Excellent tutorial as always Moe! I hoard 18650's for this purpose as well. Any time I go to yard sales and see bare batteries I can always pick them up for 3-5 bucks. Cheers my Friend! Zip~
I started watching you a few months ago and l am amazed at all the things you have taught me. The first video l watched was plastic welding. It turned out perfect. These battery pack have been a curse to me. When they do go they are expensive to replace. It's so nice to know now that l can now fix them myself and not be afraid of doing it. Your just awesome! I think this is my first post on your site! Just lov'n it! Autumn!
I went to 5 stores and asked for used batteries, I got one dewalt spending $20 in gas. Thanks Moe for the great video. Going to be sending you something in the mail
Yeah that's the way it goes sometimes. I started not going out of my way, but if I'm out and about by a store I just stop by. It's really hit and miss. Yesterday I stopped by two stores I got a single battery at one and eight batteries at the other.
Great video Mo. I got a bit lost with the balance wire, but I'll ask my brother to explain it to me. He's very clever like you and has literally thousands of cells that he has collected due to the industry he works in. His plan is to build his own 'Tesla style' battery for his home. His cell collection is crates a little over a cubic metre each packed full and ready to test all the cells. The battery packs they use just go in a big skip when they stop working properly or after a certain amount of time, regardless of how well they function, and since he's in charge he just packs them all up and brings them home. Now I understand what he's up to.
The concept behind balance wires is simple. The charger puts its voltage across the whole stack of batteries; in this particular video he had three sets of batteries that were stacked in series with each other (each of those sets consisted of three batteries connected in parallel), so ideally each set will charge to 1/3 of the charging voltage. Because the batteries aren’t perfectly identical, some will charge faster than others - this potentially results in an imbalance, where the voltage isn’t equal from one set of cells to the next, and more importantly it becomes possible to charge one or more sets to a voltage above the maximum allowed voltage. So those balance wires allow the BMS (battery management system) circuits to measure the voltage across each set of cells, and “make adjustments” to limit the extent of the imbalance so that each set is nearly equal in voltage to all other sets. In this 12V battery there are only three sets, so two balance wires are all that is needed (with the end terminals also being used by the BMS). In an 18V battery, there will be five sets so you would have four balance wires. Hopefully that helps explain.
@@stevebabiak6997 hey bro, do you think its possible to charging a hikoki/hitachi 18 volt battery with a mechanical batteryadabter in a bosh 18 volt charger?
@@Superimperator - there is a big difference between “possible” and “recommended”. These li-ion batteries should only be charged using a charger approved by the battery manufacturer. In all honesty, I think you would have difficulty if you tried it, since the batteries have extra terminals on them that are only used when charging - these terminals are unlikely to be put to proper use with an adapter and a charger from a different manufacturer.
Great video as always, thanks for sharing and trying to save us some money! A couple tips for anybody doing this… 1 if you kinda suck at soldering (like me) solder the positive terminals first (too much solder on them can overflow and short out against the negative casing) 2 a big clamp or large vise grips are good for holding batteries still and upright while you’re working
Great video. It's amazing that for the last 12 years something stupid such as a $4 circuit board or a few bad cells causes so much warranty grief and wastes so much time at the local big box store when most battery packs can be salvaged and rebuilt for around $10.
I worked at a grocery store one summer and they would throw away all the food with that days expiration date. They had a compactor that the food went into. We would be eating what we wanted as we worked lol. I think today grocery stores give away the food that is about to expire. Waste is factored into the prices of the products. There is probably a huge markup on battery powered tools versus how much it actually cost to make it.
@@DAS-Videos - not all of them give it away. On May 31 I purchased two four+ pound pork roasts (each regular priced over $15) for $1.50 each ($3.00 total) because the date on each was June 1. Froze one and cooked the other. For me, it helped beat the crazy inflation we now have; but that sort of leads the store to be raising prices to compensate for the loss - leads to inflation in a different way.
Be careful and only use cells from the same batch and used for the same amount of cycles. The internal resistance can vary and under high drain they can overheat/catch on fire. Don't burn your house down over a battery pack. Better yet, just avoid playing with lithium batteries without really knowing about them. I have seen spectacular failures with 18650 cells and I am worried
@@sixtyfiveford I like your videos but this one is a little careless. You don’t explain or possibly you don’t know about runaway batteries. A single bb of solder touching the positive to negative could be catastrophic to someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing. You may want to put a disclaimer at the beginning of this video. Just a thought
@@Latchkeyhuman not just that, soldering cells together in parallel like in the video can make one essentially short out in a not too uncommon situation. Since he never mentioned it in the video, I guess he didn’t know about the potential danger. Even if this guy has enough common sense to not make a dangerous battery, I can imagine someone trying to copy these instructions could burn down their house. Specifically, pulling off the tabs and sanding the ends of the cells… it literally made me wince.
I've been rebuilding battery packs for a long time, I know how to solder so IDK what kind of witchcraft he uses to solder the batteries because I have tried over and over with different temps and methods but the solder never sticks. I eventually got a cheap spot welder for like $60 and dang it makes it so much easier and faster. It's well worth your money if you have the same problems I did.
To add to above, pre-tinning is also helpful. And the tip of the iron has to also be tinned - the tinning helps the heat to flow from the tip of the iron to the surfaces where the tip makes contact.
He's abrading the battery caps which gives the metal tooth for the solder to grip to. That and you may really stink at soldering. Some people just can't solder. For whatever reasons they simply can't grasp what needs to be done. Done right soldering is easy. Done wrong soldering is a nightmare. I've seen people struggle.
On Sunday I got my EIGHTH DCB210 battery pack. I knew it was bad like six of my other seven DeWALT DCB210 packs (10AH) but it also turned out to be counterfeit. I still thought it wasn’t too bad since they also threw in a 5AH Ryobi 40v pack almost just like the 4AH one you have there. Unfortunately, every single cell was at zero volts even though it looks brand new, inside and out, and even still had the security plug covering one of the screws. It’s definitely a risk when you buy packs to salvage.
But what is your time worth? You made trips back and forth to the store, to pick up recycled batteries. Plus the time to put the pack together plus buying the empty battery shell that you want etc etc. In this instance, I'm not sure its worth it......
That's the stuff Moe. I'm stupid on what goes where, but I could probably figure it out with a lot of study :)) We need battery packs for super cheap. They cost too much.
Just do it outside , i've shorted way to many cell and usually the dont explode but sometimes they spew out molten metal and lots of flame & smoke . And the fire extenguisher does nothing on them i tried .
Right on! I'm awaiting a Dyson DC56 that I'm debating either paralleling the Dyson pack with a DeWalt 20V switched adapter & pack custom add-on, disassembling the Dyson pack to modify with the DeWalt 20V switched adapter or disasembling the Dyson pack and the trigger to replace the trigger with the DeWalt 20V switch from the adapter and maybe or maybe not using the Dyson pack since is more work... though thinking can 3D print the Dyson pack and then just save the Dyson pack to sell or maybe use possibly in the future. The switch seems handy to have at the trigger. Another neat project I even made a YT video regarding, is using one of those DeWalt (might be better to use the 24V Kobalt packs & adapter) switched adapters with the way cost effective and versatile SH72 soldering irons. Thanks for sharing, right on regarding the batteries qualities you found! I think the laptop batteries I've recovered and restored have only been used in flashlights I've modded to accept the 18650 batteries where I think I have a YT video regarding one of the UV 3-AAA flashlights I modded.
