Where I live it is illegal to dispose of any lithium battery in the trash, discharged or not. They're recyclable and toxic to the environment, so recycling is being promoted heavily.
@@PatRiot- Going green. Buying plastic and foam and lipo batteries and charging them with electricity over and over for fun. I think if someone wants to "go green" they'd pick up a hobby that involved making forts out of dead twigs they find on the ground and tying them together with dead vines.
Best video of this type. Great commentary and details, great video/audio quality.
9 лет назад
When a lipo pack is "dead" for RC, it still has a lot of life for other, less than 1C, applications! Radios, torches, RC transmitters, whatever doesn't eat 50C. Reduce, Reuse, RECYCLE!
Pașca Alexandru "Whatever doesn't eat 50C" For some reason I laughed when I saw that. Seriously though, if a LiPo is damaged like his were (puffed) they are unsafe and should be regarded as garbage.
9 лет назад
EPaR - Aidan Gieg Puffed means that it had accumulated gaseous hydrogen generated thru electrolisys. The plastic jacket can be punctured, with much grater care and consideration than in this video, using a sharp needle to create a tiny vent hole. Obviously, the electrodes must not be touched by the needle, in any way. I poke it at a sharp angle, letting the needle enter less than twice the thickness of the outer jacket. Immediately after the gas was evacuated, the puncture must be sealed to prevent air and moisture from entering the cell. I had great success with plain insulating adhesive tape. Basically, everything most people call garbage is anything but. Most thing we discard are reusable, recyclable or recoverable. I own rechargeable batteries manufactured in 1954 that store 80-90% of the rated capacity. So, as long as the electrodes themselves are not disintegrated or shorted out, as it usually happens in 18650 and small, tightly packed phone cells, the cell is, most probably, usable.
And it is not through electrolysis. It is via the degradation of the electrodes due to damage or very very very old age.
9 лет назад
EPaR - Aidan Gieg I'll qoute wikipedia in here so you don't have to take my word for it: ~All Li-ion cells expand at high levels of state of charge (SOC) or over-charge, due to slight vaporisation of the electrolyte. This may result in delamination, and thus bad contact of the internal layers of the cell, which in turn brings diminished reliability and overall cycle life of the cell.[11] This is very noticeable for LiPos, which can visibly inflate due to lack of a hard case to contain their expansion. ~ And, kinda yes, it'd not _only_ electrolysis, it is, also, evaporation. None of the electrodes contain hydrogen. (LiMn2O4, Cu, C, Al. No H) :)
You'd find it much better to tape them to a coupler to see if they can pass an impact test.* * Warning!!!!!!!!!! Leave that to professionals. Timex watches take a licking but don't keep on ticking.
You know, that might actually be true, but if it is, I don't care. You're comparing a LiPO in catastrophic failure mode with a bus operating exactly the way it's intended to, 365d/Y for a lifetime of maybe 20 years. They aren't the same at all. Electric power isn't toxic.
Just put some electrical tape over the exposed battery terminals and drop it off at a recycling centre, it's not difficult and it doesn't involve hours of discharging and hammering a nail through a potentially volatile battery. Or as I like to tell myself: keep it simple, stupid :)
Although not mentioned in the video I totally agree with recycling of batteries. I remember in NYC they had a big push to bring in all your alkaline batteries. They were so overwhelmed that they then announced the manufactures are no longer using mercury in their process. It is now ok to throw them in the regular trash. The puncturing of the battery was done to demonstrate the energy left from the Salt water bath and to confirm for the video that when properly discharged there is no energy left. I do not recommend the puncturing of the pack for disposal. I don't know about the staples and Radio Shacks in other areas but by me if you walk in with a 6S 5000mah battery they get real nervous. The recycling statute say's they only need to take back what they sell.
Great video, thanks for doing this test! It would be interesting to see what the relative voltage is over time in a salt water bath - e.g. cell voltage per day of immersion.
Cheapest way to discharge them that I'd think of would be to put a 220-1k resistor across each cell (solder them to the balance leads, or hell, just jam them in the balance port). If you do any electronics stuff you probably have a bag of them lying around: each is maybe a cent. A 220 ohm resistor across a LiPo cell will pull about 16 mA; small, but nothing is corroding like in salt water so you don't have to worry about incomplete discharge due to terminals rusting off.
Thanks! I was nervous doing this the first time but I found your advice to discharge/puncture was quite simple & non-reactive :-) I used a car headlight to discharge a 3S lipo down to 0.1v, stripped & twisted the leads together. Left overnight & then punctured with a nail. In my case I used a 55W bulb but i think this will discharge very quickly (15 mins) & its better to use something with lower wattage.
Puncturing with a nail is unnecessary. It was just done in the video just to show the reactive pack from the saltwater bath vs the properly discharged pack. Once you discharge and confirm the voltage or lack of with a voltmeter then the pack is ok for recycling or what ever your local regulations are.
