Other Sources for cells...

Korishan

Korishan

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So i'm browsing through eBay looking at "lithium cordless battery -(charger, nicd, nimh)". Scrolling down I came across a potential source for cells."HOOVER Linx Cordless Vacuum Lithium Battery BH50000 BH50005 Used".

So, perhaps we can expand our searches into other electronics into the realm of other types of cordless devices.

What other types of devices can anyone think of for potential cell recovery?
 
My only concern with packs from power tools and vacuums is that they have way more charge/discharge cycles at the extreme ends of the spectrum as opposed to a laptop. I know when I use power tools, I pretty much kill the battery until it has nothing left before recharging. Very different from how I treat my laptop.
 
That is true. I agree, my uncles do the same thing, drain till the battery stops turning the drill.

Do have a question about one of the packs. It's an 18V with 37Wh. How many cells would be in there? Would it be 5 cells? That doesn't seem right, though.
 
Hrmm, ok. For some reason it just seemed like the count was off to me. I was thinking perhaps some parallel ones in there, too. But, it's good to know that those are 5 cells as well. Definitely don't want to pay too much for a pack for measly amount of cells. Altho, right now I'm just looking around gathering information, no purchases are pending.
 
mike said:
I know when I use power tools, I pretty much kill the battery until it has nothing left before recharging. Very different from how I treat my laptop.
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Most of the good quality brands that use li chemistry packs have management systems within, so you can't squeeze every last mAh out of them - that's why the tool will come to a dead stop during use.
 
I disagree. cordless tool batteries are generally of the LI-MN chenistry. This chemistry is designed to really take a beating and survive extreme temperatures while enduring hundreds of cycles doing it. Cordless tools have some of the lowest capacity cells I have found yes, but they typically still have upwards of 90% original capacity. I don't honestly know why this is but from my experience, cordless tools are the best source for some still good (albeit low-capacity) high drain cells.
 
I didn't think about them being high drain. but that does make sense since they have to supply high current, especially for drills.

I did get a pack from a friend that said it wasn't holding a charge anymore. After taking it apart, all cells read about 3.8v, and with a 10W1Ohm load, the all dropped to about 3.5v. So I'm guessing the controller board was probably starting to fault. I talked with him today and he said that they weren't lasting as long. Could the controller board have started faulting and not allowing the low-end voltage to be reached by instead of allowing for 3.2v, start disconnecting at, say, 3.4v???
 
CUDAcores89 said:
I disagree. cordless tool batteries are generally of the LI-MN chenistry. This chemistry is designed to really take a beating and survive extreme temperatures while enduring hundreds of cycles doing it. Cordless tools have some of the lowest capacity cells I have found yes, but they typically still have upwards of 90% original capacity. I don't honestly know why this is but from my experience, cordless tools are the best source for some still good (albeit low-capacity) high drain cells.
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My current 2kwh pack is mostly these cells. All tested very near new capacity. Problem is though you need twice as many to get the capacity of those using higher cap laptop cells. Which is why i switched to laptop cells, also because powertool battery prices skyrocketed on ebay.
 
CUDAcores89 said:
I disagree. cordless tool batteries are generally of the LI-MN chenistry. This chemistry is designed to really take a beating and survive extreme temperatures while enduring hundreds of cycles doing it. Cordless tools have some of the lowest capacity cells I have found yes, but they typically still have upwards of 90% original capacity. I don't honestly know why this is but from my experience, cordless tools are the best source for some still good (albeit low-capacity) high drain cells.
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Who/what are you disagreeing with ?
 
In one of my packs I got from a friend was a LiIon cordless battery pack. When I pulled the cells out and tested each of them, they tested as having 3.8v resting, and 3.4ish v when under a 10W load (just a 10W1Ohm ceramic resister in parallel).

He said that "it wasn't holding a charge". So, I'm inclined to believe that the controller board was starting to malfunction. Of course, I haven't done a capacity test on them as of yet. Still need a few more components to finish that. So, maybe they have good voltage, but their aH could be sub-par.

Hope to check soon.

I got a battery power tool pack from a friend. He said "it wouldn't hold a charge anymore".

Upon taking it apart and doing a test, each cell was about 3.8V unloaded, and 3.4ish V loaded (10W1Ohm ceramic resister in parallel). I haven't been able to do a capacity check since I don't have all the pieces as of yet.

Once I do a capacity check, I might find they the maH is really low. Will find out soon.

However, I'm inclined to believe that the controller board was starting to malfunction since it has a 'cut-off' point to keep the cells from being damaged. Perhaps the board for some reason was starting to cut-off at 3.6V (or even 3.8V) instead of 3.2V, or something like that.
 
Other sources for cells I have found besides laptop batteries:

Medical batteries

very expensive UPS batteries

Printer batteries

Cordless tool batteries

My latest scrapyard visit I got 50lbs of some resmed medical batteries. Each battery had 12 INR cells inside with a tested capacity of 2000mah.
 
Too bad I can't go through the scrapyard. They don't let "scrap" leave the yard via regular ppl once it's delivered. Gotta be a business or something to get your hands on the stuff. *grumble* oh well. It's all working out so far as I mentioned in my "Battery Donations" thread :)
 
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