Very cool. I have 4 battery packs for my 18v DeWalt. Two of them work. It would be nice to have 3 working battery packs, as I have the impact, and the drill. One in impact, one in drill, one on charger ready to enter the game would be great.
One of the first videos I saw of yours was about rebuilding battery packs. That was forever ago. My other most memorable video of yours is building the pallet wood shed. Do you still have that?
Oh great.... I bought a couple of those Chinese DeWalt battery packs about 3 years ago when I was cutting roots out of the lawn. They worked good and lasted for quite awhile but I haven't touched them since. I wonder if they will even work now🤔.
Quit wondering and throw them on a charger. They're probably fine as long as you didn't excessively discharge them then leave them sit without charging back up for 3 years. Even then, they probably didn't discharge that much more unless left in a tool with a defective design that causes parasitic draw.
I did throw them on a charger the other day. I had a couple stumps I wanted to get rid of. One was just about fully charged and the other one showed one light out of three. I bought them at the same time off of Amazon. All it does is light the charger up for a second then goes out. I was going to take it apart but I guess I need to get some specialty bits. @@stinkycheese804
Good stuff. I have rebuilt several Ryobi battery packs doing this, they work well but usually don't seem to have quite as much life as new packs, but a whole lot cheaper. Yoda says hi to Ginger. 👍
Like in Solar, a bunch of 20% depleted batteries come together in parallel to make a pretty hi ah pack. Yeah they aren’t at full capacity but because there are many, you will get the benefit of having long lasting battery life, even with 80%
Good job! I think you did a good job explaining it. It really is easier to do than what most people realize. I have always soldered mine like that. It's like you said.." keep your soldering hot. Get in & get out fast!" Who cares how it looks. It powers your own power tool & it is hidden on the inside.
Yeah just walk in wearing a jumpsuit with some made up battery company logo on it and a hand truck and pick the whole bin up and roll it out. Maybe have a clipboard with some phony paperwork on it that you get one of the doofy employees to sign if they try to give you any trouble.
spot welder is highly recommended .. heatind the lithium battery is just on the other side of safe.. do your research..you tubes awesome but everyone does things a little different ..but for sure the majority of battery builders suggest to not solder litium cells.. this sad have explained that but..as i said..everyones different
I have intentionally tried to destroy cells with soldering and have only been successful on one. I had to hold the soldering iron for a good minute at least. That was on the positive side and all I did was short out the little thermal overload fuse in all cells. I have soldered for 30 seconds or longer just to see if there's a loss in capacity, none. There's a huge difference in power tool lithium ion cells versus something you could find in a laptop. People don't realize how hot these are designed to actually get in operation. I've measured normal usage and 160F is common but most high discharge cells are rated for normal operation up to 80C/176F. Holding a soldering iron onto one side for 10 seconds may take a 70F cell up to 75F and 60 seconds a little over a hundred F. To do battery packs, you're not going to be able to use the budget. $20-30 spot welder you can find. The nickel strips are two to three times thicker and you will need to spend closer to $150 for spot welder that will handle it.
Sometimes if you have a dead battery and forget to charge it then the charger wont charge it because the charger thinks its to dead to charge. So get a fully charged battery of the same brand and voltage and get some good thick wire keep it short and put the wire from one positive to the other positive and negative to negative and make sure to get it RIGHT or you'll fry the board it them. then let them sit hooked to each other for 15 mins then try to charge the "bad" one and see if it will charge if not try again for 30 mins then try to charge it. you can also check the charge indicator also. And MAKE SURE not to drain the good one to far or it wont charge.
If i wanted to swap out 18650 cells for 21700 cells in a ridgid 18v battery, could i? I mean provided i customize the housing to fit the larger cells of course, but would it work, or would the electronics not support it?
LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT... got some I need to open up and swap around... hmmmm do you wanna ADOPT me??? I'm 57 years old... but I would like you as my 2nd dad!!!!
Great practical video as always! The sanding/tinning idea is great. Why not tin the connector plate in addition to the end caps? Seems like it would promote easier soldering under the plate.
Generally there are space restrictions so I'm trying to add as little solder as possible. The connecting strips generally flow the solder extremely well and don't need pretining.
Great idea but I tore apart over 30 old battery packs and only found four cells that were 100% the rest were compromised to some degree and not worth reusing. If a Li-Ion battery pack failed, chances are it was abused or has gone through a butt load of cycles, meaning that if one or two cells failed, the others aren't likely too far behind. I picked up a huge load of lap top batteries, only two out of 11 of them had any voltage at the terminals, after cutting them apart only five of the cells would take any sort of charge and only one cell held full voltage after a day off the charger. Chances are they were batteries that like most of my own laptops, spent more time plugged in then being run off their batteries. so the batteries lived their whole life being constantly charged and topped off to 100%. On my current laptop, which is 5 months old, if I put it away and let it sit for two weeks, the battery will be dead, dead enough that it won't recharge. The first battery, died early on, when I cut it apart the first cell in line on the pos. side was dead with zero volts, the rest were showing .5 to .9v. out of the 8 cells, only two took a charge without overheating and none held their charge for more than a few hours even after being cut free of the pack. I think the better route to find batteries is to buy cheaper battery packs with new batteries at HF and cut those up to fix your better quality tool batteries.
The problem is you can only make high drain cells up to about 3ah(18650). So you're limited to that in a 9 cell case. You could use a bigger case though and stack them as many as you want and make it 12ah, 15ah etc battery pack.
MM77 Approved 👍🏼👍🏼………………..I love my Ryobi 40v tools, HATE the battery packs!! You can by a tool WITH a battery cheaper than just a battery!! I need to figure out if a battery swap will work with those.
Before you take apart your Makita batteries, go to the Makita store and get them to test em. They may just give you a replacement. Worked for my father. 7 batteries.
Makita batteries are the worst. They have a board in them that black balls the battery in a fault condition. One screw up and it shuts itself off. There's no way to reset it either. Once it trips it's over. WTF is a Makita store? Screw them!
Now you're a candidate for doing some repairs. Because like he said it's usually just a couple cells that go bad. There's really better ways of testing cells than how he did it though. There's battery chargers you can put the cells on that'll tell you how much they can store. They charge the cell then discharge it and measure the amp hours. You're best off with balanced cells in a pack. So get one of those chargers and a magic marker and test and write the results on each cell and make up balanced packs. You can probably get 30 good packs out of your 40 bad ones. Maybe more?
I'm wondering what will happen to other lithium batteries like 18650's once the solid state batteries hit the market. They've already made & been stesting SSB which will be put in Toyota hybrids in 2025. Apparently they're only using them in hybrids instead of all electric cars because the batteries still haven't gone major long term testing under multiple conditions. They're supposed to have something like 2x or 3x the life span, faster charge times & almost double it's range. Plus not as sensitive to charging & operating problems. I hope SSB makes the price of 18650 drop quite a bit so you could build or buy or solar battery bank for much cheaper. I think people who buy electric cars right now might have buyers around 2026.
Awesome Moe. Person could fix their bad tool battery by isolating bad cell and replace it instead of buying a brand new COMPLETE pack. One recycled battery pack could repair multiple others from harvesting the good remaining cells in it .Great freak g idea. 18650 's aren't cheap when you have to buy several .Great idea dude !
Except no. It's a bit like running tires on your car until the belt pokes out, then replacing only that tire and pretending the rest are as good as new when they are near the end of their life too, unless you just needed a wheel alignment and inexplicably didn't notice abnormal wear for a long time, but even then, that's a long time you wore the other tires too so they are not as good as new.
wait a minute Using a hot soldering iron to solder battery cells can degrade battery quality and high heat can lead to battery explosion Should have a professional cell welding machine
Tabs may make the assembly messier. The way they're spot welded on is probably not the ideal orientation for how you assemble a pack. So by pulling them off you simplify the construction.
