Electronics, Lighting, & Gadgets - Salvaging laptop Li ion batteries

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RickinFl

12-17-08, 09:46 AM

I recently came into a laptop battery that has good batteries but a failing charging circuit. I opened it up out of curiosity and found eight really nice 3.7v li-ion batteries. I'm wondering if there is any reason not to use these, along with PCB boards from BatterySpace (or somewhere), to build some 7.4v packs to power a couple of LED rigs I'd like to build from parts.

I checked the batteries with my DVOM, and they seem to be fully charged, so I'm assuming they are good.

I couldn't find any previous threads regarding this here, so I'm asking.

Rick

pieterv

12-17-08, 10:10 AM

In principle there is no reason you couldn't use those batteries, provided they are indeed still holding a decent charge (Voltage alone is not a good indicator for that, you need to run a discharge cycle).

You do need to be carefull, however, with LiIon batteries, as they are a bit volatile and can explode and catch fire. (As indeed has happened to some laptop batteries leading to large scale recalls).

Pieter

uke

12-17-08, 10:12 AM

I wouldn't. Protected 18560s are relatively cheap on DX, and guaranteed to be much safer than trying to impress laptop batteries into duty.