Yes! I second this. Batteries + Bulbs has locations all over the U.S. that will accept any *rechargeable* battery to recycle. They also take non rechargeable and alkaline batteries for under $2/lb. Please don't pollute!
@@noahpalladino your local recyclers take them AND pay you in most cases. No one should charge to dispose of things. This behavior only makes people want to trash them because not only do they have to drive somewhere to get rid of em, they have to pay too!
Your videos rapidly becoming my go to guy when it comes to anything about electric vehicles, I'm only trying to sort out a battery for electric bike but I've learnt a lot from your videos so thanks.
Thank you so much. I bought a whole bunch and I was doing one at a time charging and discharging. I never thought about putting 16 together and just charging them.
Another thing you can do is measure the voltage straight out of the casing. Depending on the source of your cells and whether they have protection circuits on the cells themselves you can 'bin' cells below about 2.3v as a low priority for testing as they have a higher chance for self-discharge and low capacity whether through age or internal shorts.
Dear Jehu, You teaching skills are brilliant and easy to understand, You are a great mentor to us in you tube land!! Thank you for all your tutorials. Bruce the swimmer NEW ROCHELLE N.Y.
Hi +jehugarcia I have been watching your videos for a while now and find them interesting and well presented. I have just started harvesting batteries and thank you for your tips! It started really good but then I got a few older battery packs and have found a few that have got quite hot (charging at only 500ma, scary to think what would have happened at 1amp) I have also found that if one cell gets hot then all the other cells from the pack will do the same, I now just get rid of the entire pack without testing, just easier to dispose of them all rather then risking a fire.
Great Video!!! Thank you for your continued support of all things electric! Check out hydrogen stored in a metal hydride matrix, you can make hydrogen from water, and then store as a gas in a metal hydride matrix (metal molecule) at low pressures without the danger of high psi storage. Good luck and God bless
yes, a guy had a corvette built to run on hydrogen in fuel cells YEARS ago in total safety with this tech. He just gave time to make hydrogen from water with house current like charging a tesla but without batteries, instead the hydrogen was made and after a few days he had enough to go 400 miles or more..It could be done lots faster with a powerful method and cheap off peak power when the grid is making lots of electricity but demand is down and its just going to waste anyway.
Wish I had known this battery knowledge a few years ago, as I was an IT guy and used to collect piles of dead laptop battery packs for recycling. I was familiar with idea that the entire pack wasn’t bad that it was probably just one or two cells. What got me I was still afraid of blowing up a lithium battery trying to charge it now. Never realized how much useful power I was loosing. Price was right! What beats free!
This is actually pretty dangerous advice to put 16 cells parallel in a charger without testing them with multimeter for voltage first... if they are not at the same voltage they can get very hot very quickly without even connecting a charger to it as the highest cell will try to charge the lowest.. You should always measure the voltage if you have random unknown cells.
the whole video is a joke, lithium ion batteries should not be charged to 100% and left for weeks, that's a recipe for destroying them, even if they're good. and his reaction to your comment is very bad, if you want proof (and if you have the courage) just put a 4.2v battery with one at 3.0v in parallel without connecting the charger and see how hot they will get. don't forget to have the necessary protection if you want to try that out.
I love how clearly you explain things in detail. I do like Rinoa, the problem with him (her?) is that quite often they's not much explaining... And I haven't seen much replying to questions in his vids. Thanks man, subbed.
I've been watching your videos primarily on cells in general. Because of you I'm alot more knowledgeable in the world that is batteries. Watched this video more than I've watched all the Harry Potter movies.
fairly quick way to eliminate bad cells is testing internal resistance. IMAX B6AC V2 can do it. one cell test will take 5 sec. If the resistance is ok, then next you can check capacity. Thx for video.
Thanks for the advice. Im using that 'imax b6' to test some liitokala batteries. (suposed to be 3000mAh) Trying to make a bat for my ebike. Need 48v for the motor, and the best amp for the autonomy
I bought my mom an old wireless speaker that had 2x18650 in it. Looking at the speaker's manual, I found the battery life to be pretty weak. I couldn't find 18650s at a reasonable price around so I ordered a brand new 6 cells (Dr. power, Mr. batt or something...) laptop battery from amazon for 25$. I disassembled it and rewired them in a 2s3p configuration. I don't know much about batteries and all of that but I heard you had to have matching cells to make a battery pack. The 6 cells came from the same battery pack so I guess no problem there. As there was room in the device for 4 additional batteries they all went in and there you go, almost tripled battery life.