@@sidney9534 solder should not stick to tabs better than a prepared battery cell surface. If you are soldering correctly there is no risk to damaging the cell either. If you're doing it right you should just barely be brushing across the surface of the cell to tin it (and tin you must). It is the short duration of heat contact that you want to do. A fraction of a second. More than that and you're doing something wrong. But people do solder wrong a lot. Notice how I said at the beginning, "a prepared battery cell surface". That was not accidental. You want to scuff the metal and use a degreaser. Something like isopropyl alcohol or acetone. I always say there's three rules to soldering, you have to work clean, clean, clean! What that means in practice is you need to clean the work, clean your soldering supplies and clean your soldering iron tip too. It all has to be clean! Or you're just going to get a dirty rotten joint. Bright and shiny is what leads to bright and shiny. Neatness counts making these battery packs up too. Those tabs going all over the place does not help.
@@1pcfred thanks for the elaboration. Of course it makes sense, and I actually once made a 14s7p pack like that and it worked great and lived a long happy life. But for your typical TH-cam viewer, I still feel soldering to tabs has a lesser chance for error - also depends on space etc. But I don't disagree with you.
@@sidney9534 soldering is like riding a bicycle. Once you've figured it out it isn't so hard to do. But until you have you can get banged up pretty good learning.
Right on brother, I’ve been doing this for years. Back in the day a new dewalt 18 volt replacement was mucho dinero! (nicad) instead I’d just buy the replacement for $13 from harbor freight for their standard ni cad battery pack for a warrior flashlight! The HF Warriors lithium are now $20 AND come with a charger to boot. If you only need two cells then that rebuilt or other tool pack now has spares. Thanks for getting this out there. I’ve also traded smoked packs at Home Depot for better cased ones to rebuild as well. Id just tell them my case was cracked and I’d redonate that one after I swap the case. Whatever, it works🤥. I prefer to do the labor replacing cells over shocking or nuking them to shock their memory into coming back. Ya, that worked for a while too UNTIL I popped one once and aside from being very loud no injuries to report but forget that😉👍🏼
Great video. I've been doing the same for a while. I haven't had to buy a new pack in years. Those 40V ryobi packs tend to have the electronics fail so they will have all good cells!
i just snagged a 40v 6ah. 30 2000 mah cells. bad bms. revived and fixed a freinds 40v 5 ah. found the out of balance cell group, charged the group with my sky rc ba6 and then reset the bms. bam pack working again.
The latest place to grab cells is disposable vapes. People use those once and toss them. So the cell isn't even broken in yet. They're high drain type too. What a world we live in.
You're right. Manufacturers use spot welders to save time. A reasonable welder can be bought for around $60 or you can build one for about $20. Personally, I prefer the spot welder for the same reason the manufacturers do. I don't have the time to sit and solder.
Ya my biggest problem is that when I solder a new cell in its to big to fit back in the case and that almost all the salvaged batteries are under like 2Ah so If I was doing it I'd want to but some like 3000 may or something
Yeah space is always a concern. Sometimes I have to trim some of the plastic inside but I always get them to fit. Yeah I have a whole pile of 1.3 amp hour right now and wish they were bigger. Seems like most or 2amp hour.
You may want to use a tool called a spudger which is basically a wooden stick. You use it when you're soldering like a soldering iron that's not hot. Kind of like a finger that you don't have to worry about burning. You can use a spudger to push your connections flat. I think the really good ones are made out of osage orange wood? But they're gray when you get them. I've made them out of red oak too. But mostly I use real commercially manufactured ones. I don't see them for sale much these days. So not the easiest things to get. Handy tools though.
So if those batteries will get hotter in normal use than they do when you are soldering on them, won't the solder joints just melt and get all over everything?
Wow I never knew about this stuff. Now I'm regretting the times I threw away battery packs I personally owned or even people's pack in which I helped clean out their garages and stuff.
@@sixtyfiveford ik in my dewalt batteries they run samsung 25r 18650 batteries. There is no fuse in those batteries. Ive definitely watched several blow.
@@sixtyfiveford I'm not saying dont do this... Ive done this for different projects a ton. Your definitely right in the fact you want your iron as hot as it will go.
@@silver1fangs These batteries get so hot inside their cases just through normal hard use. I just ran a regular battery pack actually on a Dyson vacuum that I may modify to increase capacity. The pack got up to 175° f which you can barely touch with your bare hands. And that was measuring through a 1/8 inch plastic shield and the time it took me to open up the battery pack, so it's likely 200° f on the battery casing itself during operation. You would have to leave the soldering iron on a cell for probably 2 minutes to even get close to that temperature transmitted into the cell. Yes they're very dangerous but you have to go above and beyond to make them as dangerous as everybody wants to say.
@@sixtyfiveford love the fact I actively reply to comments and you are correct it does take a bit to have them go off. Ive pulled upwards of 60 amps off of 25r's (single cell) but I also know a guy thats had 3 sets of 2 batteries all catch on fire. My experience comes from working a vape shop/vaping and honestly for the most part this is way safer than dealing with loose cells daily. The only point I was trying to make for any one reading was a basic warning....... Also if you have a use for the left over good cells that would be a great vid.
manufactures use GRADE A select cells and high end tools are even matched cells. be careful with cells below 2 volts, as they may have started growing "crystal's" internal shorts. These internal issues compound over time and its possible to have a runaway thermal reaction internally, with ZERO warning. To do this right, use a cadex or something similar to match similar cells alike. most 18650 cells have a vent if anything goes wrong, but its the heat it generates that is passed on to neighbor cells. IE runaway thermal pack. ask anyone into modern RC cars how spooky lithium can be.
Doing this sort of thing isn't for everyone. Tool battery packs is one place where some regulation would have improved efficiency. The way it's done now is the absolute worst way possible. It's making corporations a lot of money though.
@@1pcfredThat's always the foundation and bottom line of almost everything. I'll say almost because some people still care about quality and longevity but not many.
@@lewiemcneely9143 there's a lot to be said for the disposable lifestyle. Of course there's plenty that can be said against it too. Some items can last a long time. Not much can stay in new condition forever though. Some of what we make today needs an economy of scale to make it feasible to produce. You ain't whipping one up in your garage easily. And if it breaks fixing it isn't practical either. We're caught up in the vicious cycle of accumulating entropy.
@@1pcfred Get the best you can at the time and use it for as long as you can. All my stuff is worn out years ago but still going. It was paid for a long time ago and if I can fix it cheaper than I can replace it, it'll still be here. GBWYou!
@@lewiemcneely9143 I don't need the best of anything. Good enough is just that. It's good enough. What's good enough is the question though. If what I have isn't good enough then I try to get something better to replace it. I have some pretty craptacular stuff that works for me too.
Have you actally tried a Milwaukee m18? You cant because as soon as you disconnect the BMS it wont work Ibe done other brands but never been successful with milwaukee Other vidoes on youtube say the same you cant repack m18 batterys
NO! Just slapping one in a charger after it has discharged that low, is not proof that it has plenty of life left in it, typically the opposite, that if the pack was used enough to have a cell go bad, then the remainder are hardly worth the bother to build a new pack out of, plus they may LATER be a fire risk too. Plus store your old crappy batteries in metal container so they don't burn down the house! Your argument about the temperature with solder vs running or spot welding are nonsense. Spot welding is a momentary discharge that does not heat the end cap much at all. Running is heat spread over the entire cells and also does not heat the end cap much at all. Soldering heats the end cap a lot. Fortunately, the cap is slightly elevated so you are getting away with it, without damaging the seals, but you are pushing the limits much more than spot welding or running the tool, so please at least don't spread misinformation as a justification. If you are going to solder them anyway, you'd at least be better off with a higher wattage solder gun or at least a stouter chisel tip instead of the one you're using.
