09-14-2025, 07:47 PM
When I needed some test cells for spot welding, I looked to my laptop battery, which uses a 3S2P configuration.
It still worked, but not for very long, and would abruptly shut off when it said over 30% battery remaining.
3s is 12.6v max, 11.1v nominal, yet the laptop power supply is 19.5 volts. There must be some sort of voltage Bucker booster tomfoolery going on within.
The cells extracted from the aftermarket Dell laptop battery were 'Wintonic, 2200 mah' cells They are apparently a 6.6 amp(3C) continuous discharge rating.
The cell cans on the negative side were crushed inward with whatever spot welder was used, and the two cells in the middle which had their cans crushed the most, were the ones triggering the BMS low voltage disconnect, as when I discharged them separately they hit 2.8v when the others were 3.5v or more.
These cells with the crushed cans were not really great for testing spot welder settings, but better than nothing.
I recently rebuilt the Laptop's battery, using EVE 35V cells, rated at 3500mah capacity and 10 amps continuous discharge rate.
Mooch rates these cells highly, and My personal opinion is that EVE is one of the best cell makers, and the Eve 50PL is basically high discharge top dog21700, and the tested, but not yet widely available EVE30PL is the king of high discharge 18650's beating the very impressive Ampace JP30 by a little bit.
The 18650 Eve 30PL actually outperforms the 21700 Molicel P42A at 40 amps continuous. it delivers more watt hours, and stays cooler.
The Molicel p42a is a well respected cell, but is now approaching 8 years old since it was first released.
Mooch has made this chart below public, which shows the top performing cells at various amp loads. These do not take into account the voltage sag under load, nor the temperature rise of the cell, it is more of a which cell runs longest at that amp level.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/18650-2170...=web_share
It also does not take into account the cycle life, which like lead acid has many influencing variables. But the Vapcells(a cell rewrapper, not a manufacturer) which are rated at the top on low amp discharges, are thought to not have great longevity when fully discharged to 2.5 volts, and are also kind of pricey for that fancy colorful wrap.
I have some Vapcell 16340 and 14500's. The 16340s have a lot of sag but I always have them stored fully charged. No lithium cell appreciates that.
The EVE 35v at 5 and 10 amps is close to the vapcell n41, but is available for less than half its price, and probably has significantly longer cycle lifein the same usage.
The laptop had no issues recognizing the rebuilt battery and fully charging it. It ran the laptop for over an hour and was saying 67% and nearly 2 hours remaining when I shut it down. It really needs a full cycle to somewhat accurately estimate the time left, but 7000 mah vs a degraded 4400 mah is a significant capacity increase, and 20 amps of CDR vs 13.2 will also have the new battery last longer. The Mah figure is a bit misleading, when the cells are not used at 0.2C
I have 14 Ampace JP30's looking for a home. One is used in my Sofirn hs40 headlamp. I recently used it without the headstrap, but with the pocket clip, in my left hip pocket, using it as a road illuminating headlamp when Skating with Fiona. I just blasted it at the full 2000 lumen setting, and was surprised it never seemed to dim. The airflow over the body, and the JP30 battery laughs at such a low load, that it barely gets warm. With the Eve 35V the light at full output noticeably dims when kept at full output, and the light gets much warmer.
7 of the Ampace JP30's will be going into the cordless vacuum. I pried apart the casing the other day to see how it was built, and it uses 7 2500mah Sunpower cells, which are rated at 20 or 25 amps CDR depending on which website you want to believe. the vacuum struggles to do the whole house unless I am frugal with the motor's speed. The JP30's can deliver their full 3000mah at more than 25 amps, so in theory I should be able to do the whole house at full power, instead of having to slow it down to conserve the battery in order to be able to finish.
That will leave me 6 Ampace JP30's that need a home. I was looking at my 2.0Ag Ridgid 18v battery, and opened it up, and am thoroughly impressed with the design and build quality. I cannot see what cells are inside of it without ripping off the spot welds and sliding the cells out of the housing.
I am not sure I actually want to disassemble a fully functional 2.0 battery just to make it into a stronger 3.0 battery, at this point anyway.
Part of the reason I went with Ridgid was for the lifetime service agreement on the batteries and tools, but that decision was made before I got into esk8 and Spotwelding my own batteries. There is a plug over a screw which is damaged when it is pried out, so the LSA is no longer valid anyway anymore.
I'd only ever use it if the BMS failed anyway.
I was going to use the 5 cells in the Ridgid battery and install them into an empty 1.5 Ah Ryobi battery shell I have. This battery failed several years ago. It used 1.5AH LG cells with a 22 amp CDR. One of the 5 cells was below 2.0v when I opened it. The other 4 have been in use in other things since, and have a solder blob button on them, and 2 are destroyed by spot welding experiments, but 2 others are still going. they are down well below 1200mah though, and I have taken an angle grinder to their cans to remove all teh left over copper and steel spot weld experiments.