NIce video. I wish I had as good of luck finding good cells. I've got access to used laptop batteries (mostly dell - 4-6 years old) and I'm not having good luck finding anything above 1500Mah. I've got a bunch that are 700Mah or below, and the "good" ones are always 12-1300 mah. Most of these cells spent their life fully charged in laptops that just sat on desks turned on 24/7 so they've had the worst possible life. Keep it up, I love your work!
+volvo09 you can try recover some capacity by couple cycles of discharge you can find some ~400mAh more capacity the trick is to discharge them to 2,50-2,75V leave them till tomorrow you will see that they will be back to 2,65 again then discharge once again then again... thats how you can find these few extra mAh, then charge with 200-300mA (once lol) internal resistance will be still high but at least you can have 1400-1800mAh cells for low drain things (idk led candle or low power torch?) I also have a couple of them and they are just dieing in the box because idk where to use them
+volvo09 not sure what your discharging rate is set at, but to test the cells most manufacturers say to discharge around 300-400mA for a more accurate discharge reading.
Ive been using the foxnovo charger, it will capacity test 4 at a time at .5 or 1 amp. I also precharge 20 at a time with 20 of the tp4056's with a computer power supply because if you parallel them like you are doing (imo), a higher voltage battery/batteries will send its available amperage to a lower cell and the c rating could be maxed out. Love your videos
This was so helpful thanks for the great information. I get restless legs too and sometimes bounce my leg so I can relate and all the negative comments I see about it make me mad.
Hey Mr G thanks for the vids.. lott a time to devote to on basically a voluntary basis. nice content . smart dude. anyhow, do you remember the old packs we used to make to run our RC cars in the 80's and 90's? Team Losi, Team Associated, RC10L.. The JRxPro! ... they all used to run on 7.2V Sanyo NiCad and If I recall it was a stretch to have a pack be more than 1400. The hump packs were like 1700Mah. Remember they were SCR and SCE? I still to this day have a Victor Engeneering VicPro Sr. battery charger. It had the key pad, took an external power supply and was used to basically do what the IMAX does today. I rememerber Reedy, Tekin and Novak were big names back then. I was in 7th/8th grade when I was building an racing those things. To this day I still have the Original Tamiya Frog!
Damn.. I hate to be one who seems to not be paying attention to the message but, I think your dogs had a "moment" behind your back. Anyway, you're still the man.
Jehu. I'd like to hear your take on how these cells go bad. Why they go bad. How to prevent them from going bad. My theory is that if these cells were in a vacuum at a consistent passive connetic temperature...
Some pretty good info there, & love the Samba & Powerwall projects!!! Here's some generalized "safe handling practices" for pulling used cells from packs: 1. after pulling from battery pack, measure cell voltage. if it's less than 2.5v, toss or recycle 2. charge the cell. if it gets hot during charging, toss or recycle 3. measure cell voltage 5 minutes off the charger. Less than 4.1V toss or recycle 4. wait 30 minutes - 1 hour & measure again if it's fallen below 4V toss or recycle, otherwise record voltage 5. store cell for 1 - 2 weeks, check & record voltage, if cell voltage has fallen more than .1v from previous recorded voltage, toss or recycle. 6. store cell for 2 months, check & record voltage, if cell voltage has fallen more than .1v from previous recorded voltage, toss or recycle. Any batteries passing the above can be basically considered "good cells", but I would go one step further & run a complete 1A discharge / charge cycle on them to see if they can handle a decent drain & rapid charge, if they handled the low charge without getting warm but heat up quickly on fast charge, or get really hot at 1A discharge, I would not trust them. Also, for charging / discharging / testing I prefer the Opus BT-C3100 V2.2 for a few reasons. Yes it's more expensive, but the Imax B6 is widely counterfeited & the counterfeit ones can cause serious problems including fire. C3100 has 4 completely independent channels. User selectable options include Charge, Discharge, Refresh, Cycle Test, Quick Test. Quick Test IMO should be done on all cells that pass #1 above before proceeding to #2. This shows you the internal resistance of the cell being tested. Any Cells >500 internal resistance = toss or recycle. My cells with half original capacity are between 200-300. The cells I had that went over 500 did get hot during charging. Any "good" cells that had been siting for several years can be run through the "refresh" cycle to potentially recover lost capacity & reduce self discharge. True, you can manually "refresh" with any charger, but the Opus does it without stopping restarting each cycle. True, you can only charge 4 cells at a time within the charger, but you can also discharge 4 cells at the same time. Also, you could probably rig up those 4-cell holders to run one in each slot & still charge 16 cells at 250mA per cell (1000mA charge / 4 cells) at the same time.... Charge rates for the C3100 = 200mA, 300mA, 500mA, 700mA, 1000mA, 1500mA, 2000mA Discharge rates for the C3100 = 200mA, 300mA, 500mA, 700mA, 1000mA Unfortunately, the Opus does not handle LiFePO4's :(
3.7V is "nominal voltage" but cell capacity is calculated from 4.2V. At 3.7V cell (without a load) capacity is only about 40% of maximum. Products that use these cells should be regulated to use 3.7V (per cell) which will give a fairly consistent output until the cell voltage drops below 3.7V. For long term storage (over 2 - 3 months without use) cells should not be charged over 3.7V to maintain maximum cell capacity. batteryuniversity.com has tons of great info, but lots of long boring reading, but worth the time if you're going to do something like the Samba or a Lithium-Ion power wall.