There is definitely a social engineering aspect of this project. Talking your way into free cells is a skill. I can understand why that step can't be covered very good in a video too. It's something folks have to work out on their own.
I have intentionally tried to destroy cells with soldering and have only been successful on one. I had to hold the soldering iron for a good minute at least. That was on the positive side and all I did was short out the little thermal overload fuse in all cells. I have soldered for 30 seconds or longer just to see if there's a loss in capacity, none. There's a huge difference in power tool lithium ion cells versus something you could find in a laptop. People don't realize how hot these are designed to actually get in operation. I've measured normal usage and 160F is common but most high discharge cells are rated for normal operation up to 80C/176F. Holding a soldering iron onto one side for 10 seconds may take a 70F cell up to 75F and 60 seconds a little over a hundred F.
@@Surmoka Soldering is slow and no where as compact as spot welding. If you're doing an entire pack spot welding will easily be 4-5x faster. Just replacing 1 cell though and 1 second vs 10 doesn't really matter.
@@sixtyfivefordtrue dat, but my spot welder is rather lousy. If I had a good welder, it'd be no question. For just one pack, I think I'll be good with soldering.
I just did the same, just with new cells. The refurbished battery runs fine, but it cannot be charged in the original charger anymore. It reports the battery as bad
cool vid. and it works. I too do the same thing for my battery packs when they start giving trouble. It keeps my tools going at a very cheap price; ....good stuff, take care, watch the dog!
You can but what happens is undetermined. It may work and you may burn your house down. So it's a bit of a crap shoot. Odds are it'll probably work. But there is a chance things could go horribly wrong too. So do you feel lucky punk?
Thank you, great video, found out I had 2x dead cells in my DeWalt 4A battery pack. Couple of questions, my batteries only have markings "TBI6RX8", Google was no help in finding out what these are? And when I removed the tabs on the dead batteries, I must of punctured the casing as it made a wee hiss, if this happens I don't think I can recover other battery packs? Again regards.
so where the hell do you get the circuit boards? yeah, I get the cell thing and I have repaired batteries by replacing cells, but many times its the dang circuit boards - all the cells test good. also, what is that electrical flux? where would I get that?
@@sixtyfiveford I don't need the empty cases. I'm not going to make the batteries from scratch, I'm going to try to fix what I have. I can do the cell replacement (thx for the soldering tips, btw) it's when the boards go bad. You can't really screw up a case, but I don't know if I can trust the boards from just any cheap Chinese source.
@@johnboynton5649 Considering these are the same people who are making refurbed batteries and selling them cheap, sure, your 3 dollar board might not work. So just buy two, or just don't do this. But, as a contractor I have seen a decent amount of people using the knockoff batteries, which we can be sure came with the knockoff board. They worked.
@@johnboynton5649 what you need to do is develop trust in your own judgement of electronics. Look and learn. Know what to look for. Read the signs. Because it's all coming out of some cheap Chinese source today. Somes better than others though. It's a hard world to get a break in.
PLEASE HELP ME I made a S5-18v but the drill won’t start unless you pull very slowly and then it will spin but can’t handle a load can you suggest why I built 3 packs all the same I folded the instructions to the best of my knowledge please help
Get a Roloc wheel for your grinder it’s basically scotchbright disk. They last a long time and are gentle if you want to be but they will strip paint if needed.
3 horsepower diesel motor never charge your Electric car vehicle again The Florida pool pump motor bearing repair guy When Service Calls Longwood approved ! that was good info sixyiveford
@@sixtyfiveford that breed is the aussie farm dog, we do not cut their tails off. Its how they balance when running. It also shoos fly's away from their butts
DUDE - the FIRST rule of battery scrounging club is DO NOT TALK ABOUT BATTERY SCROUNGING CLUB
I didn't name names...
Yeah it's only possible if no one does it. Because no one wants to pay $100 for a battery pack. Soon as more try it the game's up.
Lol
Here, all the "battery recycling bins" are now behind the customer service counter, at both Lowes and HD - no more scrounging - they shut that down!
@gorak9000 yeh my homedepot acts like the battery recycling is gold.
Brilliant! I can’t believe I’ve been throwing away expensive battery packs for years and I could’ve made a few of them work. Thank you for this.
Excellent tutorial as always Moe! I hoard 18650's for this purpose as well. Any time I go to yard sales and see bare batteries I can always pick them up for 3-5 bucks. Cheers my Friend! Zip~
Great advice on checking the battery’s I have 3 AA ‘s in the smoke detector it’s always just one that ‘s lowest. Just change it & she’s good to go.
Great freaking idea to grab “dead” battery packs and snipe the good ones out !!
Yeah if you have access to that sort of thing.
I started watching you a few months ago and l am amazed at all the things you have taught me. The first video l watched was plastic welding. It turned out perfect.
These battery pack have been a curse to me. When they do go they are expensive to replace. It's so nice to know now that l can now fix them myself and not be afraid of doing it. Your just awesome! I think this is my first post on your site! Just lov'n it! Autumn!
You're awesome, thanks. I'm glad you like the videos.
I went to 5 stores and asked for used batteries, I got one dewalt spending $20 in gas. Thanks Moe for the great video. Going to be sending you something in the mail
Yeah that's the way it goes sometimes. I started not going out of my way, but if I'm out and about by a store I just stop by. It's really hit and miss. Yesterday I stopped by two stores I got a single battery at one and eight batteries at the other.
Thank you for sharing that information, Moe. I always learn something useful from your videos!
Great video Mo.
I got a bit lost with the balance wire, but I'll ask my brother to explain it to me. He's very clever like you and has literally thousands of cells that he has collected due to the industry he works in. His plan is to build his own 'Tesla style' battery for his home. His cell collection is crates a little over a cubic metre each packed full and ready to test all the cells. The battery packs they use just go in a big skip when they stop working properly or after a certain amount of time, regardless of how well they function, and since he's in charge he just packs them all up and brings them home.
Now I understand what he's up to.
The concept behind balance wires is simple.
The charger puts its voltage across the whole stack of batteries; in this particular video he had three sets of batteries that were stacked in series with each other (each of those sets consisted of three batteries connected in parallel), so ideally each set will charge to 1/3 of the charging voltage. Because the batteries aren’t perfectly identical, some will charge faster than others - this potentially results in an imbalance, where the voltage isn’t equal from one set of cells to the next, and more importantly it becomes possible to charge one or more sets to a voltage above the maximum allowed voltage. So those balance wires allow the BMS (battery management system) circuits to measure the voltage across each set of cells, and “make adjustments” to limit the extent of the imbalance so that each set is nearly equal in voltage to all other sets.
In this 12V battery there are only three sets, so two balance wires are all that is needed (with the end terminals also being used by the BMS). In an 18V battery, there will be five sets so you would have four balance wires.
Hopefully that helps explain.
@@stevebabiak6997
Excellent explanation , 👌
& Thank you... 🙏
@@stevebabiak6997 hey bro, do you think its possible to charging a hikoki/hitachi 18 volt battery with a mechanical batteryadabter in a bosh 18 volt charger?