The LG's are from when the only way to get a high discharge 18650 was to have it be low capacity too, 1500 mah in this case. For comparison the 3000 mah Ampace JP30 can provide 36 amps continuous without overheating, and has a 56 amp temperature limited rating.
My Ryobi leaf blower cant really take advantage of the JP30's super high discharge capability, but would be a good recipient for the vacuum's Sunpower 2500mah 25 amp cells.
So I have more cells than devices to use them in.
My 22AH Universal AGM battery is now 6+ years old. When new it was able to just barely start my van's engine by itself, and recently was still able to jumpstart a vehicle, but not instantly, it had to feed the vehicle's drained battery for 30 seconds before it could.
I have been gifted 19 lightly used Samsung 50E 21700 cells. The lowest voltage one was used for spot welder testing, and was not ruined, but I have 18 more needing a task.
3s6p of Samsung 50E would yield a 30 amp hour capacity 58.8 amp continuous CDR 11.1v nominal, 12.6v max battery, which will be a fraction of the size and weight of my 22Ah AGM. I have a 40 amp 3S BMS for it, actually 2 40 amp BMS', with balancing function, I can use. So maybe two 3s3p batteries, as even though I don't live in a van anymore, I still think in 12 volts DC and am surrounded by 12v led lights and fans.
I also have 3 Eve 40PL's I can make a 3s1p battery with.
10 Bak 45D's I can make a 10s1p with, but already have a 10s1P of Eve 40Pl planned and half assembled.
The 10s2P of Bak45D I made in May have been performing wonderfully in my Esk8. more range than I really use, so I only charge to 41v most fo the time, and return to 3.4+ volts per cell, and the battery does not get hot.
I wore out the 8x3" Pneumatic turf / lawn mower on my front truck and replaced them with 9" x 2.5 inch tires which are made for a scooter, and are wobble free and balanced much nicer. Their ride is smooth and quiet, and my hub motors now have 105mm sleeves which ride much nicer than 90mm, but I lose some torque. but not enough to be bummed. I added a bunch of fiberglass to the skateboard deck to reinforce and reduce its flex. it is running very well and Fiona and I will rarely do less than 10 miles a day and sometimes 15+ miles.
She is now deaf, and has turned 12 this month, and is not quite the ball chasing lunatic and cormorant hunter she once was, but I intend to make every day with her count. She makes so many people smile when they see her rolling in her chariot.
It still worked, but not for very long, and would abruptly shut off when it said over 30% battery remaining.
3s is 12.6v max, 11.1v nominal, yet the laptop power supply is 19.5 volts. There must be some sort of voltage Bucker booster tomfoolery going on within.
The cells extracted from the aftermarket Dell laptop battery were 'Wintonic, 2200 mah' cells They are apparently a 6.6 amp(3C) continuous discharge rating.
The cell cans on the negative side were crushed inward with whatever spot welder was used, and the two cells in the middle which had their cans crushed the most, were the ones triggering the BMS low voltage disconnect, as when I discharged them separately they hit 2.8v when the others were 3.5v or more.
These cells with the crushed cans were not really great for testing spot welder settings, but better than nothing.
I recently rebuilt the Laptop's battery, using EVE 35V cells, rated at 3500mah capacity and 10 amps continuous discharge rate.
Mooch rates these cells highly, and My personal opinion is that EVE is one of the best cell makers, and the Eve 50PL is basically high discharge top dog21700, and the tested, but not yet widely available EVE30PL is the king of high discharge 18650's beating the very impressive Ampace JP30 by a little bit.
The 18650 Eve 30PL actually outperforms the 21700 Molicel P42A at 40 amps continuous. it delivers more watt hours, and stays cooler.
The Molicel p42a is a well respected cell, but is now approaching 8 years old since it was first released.
Mooch has made this chart below public, which shows the top performing cells at various amp loads. These do not take into account the voltage sag under load, nor the temperature rise of the cell, it is more of a which cell runs longest at that amp level.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/18650-2170...=web_share
It also does not take into account the cycle life, which like lead acid has many influencing variables. But the Vapcells(a cell rewrapper, not a manufacturer) which are rated at the top on low amp discharges, are thought to not have great longevity when fully discharged to 2.5 volts, and are also kind of pricey for that fancy colorful wrap.
I have some Vapcell 16340 and 14500's. The 16340s have a lot of sag but I always have them stored fully charged. No lithium cell appreciates that.
The EVE 35v at 5 and 10 amps is close to the vapcell n41, but is available for less than half its price, and probably has significantly longer cycle lifein the same usage.