@@shawnmurray7232 hi there,, really interesting finding and readings measures up there for harvesting and separating goods and bads, I have a question, are we able to use these harvested cells in large packs for an off grid system using only 60% of whatever total capacity left of them, ? I am thinking if we are able to do this for many years,
Very educational video as usual! Can I only connect 4 holder at once? I have a similar charger. Could I discharge the pack as well (as the final process)? My charger provide that feature. I don't want to buy a new charger if it works that way.
Sometime I charge a cell from 0V and gets heat at first but once the charge rise for a few minutes, perhaps 20-40min, then the temperature decrease and charge fine and cold. I use to charge the cells that holders and tp4056 for each slot
you are the best on youtube for answers...i have problems with some 16850 discharging errors the amphours are so low want discharge...how do you fix them so you can use them.. they charge ok ...thanks carl
This video gave me an idea how to charge alot of cells at one time, before I been using the opus btc3100 and foxnovo 4s, to charge and test the cells. Both will measure the capacity. The opus can charge and discharge at 1 amp, the foxnovo can charge at 1 amp and discharge at 500 ma . Now I can just use those 2 chargers to test the capacitys. Either way it take hours to test them, but having a seperate way to charge them speeds up the process. I built a 3s battery pack with 168 batteries (94 amp hour). As long as you carefully choose your cells when you build it to be as close to perfect balance, the entire battery will stay in balance on its on. I use cells as low as 1100 mah and as high as 2500 mah to build the pack, so far so good. Like they said on the video, any cell that loses capacity after sitting for 3 hours, dont use them. If you use those cells, the battery pack will not stay in balance and will not fully charge. I recommend stay away from the power tool 18650, I bought 50 of those high drain ryobi cells, All measure 0 volts, about 6 of them had venting damage, the 20 cells I revived were average 700 mah capacity. It was a waste of money.
Hello Jehu, I have a bunch of cells that although they don't self discharge at all (they stay over 4V after weeks), they output around 1500mAh only under a load of 0.1A; anything more and they don't even output more than 20mAh or so. What do you think is wrong with them? Too high internal resistance? They were in some handheld vacuum cleaners from 5 years ago which even had BMSs inside. Any ideas if they can be refreshed?
What happens when I make a 4 battery power pack with one cell the has much lower mAh than the other three? say 2500, 2500, 2500, 1300 mAh (used Samsung26f). Is the pack better off with just the 3 higher preforming cells? The internal resistance was measured about 20-25 for the good three and 51 for the lower mAh cell (by the lii-500, I know, just an estimation). Voltage seems fine in all of them, no excess heat during charge/discharge. Thanks in advance for any input!
Hey, I've got a time- saving idea for you. (It's pretty simple and maybe someone else has mentioned it, but I didn't see it in the comments.) Get a FLIR (infrared camera) and look at the batteries when you're first charging them. You'll be able to see which ones are heating up early- on and know to eliminate them quickly. Good video, BTW...
Wouldn't it be nice if the casing for the batttery pack (or its lining) is also a charging/testing station? You'd test hundreds or thousands at a time. You'd buy 18650 (dis)charge modular wiring with LED's that flicker/discolor to report individual battery health. Or if you had a giant testing rig, you could rent it out to those wanting to save time. Within hours they'd know which cells to toss. Taking self discharge readings can be done quite quickly as you described.
Starting my trailblazing with batteries. The first reason for even entering this arena is ebike pack failure. Once I have that project repaired will move on to set up some battery packs for 110v home use. That is a long way off as I am just starting.
