Electronics, Lighting, & Gadgets - Do NOT disassemble your lithium ion batteries!

I dropped one of my DX.com Trustfire 18650 batteries on my kitchen floor last week, and it stopped working. Thinking I might have broken the protection circuit and following the advice of many posters here and on Candlepower Forums, I decided to take the protection circuit off. I peeled off the plastic overing the battery and started to pry the circuit board off of the end of the battery.

The battery short circuited suddenly and one of metal pieces on the circuit started to glow and smolder, instantly causing the battery to become too hot to hold. I dropped it onto my carpet, took my shirt off, picked it up with my shirt, and threw it out of my front door.

It's sitting out there now. What should I do with it?

Do it again and this time make a video?

Sorry, I couldn't help it.

I had 2 batterys that stopped charging, So I did the same thing, I ripped it off, it sparked once. Now the batteries are fine.

you need to work faster.

If it is a multi-cell battery, the other cells could easily ignite. There may be a time delay between the cells igniting. I am not sure how long the delay is, but most of the time it can appear the reaction has stopped only for an adjacent cell to start reacting.

Here is some good information on this substances characteristics, protection measures, and safety issues.

http://batteryuniversity.com/partone-5B.htm

Here is a video that demonstrates the concept. I have seen a military demonstration of a larger battery that was as you can imagine even more dramatic.

http://www.ninjawax.com/blog,994,Demonstration-Lithium-Ion-Battery,0.html

I've read on a RC forum to leave it outside in a fireproof container for 3 days.

you need to work faster.

^.

I have thought about this some more. Anyone on the internet that recommends another person to open these batteries up and work on them is either totally ignorant or using very poor judgment. This is dangerous stuff!:notamused:

Uh ... after reading this, I think it will be awhile before I start using 18650 batteries.

Uh ... after reading this, I think it will be awhile before I start using 18650 batteries.Many types of batteries can be made to explode, not just catch on fire.

As for the OP, I think the battery is discharged, so it should be safe. Some people put them in a salt water bath. Check to see if you get voltage across the terminals.

Lithium burns hot. Got a class D fire extinguisher handy?

I'm pretty sure it's outgassing something flammable, not burning the lithium. Whatever form of lithium in there is fairly stable, as opposed to pure lithium.

There are plenty of burning lipoly batteries on youtube. If you constrain the outgassing, you can get what most people would call an explosion. For example, people like to put their lipoly cells inside boxes to charge them. If the charging goes wrong, there can be a near explosion. Just as an example, military surplus ammo cans with their lids latched will blow apart nicely. The model airplane guys used to use nicads and other battery technology. They put a lot of stress on those batteries, and would occasionally heat them up so much that they would explode. And they weren't vented.

A123 seem pretty safe. They will burn, but the examples I have seen have not been very scary. They do discharge quickly enough to be a problem.

Uh ... after reading this, I think it will be awhile before I start using 18650 batteries.

Any kind of battery will do this under the right (wrong) conditions. That's why every battery comes with warnings on the side.