Hoarding pays

[Neil from Valley Vapes]

As some of you already know I purchased off Ratfinkz a lave tube in need of love and attention. Anyway it arrived and I repaired it and since then I have been looking at batteries to fit ready for when I get paid. (some of you may have seen the thread in the classies)
Then today I decided to have a rummage through what I had got in my drawers (oooeerr missus) and came across a battery for a laptop. On the back it said 4ur18650f for the model number, Popped it open and lo and behold 8x18650 Sanyo batteries inside, Put it into the laptop charged it up split the packs stuck one in the lavatube and it works perfect.. result i thought.
Checked the datasheet for these and they are 2600mah nominal max 5.0A discharge.
I had great joy telling the wife that the battery I had kept for the last two years had finally come in handy lol.
I am now on the hunt for a charger although all eight cells are fully charged and will be looking for some decent batteries when I get paid but these i would imagine will see me through for now.

[chrisjw]

I've got these batteries neil & they're good ones at a good price

www.apolloecigs.co.uk/product-p/ab18650.htm

[chrisjw]

Get a X-Tar WP2 charger.......I got one but can't remember from where.............

[andy01424]

lol did same thing out of an old dell i broke up but only 2 were any good.....when charging if they get hot bin em

[Neil from Valley Vapes]

Yeah was looking at them Chris think they will be top of my list when I get paid. If I get a charger now it will keep me going on these cells for now until then.

[chrisjw]

There ya go..found it...................
www.vapeescape.co.uk/xtar-wp2ii-charger~408

[Neil from Valley Vapes]

Feb 2, 2013 20:05:55 GMT andy01424 said:

lol did same thing out of an old dell i broke up but only 2 were any good.....when charging if they get hot bin em

Yep will keep an eye on them when charging for any problems but as i have got eight its no big deal launching a couple in the bin.

[Neil from Valley Vapes]

Nice one cheers Chris 12v as well is handy as I spend most of my time driving around the country.

[deesigner]

Neil that's very interesting, just had a look on eBay and those chargers are pretty cheap when compared to the cost of a single battery.

I think I'm going to give one a try (dearest one is £24.99) next time I need new batteries

[Karma]

Just my opinion Dee, but I wouldn't buy a charger from e-bay. I'd much rather use one of our trusted vendors and pay an extra couple of quid to insure I'm getting the real deal and not a clone!

[Neil from Valley Vapes]

much cheaper than buying single cells. I will still buy myself a couple of decent ones when I get paid but for now these will see me through.

[deesigner]

I'm talking about getting a lap top charger to remove the 18650 batteries from it Karma

I saw something on UKV about AA batteries, some guy bought a 6V battery, took it apart and there were loads of standard AA batteries inside. Cheap way to get your batteries

[Karma]

Ah, sorry, pologies Dee

[ant]

Dee, I'm sure it's a typo but a laptop charger does not have batteries in it, it's the battery casing that houses 18650's. On a similar note, about 6 months ago I took apart an old Panasonic laptop battery that was about 5 years old and had not been charged in all that time but when I got the 18650's out of the casing they still had a good charge in them, shows how good they are :-) still my best batteries to date.

[farzooks]

I've been splitting some old Thinkpad batteries apart for their 18650 cells for use in flash/bicycle lights. The better makes of OEM batteries use Sony, Sanyo, Panasonic cells and so far the 15 batteries have only had four dud cells come out of them, the rest testing ok after a period.
Basic care and feeding of 18650s
1. If you find any that have dropped below 2.8V - bin 'em - they will become dangerous.
2. Use a decent charger, at the very least, something that will stop charging when it reaches a max of 4.2V, else the overcharged cells will become dangerous.
3. Any cells that exceed 33degC during charging, bin'em, they will become dangerous.
It's easy to determine this - during the first half of the charging sequence, the cells get warm if they're ok or hot-ish if they're a bit dodgy. A cheapy IR thermometer is recommended (ebay for a fiver).
4. After a fortnight, re-test the cells for retained voltage. Any that have lost half a volt, bin'em, they're on their way out and not worth the effort. Some will lose 0.03V (mark them), most will lose 0.02V, some as little as 0.01V.
5. After a month, retest them again, same conditions applies as above.
Lithium cells in good order keep their voltage really well, and the loss of charge is a good indicator of how good they are - voltage losers are duds.

Most of my cells are Sony 2010/2011 and probably have a year or two of life left, but I don't expect them to last forever. Still, at the price I paid (£15 inc p&p), I wouldn't have been too shocked if half of them had been duds.
It's turned out that only about 15% were duds - so far. That's four dead ones out of 60

Btw, LTs and the like have a protection circuit built in, these cells don't, so exercise caution if you ever use them in appliances with no voltage indication and never discharge a cell below 3.4V in normal use.