@@Superimperator - there is a big difference between “possible” and “recommended”. These li-ion batteries should only be charged using a charger approved by the battery manufacturer.
In all honesty, I think you would have difficulty if you tried it, since the batteries have extra terminals on them that are only used when charging - these terminals are unlikely to be put to proper use with an adapter and a charger from a different manufacturer.
@@stevebabiak6997 ahh okay thx man, maybe thats the reason why i cant find videos of someone do this😅
Ginger is awesome !
Great video as always, thanks for sharing and trying to save us some money! A couple tips for anybody doing this… 1 if you kinda suck at soldering (like me) solder the positive terminals first (too much solder on them can overflow and short out against the negative casing) 2 a big clamp or large vise grips are good for holding batteries still and upright while you’re working
Great video. It's amazing that for the last 12 years something stupid such as a $4 circuit board or a few bad cells causes so much warranty grief and wastes so much time at the local big box store when most battery packs can be salvaged and rebuilt for around $10.
I worked at a grocery store one summer and they would throw away all the food with that days expiration date. They had a compactor that the food went into. We would be eating what we wanted as we worked lol. I think today grocery stores give away the food that is about to expire. Waste is factored into the prices of the products. There is probably a huge markup on battery powered tools versus how much it actually cost to make it.
@@DAS-Videos - not all of them give it away. On May 31 I purchased two four+ pound pork roasts (each regular priced over $15) for $1.50 each ($3.00 total) because the date on each was June 1. Froze one and cooked the other. For me, it helped beat the crazy inflation we now have; but that sort of leads the store to be raising prices to compensate for the loss - leads to inflation in a different way.
Be careful and only use cells from the same batch and used for the same amount of cycles. The internal resistance can vary and under high drain they can overheat/catch on fire. Don't burn your house down over a battery pack. Better yet, just avoid playing with lithium batteries without really knowing about them. I have seen spectacular failures with 18650 cells and I am worried
You're way overthinking it.
@@sixtyfiveford
I like your videos but this one is a little careless. You don’t explain or possibly you don’t know about runaway batteries. A single bb of solder touching the positive to negative could be catastrophic to someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing. You may want to put a disclaimer at the beginning of this video. Just a thought
@@Latchkeyhuman not just that, soldering cells together in parallel like in the video can make one essentially short out in a not too uncommon situation. Since he never mentioned it in the video, I guess he didn’t know about the potential danger.
Even if this guy has enough common sense to not make a dangerous battery, I can imagine someone trying to copy these instructions could burn down their house. Specifically, pulling off the tabs and sanding the ends of the cells… it literally made me wince.
I've been rebuilding battery packs for a long time, I know how to solder so IDK what kind of witchcraft he uses to solder the batteries because I have tried over and over with different temps and methods but the solder never sticks. I eventually got a cheap spot welder for like $60 and dang it makes it so much easier and faster. It's well worth your money if you have the same problems I did.
You need to sand, scuff or scratch the battery surface and solder will flow out and stick.
Flux is key, in addition to the prep 65ford mentioned.
To add to above, pre-tinning is also helpful. And the tip of the iron has to also be tinned - the tinning helps the heat to flow from the tip of the iron to the surfaces where the tip makes contact.
He's abrading the battery caps which gives the metal tooth for the solder to grip to. That and you may really stink at soldering. Some people just can't solder. For whatever reasons they simply can't grasp what needs to be done. Done right soldering is easy. Done wrong soldering is a nightmare. I've seen people struggle.
use a big iron, (80-100 watts) and be FAST, too much heat transfer into the cell and its a bad day. (you need a hearty tip on the iron too)
On Sunday I got my EIGHTH DCB210 battery pack. I knew it was bad like six of my other seven DeWALT DCB210 packs (10AH) but it also turned out to be counterfeit. I still thought it wasn’t too bad since they also threw in a 5AH Ryobi 40v pack almost just like the 4AH one you have there. Unfortunately, every single cell was at zero volts even though it looks brand new, inside and out, and even still had the security plug covering one of the screws.
It’s definitely a risk when you buy packs to salvage.
But what is your time worth? You made trips back and forth to the store, to pick up recycled batteries. Plus the time to put the pack together plus buying the empty battery shell that you want etc etc. In this instance, I'm not sure its worth it......
That's the stuff Moe. I'm stupid on what goes where, but I could probably figure it out with a lot of study :)) We need battery packs for super cheap. They cost too much.
We need more children in the lithium mines. Come on Africa!
Just do it outside , i've shorted way to many cell and usually the dont explode but sometimes they spew out molten metal and lots of flame & smoke . And the fire extenguisher does nothing on them i tried .
Right on! I'm awaiting a Dyson DC56 that I'm debating either paralleling the Dyson pack with a DeWalt 20V switched adapter & pack custom add-on, disassembling the Dyson pack to modify with the DeWalt 20V switched adapter or disasembling the Dyson pack and the trigger to replace the trigger with the DeWalt 20V switch from the adapter and maybe or maybe not using the Dyson pack since is more work... though thinking can 3D print the Dyson pack and then just save the Dyson pack to sell or maybe use possibly in the future. The switch seems handy to have at the trigger. Another neat project I even made a YT video regarding, is using one of those DeWalt (might be better to use the 24V Kobalt packs & adapter) switched adapters with the way cost effective and versatile SH72 soldering irons. Thanks for sharing, right on regarding the batteries qualities you found! I think the laptop batteries I've recovered and restored have only been used in flashlights I've modded to accept the 18650 batteries where I think I have a YT video regarding one of the UV 3-AAA flashlights I modded.
Very cool. I have 4 battery packs for my 18v DeWalt. Two of them work. It would be nice to have 3 working battery packs, as I have the impact, and the drill. One in impact, one in drill, one on charger ready to enter the game would be great.
One of the first videos I saw of yours was about rebuilding battery packs. That was forever ago. My other most memorable video of yours is building the pallet wood shed. Do you still have that?
I still have and use the shed.
Oh great.... I bought a couple of those Chinese DeWalt battery packs about 3 years ago when I was cutting roots out of the lawn. They worked good and lasted for quite awhile but I haven't touched them since. I wonder if they will even work now🤔.
Quit wondering and throw them on a charger. They're probably fine as long as you didn't excessively discharge them then leave them sit without charging back up for 3 years. Even then, they probably didn't discharge that much more unless left in a tool with a defective design that causes parasitic draw.
I did throw them on a charger the other day. I had a couple stumps I wanted to get rid of. One was just about fully charged and the other one showed one light out of three. I bought them at the same time off of Amazon. All it does is light the charger up for a second then goes out. I was going to take it apart but I guess I need to get some specialty bits. @@stinkycheese804
Great recyclizing & dollar saving!
.👍 689
Stay well, Joe Z
Good stuff. I have rebuilt several Ryobi battery packs doing this, they work well but usually don't seem to have quite as much life as new packs, but a whole lot cheaper. Yoda says hi to Ginger. 👍
Like in Solar, a bunch of 20% depleted batteries come together in parallel to make a pretty hi ah pack. Yeah they aren’t at full capacity but because there are many, you will get the benefit of having long lasting battery life, even with 80%
Good job!
I think you did a good job explaining it. It really is easier to do than what most people realize.
I have always soldered mine like that. It's like you said.." keep your soldering hot. Get in & get out fast!"
Who cares how it looks. It powers your own power tool & it is hidden on the inside.
Because of you, i built a 10ah battery for my dewalt / Milwaukee. Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention!
