Shucking Lithium Battery Packs (ASMR, too!) | Salvaging 18650 Cells

What if I told you that you could get decent lithium (Li-Ion) battery cells for much less than new - sometimes even for free? In this episode we're dealing with removing plastic shells from the salvaged battery packs. This is actually a lot of work, so most of it is on a timelapse as ASMR ;) Stay tuned! [Use chapters if you want to jump to a specific section]
Li-Ion (lithium) batteries can be expensive if you need a whole bunch of them for your project. But in many cases there is no real alternative as lithium-based chemistries give the best performance as far as capacity/weight etc. Enter salvaging lithium cells project! We will be primarily working with 18650 cells (cylindrical cells 18x65mm). These cells can be found in laptop batteries, powertool packs, modem batteries, medical equipment powerbanks etc. When this equipment gets discarded, you can get these packs for cheap or even for free. So in this project we source some old packs, shuck them, deconstruct into individual cells and then try to revive these cells and see what can we get out of these cells in terms of performance. We'll take a look at a way of cataloguing the haul as well as analyzing charging profiles to determine what makes a good salvaged cell, and what should be discarded. So stay tuned!
Don't forget to like and subscribe if you found this useful and would like to see more. Let me know in the comments what you agree/disagree with, what you liked, what you didn't like, if you have any questions, if you know of a better way of doing it, or if there is something that I absolutely should not be doing or have done ;) All constructive feedback is welcome! ;)
Disclaimer:
This video is only for entertainment purposes. Any injury, damage, or loss that may result from improper use of tools, equipment, or from the information in this video is the sole responsibility of the viewer.
00:00 Intro
02:12 Unboxing
03:09 Haul overview
07:44 Pack shell removal
09:08 Cell Pack demolition (ASMR)
20:32 Packs exposed