I'm sure LiPos shouldn't go into regular trash, discharged or not. They contain some fairly toxic chemicals that can leach out into groundwater. It's much preferable that they get recycled properly if at all possible.
In Brazil disposal of batteries in the trash is forbidden! Here all cell phone service centers and some electronic hardware stores have bins where we deposit our old batteries.
That was very helpful. I have a lot in saltwater right now that have been there for weeks. Would they be completely discharged by now? I might like to do what you did there. Thank you for your video!
Thanks for the interesting video! What about discharging and sending the pack to be recycled? Is it okay to just throw a lipo pack to the garbage? I'm thinking environmentally friendly.
I really do like your video, its an important safety message. Thank you. But I just want to learn. . Don't lots of these batteries have a voltage drop cutoff circuit internally that would stop the resistive load from discharging them?
Most rc battery’s rely on the esc and charger for the protective circuit i personally use lectron pro battery’s they are pretty pricy but not a single one has cough fire and had them for coming up to 4 years
I have a bit of a situation, and not sure how tto proceed; I have a small 1200 mAh LiPo pack that I've had for a good few years that is in a portable charger for an old Cig2O eCigarette. I charged it today and noticed that there was some slight bulging from the charger housing, and opened the charger itself to see how bad the puffing on the pack was. I know from past experience that the cells are around normally 1/8" thick. This pack is around an inch to an inch and a quarter thick, and looks like a new pillow. How would you recommend I proceed in this case?
Where can I buy the equipment to discharge the batteries. Any suggestions? As my first 1 cell battery had puffed over the weekend and I suspect is ready for the trash but I want to dispose of it safely.
Great Info, I guess I am better off with putting a load on the pack to get it to low voltage. One question though, my iCharger has a NiMh discharge function down to 0.10V. Can I use that instead if an external load device?
The danger of the batteries after being discharged, destabilized, and bathed in saltwater.... is next to nothing Even puncturing these with a nail after discharging was not enough to start a fire or even explode Maybe if you live 50 miles from the nearest recycle plant or turn in location This video might be something to consider
Full support. The danger is not only through the fire but most of the batteries contain a lot of other chemical substances, most of them poisonous. Although to reused some of the is economically (yet) not viable, they can be at least disposed responsibly.
Considered it but knowing that each terminal on the cells undergoes some level of deterioation from electrolysis and galvanic action. Your voltage readings would become inaccurate. You would need a test point that was internal to the cell itself. Even then some of the cells were partially breached with some salt water.
What about hard-case LiPos I have a couple that are puffy enough to push the case but not split it (it is cracked). Would the case explode at some point from expanding cells?
I had a few "scary" batteries. They was charged fully and i felt it was scary to use. I put them in the trash can along with flammable materials like lighter fluid for grill that wasnt really empty and it probably leaked from the bottle it was half full but i didnt need it anymore. The result? a destroyed garbage truck or at least fun for them to deal with
Weirdly enough, a 2S 6600mAh hard-case pack puffed on me right at the end of the charging cycle, so I took outside and let it sit in the yard for a week. During the week it snowed, rained, temperatures went down in the mid-20's at night and high-30's during the day. A couple of days ago I tried your technique of putting a nail through the pack... Again, the pack had spent a week outside in the cold, rain and snow but I haven't discharged it. When I drove the nail through all 4 cells on the pack ( it was a 2S-2P 7.4V pack ) nothing happened. Not a puff, not a spark, nothing at all. I threw it in a water bucket just for good measure but then again, no fizzing, no nothing, I was almost disappointed lollll
Hello Ed. I have a couple of old LiPo cells from a MacBook Pro battery (the famous bulging 2006 series) which got bulged. After trying to cut off one of the cells from the controller it turned out that the next one in the pack will start to bulge and so on. Since then I have salvaged the casings but the packs themselves are still somewhere in an insulated metal box in my garage, still attached to the controller. The question I would like to ask is -- why would this happen? Incorrect controller firmware maybe? Since both packs went on the same effect after about 313 cycles. Or maybe the heat from the full-metal laptop casing made it go like that? Also, what is the proper way of storing, handling and disposing bulged cells? Thanks in advance. - Ak.R.
Safe discharge is really easy. Just hook up a 6v halogen/bicycle bulb for each individual cell. Let sit for a day after no glow is seen then they're really empty. I do that with those cells I throw in my battery bin I once a year or so takes to the local recycling station. The advantage of using bulbs is that resistance is decreasing rapidly once glow is gone so it's effective a short - but no short when battery is full and a short will be catastrophic.