Thanks for the info, really helps, Are there any lead acid and Gel battery charger dischargers that do the same? I live in West Africa, and there are loads of used Front terminal batteries, but no way of knowing if they re good or not
Hobby chargers like the imax b6 can be set to Pb to charge lead acid batteries. But I just use a lightbulb and a timer to test lead batteries discharge capacity. Do it once on a known Good battery then do it on the unknown batteries. If the known battery takes 1hr to discharge and the unknown takes 30 min you know it is half the capacity. You can also do a similar thing using a power inverter. Battery-inverter-bulb. The inverter will give you a nice low voltage cutoff.
i need to understand something! , ones you tests them, you charge it again to drain them ? or you discharge it from the voltage you got there?("the 2 weeks later voltage "), thanks!
Thanks for all the info. I have a bunch of 24 ah nmc cells from a fold cmax Energi. After busing them up in a 4s4p my 3rd bank in the pack is lower then all the rest and seems to charge faster too due to the lower amp hr from degration. I'm trying to test each cell to eliminate the lower ah cells from my bank. Due to the size of the cell. It's taking me like 24hrs to discharge them. Is there a faster way? My first bank took my 34 days to test.
hello, i have 2 questions, 1. after you discharge the cell to 3.0V...you leave it like that in the box, or you recharge again? 2. when you charge all 16th batteries...you charge them with no ballancing ?..only + and _ from the imax charger?
Hi! Many thanks for your great videos. I wanted to do the same thing with my tons of old NIMH battery, but I'm not sure about the B6 charger settings. In NIMH submenu voltage cannot be selected, only the Ampreage. I wanted to charge and discharge them cell by cell. Did you ever played with NIMH before? Thanks!
hello there, Thank you for sharing useful information. One question if you please :D When we are having 16 cells in charge, and one or two cells get hot, do we have to stop the charge and get them out, replace with others cells Or we could just hot swap them with others ? Really, really admired of your electrical van :D :D
So what about manufactuers recommendations on charge life or charge cycles? Lipos typically start to not hold their maximum charge after 500 charge cycles.
Note: do not chuck dead batteries into the trash. Recycle them please.
Yes! I second this. Batteries + Bulbs has locations all over the U.S. that will accept any *rechargeable* battery to recycle. They also take non rechargeable and alkaline batteries for under $2/lb. Please don't pollute!
@@noahpalladino your local recyclers take them AND pay you in most cases. No one should charge to dispose of things. This behavior only makes people want to trash them because not only do they have to drive somewhere to get rid of em, they have to pay too!
Go away wet diaper snowflake.
Jay Vee you are the problem
What if your nearest battery centre is 300 miles away? I am not driving 600 miles to dispose of a few batteries.
Your videos rapidly becoming my go to guy when it comes to anything about electric vehicles, I'm only trying to sort out a battery for electric bike but I've learnt a lot from your videos so thanks.
Thank you so much. I bought a whole bunch and I was doing one at a time charging and discharging. I never thought about putting 16 together and just charging them.
Thank you for the awesome battery talk broh!
BTW he's not bouncing, he's just vibrating at a higher frequency.
He's going thru charging himself..Haha
I think he’s the flash ( Barry or what’s the name of the series the flash ) hehehe his whole body is vibrating in 120hz X10 not 60Hz hahah
Oh that's why I was getting motion sickness! Lol....
Another thing you can do is measure the voltage straight out of the casing. Depending on the source of your cells and whether they have protection circuits on the cells themselves you can 'bin' cells below about 2.3v as a low priority for testing as they have a higher chance for self-discharge and low capacity whether through age or internal shorts.
Dear Jehu,
You teaching skills are brilliant and easy to understand, You are a great mentor to us in you tube land!!
Thank you for all your tutorials.
Bruce the swimmer NEW ROCHELLE N.Y.
He's constantly wrong because of ineptitude.
3:25 fan magically comes on.
Well spotted... Adds to the vibrating effect everyone's decided to prioritise in the chat...
Your the man. I'm learning a lot from these videos!
Thanks for the procedure and the details Jehu.
Bouncing video !!! Shake it baby, shake it !!
He reminds me of old black and white cartoons.....🤣🤣
Hi +jehugarcia I have been watching your videos for a while now and find them interesting and well presented. I have just started harvesting batteries and thank you for your tips! It started really good but then I got a few older battery packs and have found a few that have got quite hot (charging at only 500ma, scary to think what would have happened at 1amp) I have also found that if one cell gets hot then all the other cells from the pack will do the same, I now just get rid of the entire pack without testing, just easier to dispose of them all rather then risking a fire.
The 300 mili amp was the number I needed. Charge with 300ma and if they are warm chuck them. That is definitely step 1 in my routine.