The laptop had no issues recognizing the rebuilt battery and fully charging it. It ran the laptop for over an hour and was saying 67% and nearly 2 hours remaining when I shut it down. It really needs a full cycle to somewhat accurately estimate the time left, but 7000 mah vs a degraded 4400 mah is a significant capacity increase, and 20 amps of CDR vs 13.2 will also have the new battery last longer. The Mah figure is a bit misleading, when the cells are not used at 0.2C
I have 14 Ampace JP30's looking for a home. One is used in my Sofirn hs40 headlamp. I recently used it without the headstrap, but with the pocket clip, in my left hip pocket, using it as a road illuminating headlamp when Skating with Fiona. I just blasted it at the full 2000 lumen setting, and was surprised it never seemed to dim. The airflow over the body, and the JP30 battery laughs at such a low load, that it barely gets warm. With the Eve 35V the light at full output noticeably dims when kept at full output, and the light gets much warmer.
7 of the Ampace JP30's will be going into the cordless vacuum. I pried apart the casing the other day to see how it was built, and it uses 7 2500mah Sunpower cells, which are rated at 20 or 25 amps CDR depending on which website you want to believe. the vacuum struggles to do the whole house unless I am frugal with the motor's speed. The JP30's can deliver their full 3000mah at more than 25 amps, so in theory I should be able to do the whole house at full power, instead of having to slow it down to conserve the battery in order to be able to finish.
That will leave me 6 Ampace JP30's that need a home. I was looking at my 2.0Ag Ridgid 18v battery, and opened it up, and am thoroughly impressed with the design and build quality. I cannot see what cells are inside of it without ripping off the spot welds and sliding the cells out of the housing.
I am not sure I actually want to disassemble a fully functional 2.0 battery just to make it into a stronger 3.0 battery, at this point anyway.
Part of the reason I went with Ridgid was for the lifetime service agreement on the batteries and tools, but that decision was made before I got into esk8 and Spotwelding my own batteries. There is a plug over a screw which is damaged when it is pried out, so the LSA is no longer valid anyway anymore.
I'd only ever use it if the BMS failed anyway.
I was going to use the 5 cells in the Ridgid battery and install them into an empty 1.5 Ah Ryobi battery shell I have. This battery failed several years ago. It used 1.5AH LG cells with a 22 amp CDR. One of the 5 cells was below 2.0v when I opened it. The other 4 have been in use in other things since, and have a solder blob button on them, and 2 are destroyed by spot welding experiments, but 2 others are still going. they are down well below 1200mah though, and I have taken an angle grinder to their cans to remove all teh left over copper and steel spot weld experiments.
The LG's are from when the only way to get a high discharge 18650 was to have it be low capacity too, 1500 mah in this case. For comparison the 3000 mah Ampace JP30 can provide 36 amps continuous without overheating, and has a 56 amp temperature limited rating.
My Ryobi leaf blower cant really take advantage of the JP30's super high discharge capability, but would be a good recipient for the vacuum's Sunpower 2500mah 25 amp cells.
So I have more cells than devices to use them in.
My 22AH Universal AGM battery is now 6+ years old. When new it was able to just barely start my van's engine by itself, and recently was still able to jumpstart a vehicle, but not instantly, it had to feed the vehicle's drained battery for 30 seconds before it could.
I have been gifted 19 lightly used Samsung 50E 21700 cells. The lowest voltage one was used for spot welder testing, and was not ruined, but I have 18 more needing a task.
3s6p of Samsung 50E would yield a 30 amp hour capacity 58.8 amp continuous CDR 11.1v nominal, 12.6v max battery, which will be a fraction of the size and weight of my 22Ah AGM. I have a 40 amp 3S BMS for it, actually 2 40 amp BMS', with balancing function, I can use. So maybe two 3s3p batteries, as even though I don't live in a van anymore, I still think in 12 volts DC and am surrounded by 12v led lights and fans.
I also have 3 Eve 40PL's I can make a 3s1p battery with.
10 Bak 45D's I can make a 10s1p with, but already have a 10s1P of Eve 40Pl planned and half assembled.
The 10s2P of Bak45D I made in May have been performing wonderfully in my Esk8. more range than I really use, so I only charge to 41v most fo the time, and return to 3.4+ volts per cell, and the battery does not get hot.
I wore out the 8x3" Pneumatic turf / lawn mower on my front truck and replaced them with 9" x 2.5 inch tires which are made for a scooter, and are wobble free and balanced much nicer. Their ride is smooth and quiet, and my hub motors now have 105mm sleeves which ride much nicer than 90mm, but I lose some torque. but not enough to be bummed. I added a bunch of fiberglass to the skateboard deck to reinforce and reduce its flex. it is running very well and Fiona and I will rarely do less than 10 miles a day and sometimes 15+ miles.
She is now deaf, and has turned 12 this month, and is not quite the ball chasing lunatic and cormorant hunter she once was, but I intend to make every day with her count. She makes so many people smile when they see her rolling in her chariot.
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