Great to hear! They're beasts.
Man now I wonder if the power tool companies do this🤔, home depot has a bin where you recycle batteries
Yeah just walk in wearing a jumpsuit with some made up battery company logo on it and a hand truck and pick the whole bin up and roll it out. Maybe have a clipboard with some phony paperwork on it that you get one of the doofy employees to sign if they try to give you any trouble.
spot welder is highly recommended .. heatind the lithium battery is just on the other side of safe.. do your research..you tubes awesome but everyone does things a little different ..but for sure the majority of battery builders suggest to not solder litium cells.. this sad have explained that but..as i said..everyones different
I have intentionally tried to destroy cells with soldering and have only been successful on one. I had to hold the soldering iron for a good minute at least. That was on the positive side and all I did was short out the little thermal overload fuse in all cells. I have soldered for 30 seconds or longer just to see if there's a loss in capacity, none. There's a huge difference in power tool lithium ion cells versus something you could find in a laptop. People don't realize how hot these are designed to actually get in operation. I've measured normal usage and 160F is common but most high discharge cells are rated for normal operation up to 80C/176F. Holding a soldering iron onto one side for 10 seconds may take a 70F cell up to 75F and 60 seconds a little over a hundred F.
To do battery packs, you're not going to be able to use the budget. $20-30 spot welder you can find. The nickel strips are two to three times thicker and you will need to spend closer to $150 for spot welder that will handle it.
Awesome thanks for the information 🔥🔥
Sometimes if you have a dead battery and forget to charge it then the charger wont charge it because the charger thinks its to dead to charge. So get a fully charged battery of the same brand and voltage and get some good thick wire keep it short and put the wire from one positive to the other positive and negative to negative and make sure to get it RIGHT or you'll fry the board it them. then let them sit hooked to each other for 15 mins then try to charge the "bad" one and see if it will charge if not try again for 30 mins then try to charge it. you can also check the charge indicator also. And MAKE SURE not to drain the good one to far or it wont charge.
I have some old packs. I will check them out. Thank u! Appreciate all the good stuff on this channel!!
Note to clean all of your solder joints when finished if using corrosive flux. Just don't use MEK or benzene aka carb cleaner. (Not an inside joke)
Or just don't use acid core solder. NEVER use acid core for electric. That's plumbing solder. Come on people.
If i wanted to swap out 18650 cells for 21700 cells in a ridgid 18v battery, could i? I mean provided i customize the housing to fit the larger cells of course, but would it work, or would the electronics not support it?
It would work. The electronics would not notice any difference.
LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT... got some I need to open up and swap around... hmmmm do you wanna ADOPT me??? I'm 57 years old... but I would like you as my 2nd dad!!!!
Heck yeah
Great practical video as always! The sanding/tinning idea is great. Why not tin the connector plate in addition to the end caps? Seems like it would promote easier soldering under the plate.
Generally there are space restrictions so I'm trying to add as little solder as possible. The connecting strips generally flow the solder extremely well and don't need pretining.
Great idea but I tore apart over 30 old battery packs and only found four cells that were 100% the rest were compromised to some degree and not worth reusing.
If a Li-Ion battery pack failed, chances are it was abused or has gone through a butt load of cycles, meaning that if one or two cells failed, the others aren't likely too far behind.
I picked up a huge load of lap top batteries, only two out of 11 of them had any voltage at the terminals, after cutting them apart only five of the cells would take any sort of charge and only one cell held full voltage after a day off the charger. Chances are they were batteries that like most of my own laptops, spent more time plugged in then being run off their batteries. so the batteries lived their whole life being constantly charged and topped off to 100%.
On my current laptop, which is 5 months old, if I put it away and let it sit for two weeks, the battery will be dead, dead enough that it won't recharge. The first battery, died early on, when I cut it apart the first cell in line on the pos. side was dead with zero volts, the rest were showing .5 to .9v. out of the 8 cells, only two took a charge without overheating and none held their charge for more than a few hours even after being cut free of the pack.
I think the better route to find batteries is to buy cheaper battery packs with new batteries at HF and cut those up to fix your better quality tool batteries.
Great video
Great stuff as usual! Thanks for the vid!!!
Well done sir A old friend of mine did all this kind of thing years ago and it works great stuff 👍
On that 12 volt what do you think is the biggest battery you can make I have seen 9amps but I haven't seen bigger
The problem is you can only make high drain cells up to about 3ah(18650). So you're limited to that in a 9 cell case. You could use a bigger case though and stack them as many as you want and make it 12ah, 15ah etc battery pack.
MM77 Approved 👍🏼👍🏼………………..I love my Ryobi 40v tools, HATE the battery packs!! You can by a tool WITH a battery cheaper than just a battery!! I need to figure out if a battery swap will work with those.
There's a lot of profit in tools these days.
Before you take apart your Makita batteries, go to the Makita store and get them to test em. They may just give you a replacement. Worked for my father. 7 batteries.
Someone threw away two Ryobi batteries and the date codes said they were under 3 years old. Called Ryobi and they sent me two brand new batteries.
Makita batteries are the worst. They have a board in them that black balls the battery in a fault condition. One screw up and it shuts itself off. There's no way to reset it either. Once it trips it's over. WTF is a Makita store? Screw them!
Man I bet I have 40 battery packs in a drawer that wont charge. I have yet to work on them.
Now you're a candidate for doing some repairs. Because like he said it's usually just a couple cells that go bad. There's really better ways of testing cells than how he did it though. There's battery chargers you can put the cells on that'll tell you how much they can store. They charge the cell then discharge it and measure the amp hours. You're best off with balanced cells in a pack. So get one of those chargers and a magic marker and test and write the results on each cell and make up balanced packs. You can probably get 30 good packs out of your 40 bad ones. Maybe more?
i would like to build one with the new battery LG M50lt 21700
I'm wondering what will happen to other lithium batteries like 18650's once the solid state batteries hit the market. They've already made & been stesting SSB which will be put in Toyota hybrids in 2025. Apparently they're only using them in hybrids instead of all electric cars because the batteries still haven't gone major long term testing under multiple conditions.
They're supposed to have something like 2x or 3x the life span, faster charge times & almost double it's range. Plus not as sensitive to charging & operating problems. I hope SSB makes the price of 18650 drop quite a bit so you could build or buy or solar battery bank for much cheaper. I think people who buy electric cars right now might have buyers around 2026.
Hi can I parallel two different battery packs of the same voltage but have a different Max. continuous discharge current 20 a and 30 a
Yes, I've done it without issue. They split/share the load so they're happy.
Awesome Moe. Person could fix their bad tool battery by isolating bad cell and replace it instead of buying a brand new COMPLETE pack. One recycled battery pack could repair multiple others from harvesting the good remaining cells in it .Great freak g idea. 18650 's aren't cheap when you have to buy several .Great idea dude !
Except no. It's a bit like running tires on your car until the belt pokes out, then replacing only that tire and pretending the rest are as good as new when they are near the end of their life too, unless you just needed a wheel alignment and inexplicably didn't notice abnormal wear for a long time, but even then, that's a long time you wore the other tires too so they are not as good as new.
What about a bridge across All the contacts? like a flashlight spring and a highly conductive plate on top. Just wondering
Expand a little one what purpose this would serve?
wait a minute
Using a hot soldering iron to solder battery cells can degrade battery quality and high heat can lead to battery explosion
Should have a professional cell welding machine
Nope. You won't even get close to how hot these get under normal use.