Great Video!!! Thank you for your continued support of all things electric! Check out hydrogen stored in a metal hydride matrix, you can make hydrogen from water, and then store as a gas in a metal hydride matrix (metal molecule) at low pressures without the danger of high psi storage. Good luck and God bless
yes, a guy had a corvette built to run on hydrogen in fuel cells YEARS ago in total safety with this tech. He just gave time to make hydrogen from water with house current like charging a tesla but without batteries, instead the hydrogen was made and after a few days he had enough to go 400 miles or more..It could be done lots faster with a powerful method and cheap off peak power when the grid is making lots of electricity but demand is down and its just going to waste anyway.
Thanks man. Been a subscriber since just before 30k. Awesome to see you almost hitting 100k! This video helped me with my e bike build.
I am here to watch and learn and I thank you for making all these series of videos,
DUDE! Love the dogs hiding behind you humping. LOL!!!
This video is full of great info! Thanks for taking the time to explain.
Awesome information my good friend. Looking forward to the next tutorial. Have an amazing day.
Thanks for the education! Good info for us electronically challenged!
Wish I had known this battery knowledge a few years ago, as I was an IT guy and used to collect piles of dead laptop battery packs for recycling. I was familiar with idea that the entire pack wasn’t bad that it was probably just one or two cells. What got me I was still afraid of blowing up a lithium battery trying to charge it now. Never realized how much useful power I was loosing. Price was right! What beats free!
There is a lot of very useful and excellent information that you have shared with us! Thank you very much! Regards. Steve.
This is actually pretty dangerous advice to put 16 cells parallel in a charger without testing them with multimeter for voltage first... if they are not at the same voltage they can get very hot very quickly without even connecting a charger to it as the highest cell will try to charge the lowest.. You should always measure the voltage if you have random unknown cells.
Prove it, otherwise this just opinion.
@@jehugarcia hmm
Once in parallel, cells voltage will equalize.
the whole video is a joke, lithium ion batteries should not be charged to 100% and left for weeks, that's a recipe for destroying them, even if they're good.
and his reaction to your comment is very bad, if you want proof (and if you have the courage) just put a 4.2v battery with one at 3.0v in parallel without connecting the charger and see how hot they will get. don't forget to have the necessary protection if you want to try that out.
Once the cells are in parallel and voltage charge applied, would it still try equalize I wonder
Damn , I love your tips . I am building a E chopper made from scrap from pipes . now I am building pack for it .
I love how clearly you explain things in detail. I do like Rinoa, the problem with him (her?) is that quite often they's not much explaining... And I haven't seen much replying to questions in his vids.
Thanks man, subbed.
She's female
Awesome! I plan on doing this.
I've been watching your videos primarily on cells in general. Because of you I'm alot more knowledgeable in the world that is batteries. Watched this video more than I've watched all the Harry Potter movies.
fairly quick way to eliminate bad cells is testing internal resistance. IMAX B6AC V2 can do it. one cell test will take 5 sec. If the resistance is ok, then next you can check capacity. Thx for video.
Thanks for the advice. Im using that 'imax b6' to test some liitokala batteries. (suposed to be 3000mAh)
Trying to make a bat for my ebike. Need 48v for the motor, and the best amp for the autonomy
really good info here, Ive been looking for a video that goes into the procedure in more detail.
One of the best videos on the subject
Great tip. Cheers from Brazil
I bought my mom an old wireless speaker that had 2x18650 in it. Looking at the speaker's manual, I found the battery life to be pretty weak. I couldn't find 18650s at a reasonable price around so I ordered a brand new 6 cells (Dr. power, Mr. batt or something...) laptop battery from amazon for 25$. I disassembled it and rewired them in a 2s3p configuration. I don't know much about batteries and all of that but I heard you had to have matching cells to make a battery pack. The 6 cells came from the same battery pack so I guess no problem there. As there was room in the device for 4 additional batteries they all went in and there you go, almost tripled battery life.
NIce video. I wish I had as good of luck finding good cells. I've got access to used laptop batteries (mostly dell - 4-6 years old) and I'm not having good luck finding anything above 1500Mah. I've got a bunch that are 700Mah or below, and the "good" ones are always 12-1300 mah. Most of these cells spent their life fully charged in laptops that just sat on desks turned on 24/7 so they've had the worst possible life. Keep it up, I love your work!
+volvo09 you can try recover some capacity by couple cycles of discharge you can find some ~400mAh more capacity the trick is to discharge them to 2,50-2,75V leave them till tomorrow you will see that they will be back to 2,65 again then discharge once again then again... thats how you can find these few extra mAh,
then charge with 200-300mA (once lol)
internal resistance will be still high but at least you can have 1400-1800mAh cells for low drain things (idk led candle or low power torch?) I also have a couple of them and they are just dieing in the box because idk where to use them
+volvo09 not sure what your discharging rate is set at, but to test the cells most manufacturers say to discharge around 300-400mA for a more accurate discharge reading.
