I was fiddling around some way to power my projects --- Lithium Ion 18650 Cells and found this YT channel - Rinoa Super Genius, he's building his own e-bike battery pack out of laptop batteries 18650 and he occasionally gets some dead Lithium Cells...
He showed that Dead Cells can still be used - but just has some Special way to treat them given their poor condition. He started with a very small amp rating - like less than 200 mA and was able to get the battery up to 3+ volts..
now i had this 500mA 18650 charger and some dead Lithium Ion 18650 cells that are below 2 volts. i put them on the charger and had it there for about 3-4 hrs, they're back to 3.3v!... max i was able to push in was 3.6volts!.. the voltage does drop like 0.001 in every 10 seconds on some cells, but i'm starting to think these cells seems still usable. the three laptop batteries i pulled these out from never got charged for maybe 2-3 years, but considering i spent no money at all for all the 16 cells i got- its a bargain!
He showed that Dead Cells can still be used - but just has some Special way to treat them given their poor condition. He started with a very small amp rating - like less than 200 mA and was able to get the battery up to 3+ volts..
now i had this 500mA 18650 charger and some dead Lithium Ion 18650 cells that are below 2 volts. i put them on the charger and had it there for about 3-4 hrs, they're back to 3.3v!... max i was able to push in was 3.6volts!.. the voltage does drop like 0.001 in every 10 seconds on some cells, but i'm starting to think these cells seems still usable. the three laptop batteries i pulled these out from never got charged for maybe 2-3 years, but considering i spent no money at all for all the 16 cells i got- its a bargain!