Its a very interesting video. It would not have come to my mind to drop a LiPo into a salt water solution. Interesting to see what happened. Resistive discharge is indeed the best solution. I'd recommend to get a decent charger / discharger, (for example a Junsi) which enables you to safely charge and discharge the LiPo battery to safe levels, preventing lipo fires effectively. Plus, instead of wasting resources, bring the LiPo back to the dealer where you bought it for recycling.
well first of all your saltwater discharge method isn't following the correct procedure. you're supposed to first resistance discharge them to about 1v for each cell. mix up 1/2 cup of salt for each gallon water used. leave in for 2 WEEKS. not only 3 days. here's a link to the manual on trakpower's website. manuals.hobbico.com/tkp/tkp-batteries-lipo-manual.pdf
I think it's a little easier to just hook it up to a load, especially since it gets the pack closer to 0 volts. Also, most chargers can't get batteries down to 1v each, most stop at 3v per cell. So you'll need a resistive load anyway before you even consider putting it in the saltwater. Basically, why go through the extra effort?
I'm sorry, but why make it so complicated. Some poor sap is going try and follow this and mess himself up. Most cities (U.S,) have free chemical disposals and will take it with no questions free of charge.
What sort of bad stuff ends up in the salt water when you put that cell with the holes in it? I know that there are some really bad chemicals in those batteries anyhow.
do it the fun way .jam a long screw driver through the body after it puffs and run . make sure to quickly turn back and see the flames. after a few minutes the battery will be fully drained and able to throw away after its cooled down
@@subscriberswithoutanyvid-tz1yb Close but I would tape them to the front ( pointy end ) of a 155mm dummy round. Fire in the hole!!!!!!!!!! That could result in two things. A kaboom in the barrel from compression or a kaboom on impact from compression. Or a big nothing burger.
Depends what your local regulations are. The point being and it seems some are not even getting. Is that the saltwater bath method, recommended by one of the hobby battery manufactures and others is messy and ineffective in rendering a pack safe for disposal. Any type of restive discharge method is preferred. It is no problem to toss any of our typical house hold batteries in a recycle bin. But to toss a partially or fully charged 6S 5000mah pack in a recycle bin shows disregard for other peoples safety.
I have to wonder if some of this is overkill. After all, vast amounts of materials are in garbage which could self-combust when mixed. I think the biggest danger is when it is in or close to your own house. Has anyone just put them in an empty tin can and covered with alum. foil and then thrown into the garbage truck or compacting dumpster at a transfer station? The fact is that only a tiny percentage of users are likely to do any of this stuff..
Everybody should be taking these batteries to a proper battery recycling center, just like most of the comments are also saying. An old lithium battery is the last thing any landfill needs.
+shaneman27 LOL I have taken individual cells charged to full and matched them to other of the same capacity and voltage. Have made numerous new 2, 3, 4, and 6 cell batteries from other packs that had 1 or 2 cells go bad. Yes you can do this with patients and a solvent for the glue that binds them in some cases. To the people acting like this is a bad idea or it would not work; guess what, its not rocket science.
Good video Ed, but instead of some fancy expensive dynamic load, how about just hooking this 82 ohm, 5 watt resistor across the terminals? At 12 volts, you would get 146 milliams of current. I wouldn't think that would be too much, to make the battery heat up.... When I first heard of the "salt water method", I was thinking, "why wouldn't I just hook a resistor across the terminals to let is slowly discharge down to nothing?" Unless you are in a hurry, and discharge time is a concern.. www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12554542&numProdsPerPage=60
+Ed Johnson been looking into how to discharge my 4s lipos faster than 2 amps....my lipo chargers set to discharge+ setting only pulls 2 amps and takes around 2 hours to empty my 10,000 mah (10.0)battery...and have that going I to a fog light in Italy assembly..gets quit bright but not pulling enough....ha do you make em pull more...when I put another light added to the other the discharge cycle shuts down......my chargers state that they can pull up to 20 amps....what's going on? I followed your link to that resistance discharger, but it's quite a steep price for me to use just for that.
Maybe this is a more affordable option. www.perfectregulators.com/Universal-Lipo-Discharger-Pro-V2 Please note that the perfect regulator only discharges the lipo down to a storage charge level 3.8 volts. It will not discharge down to zero. If you are looking to kill the battery for disposal then connect the fog light directly to the battery. What charger are you referring to?
Peter Brown take out the bad cell, maybe replace with some lithium 18650s from a bad laptop battery pack. if not you would still have a good set of cells. what you did here was throw away 5 good cells just because 1 was bad.
I reused my cells for a mosquito zapper. vaporizes insects with satisfaction. You can also replace the AA batteries of other electronics. I used them on a flashlight although the cells have to be kept outside, the performance is much better.
Hammering a nail through is not the recommended method of discharge. It was done in the video to demonstrate the difference between the proper method of discharge(resistor load discharge) vs the ineffective (salt water bath) method.