Ive been using the foxnovo charger, it will capacity test 4 at a time at .5 or 1 amp. I also precharge 20 at a time with 20 of the tp4056's with a computer power supply because if you parallel them like you are doing (imo), a higher voltage battery/batteries will send its available amperage to a lower cell and the c rating could be maxed out. Love your videos
No
where can I buy that charger...
Back in the day before automatic chargers that cycle, analyze and charge them for you. It is still work but not as much. Take Care, John
Can you pls share a link of automatic charger that can revive or recycle 18650 cells. Thanks
Great video, that helps alot. Got my sub, far more understandable than ton of other videos out on tube. I love your channel and your 18650 projet ;)
You are an inspiration jehugarcia ,to me and to lot's of other people
Nice tips put this on save and watch from time to time.
tnx best regards from Ljubljana Slovenia
This was so helpful thanks for the great information. I get restless legs too and sometimes bounce my leg so I can relate and all the negative comments I see about it make me mad.
Jehu's bounce rate is synced with the rotating fan light..... nevertheless a very good and informative video , many thanks!
Hey Mr G thanks for the vids.. lott a time to devote to on basically a voluntary basis. nice content . smart dude. anyhow, do you remember the old packs we used to make to run our RC cars in the 80's and 90's? Team Losi, Team Associated, RC10L.. The JRxPro! ... they all used to run on 7.2V Sanyo NiCad and If I recall it was a stretch to have a pack be more than 1400. The hump packs were like 1700Mah. Remember they were SCR and SCE? I still to this day have a Victor Engeneering VicPro Sr. battery charger. It had the key pad, took an external power supply and was used to basically do what the IMAX does today.
I rememerber Reedy, Tekin and Novak were big names back then. I was in 7th/8th grade when I was building an racing those things. To this day I still have the Original Tamiya Frog!
Damn.. I hate to be one who seems to not be paying attention to the message but, I think your dogs had a "moment" behind your back.
Anyway, you're still the man.
Jehu. I'd like to hear your take on how these cells go bad. Why they go bad. How to prevent them from going bad. My theory is that if these cells were in a vacuum at a consistent passive connetic temperature...
Hey do you have a full video of the process and settings to charge and then discharge to determine what cells are good or bad?
thanks, for this great video! Amigo,from Lima Peru
Jehu can’t thank you enough! man your awsome!
Some pretty good info there, & love the Samba & Powerwall projects!!!
Here's some generalized "safe handling practices" for pulling used cells from packs:
1. after pulling from battery pack, measure cell voltage. if it's less than 2.5v, toss or recycle
2. charge the cell. if it gets hot during charging, toss or recycle
3. measure cell voltage 5 minutes off the charger. Less than 4.1V toss or recycle
4. wait 30 minutes - 1 hour & measure again if it's fallen below 4V toss or recycle, otherwise record voltage
5. store cell for 1 - 2 weeks, check & record voltage, if cell voltage has fallen more than .1v from previous recorded voltage, toss or recycle.
6. store cell for 2 months, check & record voltage, if cell voltage has fallen more than .1v from previous recorded voltage, toss or recycle.
Any batteries passing the above can be basically considered "good cells", but I would go one step further & run a complete 1A discharge / charge cycle on them to see if they can handle a decent drain & rapid charge, if they handled the low charge without getting warm but heat up quickly on fast charge, or get really hot at 1A discharge, I would not trust them.
Also, for charging / discharging / testing I prefer the Opus BT-C3100 V2.2 for a few reasons. Yes it's more expensive, but the Imax B6 is widely counterfeited & the counterfeit ones can cause serious problems including fire. C3100 has 4 completely independent channels. User selectable options include Charge, Discharge, Refresh, Cycle Test, Quick Test.
Quick Test IMO should be done on all cells that pass #1 above before proceeding to #2. This shows you the internal resistance of the cell being tested. Any Cells >500 internal resistance = toss or recycle. My cells with half original capacity are between 200-300. The cells I had that went over 500 did get hot during charging.
Any "good" cells that had been siting for several years can be run through the "refresh" cycle to potentially recover lost capacity & reduce self discharge. True, you can manually "refresh" with any charger, but the Opus does it without stopping restarting each cycle.
True, you can only charge 4 cells at a time within the charger, but you can also discharge 4 cells at the same time. Also, you could probably rig up those 4-cell holders to run one in each slot & still charge 16 cells at 250mA per cell (1000mA charge / 4 cells) at the same time....