DUDE? WHY BOTHER RIPPING THE TABS OFF and ruining a good battery? AND you won't get battery even warm. NVM hot. just solder the tabs together
Tabs may make the assembly messier. The way they're spot welded on is probably not the ideal orientation for how you assemble a pack. So by pulling them off you simplify the construction.
Exactly, leave a bit of the tab on and solder to it. Solder sticks better to those tabs and you don't risk damaging the cell.
@@sidney9534 solder should not stick to tabs better than a prepared battery cell surface. If you are soldering correctly there is no risk to damaging the cell either. If you're doing it right you should just barely be brushing across the surface of the cell to tin it (and tin you must). It is the short duration of heat contact that you want to do. A fraction of a second. More than that and you're doing something wrong. But people do solder wrong a lot. Notice how I said at the beginning, "a prepared battery cell surface". That was not accidental. You want to scuff the metal and use a degreaser. Something like isopropyl alcohol or acetone. I always say there's three rules to soldering, you have to work clean, clean, clean! What that means in practice is you need to clean the work, clean your soldering supplies and clean your soldering iron tip too. It all has to be clean! Or you're just going to get a dirty rotten joint. Bright and shiny is what leads to bright and shiny. Neatness counts making these battery packs up too. Those tabs going all over the place does not help.
@@1pcfred thanks for the elaboration. Of course it makes sense, and I actually once made a 14s7p pack like that and it worked great and lived a long happy life.
But for your typical TH-cam viewer, I still feel soldering to tabs has a lesser chance for error - also depends on space etc. But I don't disagree with you.
@@sidney9534 soldering is like riding a bicycle. Once you've figured it out it isn't so hard to do. But until you have you can get banged up pretty good learning.
Right on brother, I’ve been doing this for years. Back in the day a new dewalt 18 volt replacement was mucho dinero! (nicad) instead I’d just buy the replacement for $13 from harbor freight for their standard ni cad battery pack for a warrior flashlight! The HF Warriors lithium are now $20 AND come with a charger to boot. If you only need two cells then that rebuilt or other tool pack now has spares. Thanks for getting this out there. I’ve also traded smoked packs at Home Depot for better cased ones to rebuild as well. Id just tell them my case was cracked and I’d redonate that one after I swap the case. Whatever, it works🤥. I prefer to do the labor replacing cells over shocking or nuking them to shock their memory into coming back. Ya, that worked for a while too UNTIL I popped one once and aside from being very loud no injuries to report but forget that😉👍🏼
Great video. I've been doing the same for a while. I haven't had to buy a new pack in years. Those 40V ryobi packs tend to have the electronics fail so they will have all good cells!
i just snagged a 40v 6ah. 30 2000 mah cells. bad bms. revived and fixed a freinds 40v 5 ah. found the out of balance cell group, charged the group with my sky rc ba6 and then reset the bms. bam pack working again.
Please don't grind solder if it contains lead, you will get lead dust in the air
You know you are subbed by the lord when google searching brings you back to the same channel!
Medical supplies have great batts and they are replaced before they even get bad
They are not typically high discharge cells, but rather high capacity. So not ideal for tool applications.
The latest place to grab cells is disposable vapes. People use those once and toss them. So the cell isn't even broken in yet. They're high drain type too. What a world we live in.
You're right. Manufacturers use spot welders to save time. A reasonable welder can be bought for around $60 or you can build one for about $20. Personally, I prefer the spot welder for the same reason the manufacturers do. I don't have the time to sit and solder.
yup bought an amazon spot welder. $70
Thanks for the free battery sources. Pallet return sellers may also have bad batteries. I would think they would let them go for free.
Ya my biggest problem is that when I solder a new cell in its to big to fit back in the case and that almost all the salvaged batteries are under like 2Ah so If I was doing it I'd want to but some like 3000 may or something
Yeah space is always a concern. Sometimes I have to trim some of the plastic inside but I always get them to fit. Yeah I have a whole pile of 1.3 amp hour right now and wish they were bigger. Seems like most or 2amp hour.
You may want to use a tool called a spudger which is basically a wooden stick. You use it when you're soldering like a soldering iron that's not hot. Kind of like a finger that you don't have to worry about burning. You can use a spudger to push your connections flat. I think the really good ones are made out of osage orange wood? But they're gray when you get them. I've made them out of red oak too. But mostly I use real commercially manufactured ones. I don't see them for sale much these days. So not the easiest things to get. Handy tools though.
So if those batteries will get hotter in normal use than they do when you are soldering on them, won't the solder joints just melt and get all over everything?
If your going to use a copper wire just get solid core wire and hammer it flat. it will be better
Wow I never knew about this stuff. Now I'm regretting the times I threw away battery packs I personally owned or even people's pack in which I helped clean out their garages and stuff.
Where on earth are you finding packs that people are just “throwing away”?
Places have recycle bins.
Just so everyone knows be careful soldering onto lithium cells. If you over heat the cells you wont physically be able to put out the fire.
If you way overheat them the fuse in the top will blow and they just won't work.
@@sixtyfiveford ik in my dewalt batteries they run samsung 25r 18650 batteries. There is no fuse in those batteries. Ive definitely watched several blow.
@@sixtyfiveford I'm not saying dont do this... Ive done this for different projects a ton. Your definitely right in the fact you want your iron as hot as it will go.
@@silver1fangs These batteries get so hot inside their cases just through normal hard use. I just ran a regular battery pack actually on a Dyson vacuum that I may modify to increase capacity. The pack got up to 175° f which you can barely touch with your bare hands. And that was measuring through a 1/8 inch plastic shield and the time it took me to open up the battery pack, so it's likely 200° f on the battery casing itself during operation. You would have to leave the soldering iron on a cell for probably 2 minutes to even get close to that temperature transmitted into the cell. Yes they're very dangerous but you have to go above and beyond to make them as dangerous as everybody wants to say.
@@sixtyfiveford love the fact I actively reply to comments and you are correct it does take a bit to have them go off. Ive pulled upwards of 60 amps off of 25r's (single cell) but I also know a guy thats had 3 sets of 2 batteries all catch on fire. My experience comes from working a vape shop/vaping and honestly for the most part this is way safer than dealing with loose cells daily. The only point I was trying to make for any one reading was a basic warning....... Also if you have a use for the left over good cells that would be a great vid.
manufactures use GRADE A select cells and high end tools are even matched cells. be careful with cells below 2 volts, as they may have started growing "crystal's" internal shorts. These internal issues compound over time and its possible to have a runaway thermal reaction internally, with ZERO warning. To do this right, use a cadex or something similar to match similar cells alike. most 18650 cells have a vent if anything goes wrong, but its the heat it generates that is passed on to neighbor cells. IE runaway thermal pack. ask anyone into modern RC cars how spooky lithium can be.
yup a 1/2 way decent grading charger is like $35
I'm too old and goofy to be making up electrical stuff and will be better off buying new but you never know. Thanks and the Hound On The Run! GBWYall!
Doing this sort of thing isn't for everyone. Tool battery packs is one place where some regulation would have improved efficiency. The way it's done now is the absolute worst way possible. It's making corporations a lot of money though.
@@1pcfredThat's always the foundation and bottom line of almost everything. I'll say almost because some people still care about quality and longevity but not many.
@@lewiemcneely9143 there's a lot to be said for the disposable lifestyle. Of course there's plenty that can be said against it too. Some items can last a long time. Not much can stay in new condition forever though. Some of what we make today needs an economy of scale to make it feasible to produce. You ain't whipping one up in your garage easily. And if it breaks fixing it isn't practical either. We're caught up in the vicious cycle of accumulating entropy.
