the HiLetGo tester, I should be able to purchase it around the beginning of the month. Looking forward to it :) Thanks!
 
Welcome to the forum. As a possible cost savings that will still ship direct to you the pcb type testers can be purchased on AliExpress as well and are usually much cheaper than on Amazon if you are willing to wait a long time for them to arrive. Using power bank pcbs should work fine to charge the cells.

One tool you may already have but really should have is a voltage tester. Something like this, https://www.aliexpress.com/item/330...57-9&pdp_ext_f={"sku_id":"12000021555436389"}, which I just randomly picked from AliExpress so not recommending this specific one.
 
The Amazon tester is fine :) It's *more* than cheap enough.

Re voltage tester... I have four multimeters. A Sparkfun digital from just before the tussle with Fluke, so it's still yellow :) a red Walmart job given by a friend, a yellow cheapie bought out of Ace Hardware's 'bargain bin' for $10 out of curiosity (I had the $10 and wanted to see how genuinely awful it was lol... it lied about being fused, there's no protection in there whatsoever... looks nearly identical to the $15 Walmart ones tho -- which *are* fused. What a "bargain"!) Oh and a Fluke 8000A that I saved up for from eBay a very long time ago. It doesn't get used much but -- TBH there are very few items I have "just to have" -- I like to use what I own, not be a "collector" -- that 8000A is one rare exception, for the most part.
 
Yeah I know how that goes.

I've done a lot of shopping on eBay over the last few years but lately they seem to be more interested in becoming a scammer's haven than anything else. It's quite sad.
 
I do not reccomend to get them, their power connector breaks off extremely easiy.
Its better to just get a good 4 bay charger with discharge capacity function.
 
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