Charge rates for the C3100 = 200mA, 300mA, 500mA, 700mA, 1000mA, 1500mA, 2000mA
Discharge rates for the C3100 = 200mA, 300mA, 500mA, 700mA, 1000mA
Unfortunately, the Opus does not handle LiFePO4's :(
Shawn Murray Hey can you explain why you charge them to 4.2V when they're rated with 3.7V ?
3.7V is "nominal voltage" but cell capacity is calculated from 4.2V. At 3.7V cell (without a load) capacity is only about 40% of maximum.
Products that use these cells should be regulated to use 3.7V (per cell) which will give a fairly consistent output until the cell voltage drops below 3.7V.
For long term storage (over 2 - 3 months without use) cells should not be charged over 3.7V to maintain maximum cell capacity.
batteryuniversity.com has tons of great info, but lots of long boring reading, but worth the time if you're going to do something like the Samba or a Lithium-Ion power wall.
Shawn Murray thx :)
@@shawnmurray7232 hi there,, really interesting finding and readings measures up there for harvesting and separating goods and bads,
I have a question, are we able to use these harvested cells in large packs for an off grid system using only 60% of whatever total capacity left of them, ?
I am thinking if we are able to do this for many years,
Brilliant clear understandable makes sense thanks very much ' Shane uk
Thanks for the heads upon how to check the mah , I learnt something new today :) , peace.
What's th maximum voltage difference between cells in the holders? Also what is the maximum capacity difference in series?
Truly dis video what I'm looking for thank you
Liked and subscribed. Great videos, great info, well explained. Thanks!
Very educational video as usual!
Can I only connect 4 holder at once?
I have a similar charger. Could I discharge the pack as well (as the final process)? My charger provide that feature. I don't want to buy a new charger if it works that way.
Very very nice. Nice explanation. Nice talking Thanks 😊
Thanks for making this video. How long does it take to discharge a cell, how often do you have to swap the cell out to test the next one?
1-2 hours
Very good info, thanks...
Thank Jesus! I fully on my project as well!
i loved this series plase keep doing
a very nice explanation and to the point
Sometime I charge a cell from 0V and gets heat at first but once the charge rise for a few minutes, perhaps 20-40min, then the temperature decrease and charge fine and cold. I use to charge the cells that holders and tp4056 for each slot
great video thanks JG
you are the best on youtube for answers...i have problems with some 16850 discharging errors the amphours are so low want discharge...how do you fix them so you can use them..
they charge ok ...thanks carl
Hi, if I have a battery pack is there a way to check every single series without disassembly the pack? Thanks mate!
Thanks. Its a lot of work.
Thanks for information your a wealth of insight keep making more videos
II started doing a very very similar process a couple years ago after I found a reliable source for hundreds of dead laptop cells.
This video gave me an idea how to charge alot of cells at one time, before I been using the opus btc3100 and foxnovo 4s, to charge and test the cells. Both will measure the capacity. The opus can charge and discharge at 1 amp, the foxnovo can charge at 1 amp and discharge at 500 ma . Now I can just use those 2 chargers to test the capacitys. Either way it take hours to test them, but having a seperate way to charge them speeds up the process.
I built a 3s battery pack with 168 batteries (94 amp hour). As long as you carefully choose your cells when you build it to be as close to perfect balance, the entire battery will stay in balance on its on.
I use cells as low as 1100 mah and as high as 2500 mah to build the pack, so far so good. Like they said on the video, any cell that loses capacity after sitting for 3 hours, dont use them. If you use those cells, the battery pack will not stay in balance and will not fully charge.
I recommend stay away from the power tool 18650, I bought 50 of those high drain ryobi cells, All measure 0 volts, about 6 of them had venting damage, the 20 cells I revived were average 700 mah capacity. It was a waste of money.
i recommend you get a few of these
Foxnovo F-4S charger
this can charge and discharge 4 cells and it will give you the mah after
Hope this helps.
great video, thanks alot ! greetings from germany
thank you very much for making this video
Hello Jehu,
I have a bunch of cells that although they don't self discharge at all (they stay over 4V after weeks), they output around 1500mAh only under a load of 0.1A; anything more and they don't even output more than 20mAh or so. What do you think is wrong with them? Too high internal resistance? They were in some handheld vacuum cleaners from 5 years ago which even had BMSs inside. Any ideas if they can be refreshed?
What happens when I make a 4 battery power pack with one cell the has much lower mAh than the other three? say 2500, 2500, 2500, 1300 mAh (used Samsung26f). Is the pack better off with just the 3 higher preforming cells? The internal resistance was measured about 20-25 for the good three and 51 for the lower mAh cell (by the lii-500, I know, just an estimation). Voltage seems fine in all of them, no excess heat during charge/discharge. Thanks in advance for any input!