@@1pcfred Get the best you can at the time and use it for as long as you can. All my stuff is worn out years ago but still going. It was paid for a long time ago and if I can fix it cheaper than I can replace it, it'll still be here. GBWYou!
@@lewiemcneely9143 I don't need the best of anything. Good enough is just that. It's good enough. What's good enough is the question though. If what I have isn't good enough then I try to get something better to replace it. I have some pretty craptacular stuff that works for me too.
Ginger 🐕 is the reason I am Subscribing to your channel ...Lol 😄
Plus your content is pretty good also...👍
Have you actally tried a Milwaukee m18?
You cant because as soon as you disconnect the BMS it wont work
Ibe done other brands but never been successful with milwaukee
Other vidoes on youtube say the same you cant repack m18 batterys
NO! Just slapping one in a charger after it has discharged that low, is not proof that it has plenty of life left in it, typically the opposite, that if the pack was used enough to have a cell go bad, then the remainder are hardly worth the bother to build a new pack out of, plus they may LATER be a fire risk too.
Plus store your old crappy batteries in metal container so they don't burn down the house!
Your argument about the temperature with solder vs running or spot welding are nonsense. Spot welding is a momentary discharge that does not heat the end cap much at all. Running is heat spread over the entire cells and also does not heat the end cap much at all. Soldering heats the end cap a lot. Fortunately, the cap is slightly elevated so you are getting away with it, without damaging the seals, but you are pushing the limits much more than spot welding or running the tool, so please at least don't spread misinformation as a justification.
If you are going to solder them anyway, you'd at least be better off with a higher wattage solder gun or at least a stouter chisel tip instead of the one you're using.
Good they let ya take them Here they won’t
There is definitely a social engineering aspect of this project. Talking your way into free cells is a skill. I can understand why that step can't be covered very good in a video too. It's something folks have to work out on their own.
LOL - I'm literally balancing a 12HD m18 right now.
Loool. No, they will not become 6000mAh, but stay 2000 lol. Need to get some education first :)
Great video, but soldering on li-ion cells is not recommended. It is easy to damage them with the heat. This is why everyone uses spot welding.
I have intentionally tried to destroy cells with soldering and have only been successful on one. I had to hold the soldering iron for a good minute at least. That was on the positive side and all I did was short out the little thermal overload fuse in all cells. I have soldered for 30 seconds or longer just to see if there's a loss in capacity, none. There's a huge difference in power tool lithium ion cells versus something you could find in a laptop. People don't realize how hot these are designed to actually get in operation. I've measured normal usage and 160F is common but most high discharge cells are rated for normal operation up to 80C/176F. Holding a soldering iron onto one side for 10 seconds may take a 70F cell up to 75F and 60 seconds a little over a hundred F.
@@sixtyfiveford thanks for the info!
@@Surmoka Soldering is slow and no where as compact as spot welding. If you're doing an entire pack spot welding will easily be 4-5x faster. Just replacing 1 cell though and 1 second vs 10 doesn't really matter.
@@sixtyfivefordtrue dat, but my spot welder is rather lousy. If I had a good welder, it'd be no question. For just one pack, I think I'll be good with soldering.
I just did the same, just with new cells.
The refurbished battery runs fine, but it cannot be charged in the original charger anymore. It reports the battery as bad
except that you really shouldn't put different battery's that have different usage or fire risk is very high.
The charger needs to hear what the battery needs. If not... It won't do anything for the weak. Brutal.
Can I just hae you do one for me? I'm electrically challenged...
If you take the shrink tubing off those cheap cells, you’ll probably find they’re all gouged up from being pried from other battery packs.
Absolutely.
cool vid. and it works. I too do the same thing for my battery packs when they start giving trouble. It keeps my tools going at a very cheap price; ....good stuff, take care, watch the dog!
Can you mix battery brands?
You can but what happens is undetermined. It may work and you may burn your house down. So it's a bit of a crap shoot. Odds are it'll probably work. But there is a chance things could go horribly wrong too. So do you feel lucky punk?
Thank you, great video, found out I had 2x dead cells in my DeWalt 4A battery pack. Couple of questions, my batteries only have markings "TBI6RX8", Google was no help in finding out what these are? And when I removed the tabs on the dead batteries, I must of punctured the casing as it made a wee hiss, if this happens I don't think I can recover other battery packs? Again regards.
so where the hell do you get the circuit boards? yeah, I get the cell thing and I have repaired batteries by replacing cells, but many times its the dang circuit boards - all the cells test good. also, what is that electrical flux? where would I get that?
JFC dude. You got Google there?
eBay or AliExpress. Generally the same listings for the empty battery case will have an option just for the circuit board for a few bucks.
@@sixtyfiveford I don't need the empty cases. I'm not going to make the batteries from scratch, I'm going to try to fix what I have. I can do the cell replacement (thx for the soldering tips, btw) it's when the boards go bad. You can't really screw up a case, but I don't know if I can trust the boards from just any cheap Chinese source.
@@johnboynton5649 Considering these are the same people who are making refurbed batteries and selling them cheap, sure, your 3 dollar board might not work. So just buy two, or just don't do this. But, as a contractor I have seen a decent amount of people using the knockoff batteries, which we can be sure came with the knockoff board. They worked.
@@johnboynton5649 what you need to do is develop trust in your own judgement of electronics. Look and learn. Know what to look for. Read the signs. Because it's all coming out of some cheap Chinese source today. Somes better than others though. It's a hard world to get a break in.
Omg you can't solder battery cells
Just look in the internet
Very interesting. Do Walmart stores have battery recycle bins?
Maybe Home Depot and Lowes? Having free extra cells even for a flashlight would be a big savings.
HD and Lowes. Directly inside the front doors. Just grab and go.
@@sixtyfiveford SHHHH, you're giving away the best kept secret! :)
I just had to replace two of my Milwaukee batteries.
Nice and expensive. It's always nice to have new batteries though.
Hell yeah!
YES! I you have a power tool, DON'T waste money on a Chinese battery pack! Been there done that, they are 1/3 as good. Then they quit after a year.
How to choose used 18650 suitable for power tool
PLEASE HELP ME I made a S5-18v but the drill won’t start unless you pull very slowly and then it will spin but can’t handle a load can you suggest why I built 3 packs all the same I folded the instructions to the best of my knowledge please help
Are they High Drain cells or laptop cells?
Where could I ask for stored dead recycle ♻️ batteries?
All that work for used cells, a craps shoot as to how long they last.
I just discovered this channel. WOW !!!! Amazing stuff here. I love it. ❤️
I can't imagine how high his IQ is.
Get a Roloc wheel for your grinder it’s basically scotchbright disk. They last a long time and are gentle if you want to be but they will strip paint if needed.
Nice. I need to do 20v dewalt batteries
What state do you live in? Looks beautiful there
Utah
I will be honest. great video. I will be taking all my old batts and doing this
3 horsepower diesel motor never charge your Electric car vehicle again The Florida pool pump motor bearing repair guy When Service Calls Longwood approved ! that was good info sixyiveford
Thanks for a really informative video with GREAT links.
Clever solution. We shared this video on our homemade tools forum this week 😎
AWESOME video and content!
16:31 jealous of the view.
What happened to that beautiful sheep dogs tail?
It was likely docked at birth. A common thing done with cattle/farm dogs.
@@sixtyfiveford that breed is the aussie farm dog, we do not cut their tails off. Its how they balance when running. It also shoos fly's away from their butts