Hi Jehu. Can you do a video how to power up your power wall from a solar panel..Thanks.
Good stuff, thank you for this video. thumbs up and subscribed.
Very good and smart guy
I Love your videos keep it up my friend thanks
Excellent tutorial. One question, you don't need a BMS when you are charging and testing these batteries in a pack of 16?
I don’t use a bms on my battery packs, but that doesn’t mean everyone can do what I do, I have lots of bms videos planned for the near future
Hey, I've got a time- saving idea for you. (It's pretty simple and maybe someone else has mentioned it, but I didn't see it in the comments.)
Get a FLIR (infrared camera) and look at the batteries when you're first charging them. You'll be able to see which ones are heating up early- on and know to eliminate them quickly.
Good video, BTW...
Time saving = more cost
Reel Innovations, LLC good how much it will cost and give me the name of that FLIR for me to search. Thx.
I just got a power lab 6 like yours is there anyway you show a quick video on how to use it?
Wouldn't it be nice if the casing for the batttery pack (or its lining) is also a charging/testing station? You'd test hundreds or thousands at a time. You'd buy 18650 (dis)charge modular wiring with LED's that flicker/discolor to report individual battery health.
Or if you had a giant testing rig, you could rent it out to those wanting to save time.
Within hours they'd know which cells to toss. Taking self discharge readings can be done quite quickly as you described.
Starting my trailblazing with batteries. The first reason for even entering this arena is ebike pack failure. Once I have that project repaired will move on to set up some battery packs for 110v home use. That is a long way off as I am just starting.
Will the discharged value be the actual/ real new capacity of the cells?
wouldn't it be a good idea to check each cell for continuity first? That should let you know if there is a short correct?
Thanks for the info, really helps, Are there any lead acid and Gel battery charger dischargers that do the same? I live in West Africa, and there are loads of used Front terminal batteries, but no way of knowing if they re good or not
Hobby chargers like the imax b6 can be set to Pb to charge lead acid batteries. But I just use a lightbulb and a timer to test lead batteries discharge capacity. Do it once on a known Good battery then do it on the unknown batteries. If the known battery takes 1hr to discharge and the unknown takes 30 min you know it is half the capacity. You can also do a similar thing using a power inverter. Battery-inverter-bulb. The inverter will give you a nice low voltage cutoff.
WHAT'S best discharge tester on 20A range?
Good Job man you inspire me
i need to understand something! , ones you tests them, you charge it again to drain them ? or you discharge it from the voltage you got there?("the 2 weeks later voltage "), thanks!
Thanks for all the info. I have a bunch of 24 ah nmc cells from a fold cmax Energi. After busing them up in a 4s4p my 3rd bank in the pack is lower then all the rest and seems to charge faster too due to the lower amp hr from degration. I'm trying to test each cell to eliminate the lower ah cells from my bank. Due to the size of the cell. It's taking me like 24hrs to discharge them. Is there a faster way? My first bank took my 34 days to test.
hello, i have 2 questions, 1. after you discharge the cell to 3.0V...you leave it like that in the box, or you recharge again? 2. when you charge all 16th batteries...you charge them with no ballancing ?..only + and _ from the imax charger?
I think the charging being in parallel, no balancing needed= self balancing. (I am not sure though).
Thank you for video !
So I would recommend a 2nd Imax B6 for Discharging. How about getting a generic Imax B6 for that purpose?
Do laptops have certain kinds of chargers for the type of battery in the laptop?
Hi! Many thanks for your great videos. I wanted to do the same thing with my tons of old NIMH battery, but I'm not sure about the B6 charger settings. In NIMH submenu voltage cannot be selected, only the Ampreage. I wanted to charge and discharge them cell by cell. Did you ever played with NIMH before? Thanks!
if i use 1 or 6s it seems to know the voltage by itself it seems to be a bit on the high side for me
Can u use this as a regular charger for a 36v ebike battery with BMS, so without the balance leads?
This is pretty cool. I'm just a little worried about putting batteries with different voltages in parallel.
Why Don't you rekommend opus bt3400? Thei charge, discharge, charge automaticly
hello there,
Thank you for sharing useful information.
One question if you please :D
When we are having 16 cells in charge, and one or two cells get hot, do we have to stop the charge and get them out, replace with others cells Or we could just hot swap them with others ?
Really, really admired of your electrical van
:D
:D
nice job man
So what about manufactuers recommendations on charge life or charge cycles? Lipos typically start to not hold their maximum charge after 500 charge cycles.