AW 18650 reads 0 volts after charge; ticking time-bomb or no?

I received two AW 18650 protected cells the other day. They both read apx 3.9 volts, and I tried them out in my TK30 for a little bit. The cells read 3.8 volts afterward, and I put them both on my Ultrafire 139 charger. After about two hours both status lights on the charger were green. The cells were just barely warm, almost not noticeable.

The first cell read 4.21 to 4.22 volts. The other cell read zero volts. Today, a day later, it still reads zero volts.

Would the protection circuit trip at around only 4.22 volts? Can the circuit trip permanently?

And most importantly, is this cell a ticking time bomb that could detonate any moment??? I have it sitting in a glass cooking dish to contain anything that leaks out, but it won't help if it starts spewing fire and goes kaboom.

And finally, will a local recycling center normally take a lithium-ion battery like this?

Thanks for any help you can give.

I would put them in your light and see if it comes on. If not you may have to wait for the battery voltage to drop enough for the protection circut to turn it back on. Next time don't charge them over 4.19v.
Billy

put a small load on, like a 10ohm resister, a small 12v light bulb, some minor resistance, then test it again. many volt meters are a no-load type of thing.

protection should not trigger then lock OPEN, because as soon as you take the charge voltage off the battery voltage drops a tiny ammount putting it under the trigger point. it is possible depending on the protection, but unlikly.

can protection trigger at 4.22 , yes.

It is possible to trick protection, i have done it, but it depends on the protection type, but i have not seen where OVER protection would normally lock you out of a discharge.

is it likly that the battery is now unsafe? not really.
unsafe would be charging it when the CELL inside there was discharged way to far, then you proceed to charge it fast too.
you didnt even discharge it all the way according to your observations.
unsafe would be if the protection got Damaged, and a short occured.
unsafe would be if the anode disconnect is now triggered, because of gassing but only if it also unsealed.
yes it could be unsafe, i wont discount that, but it is unlikly.

i would send it back if i couldnt get it to work under various circumstances and let AW deal with it.

Billy Ram said:

I would put them in your light and see if it comes on. If not you may have to wait for the battery voltage to drop enough for the protection circut to turn it back on. Next time don't charge them over 4.19v.
Billy

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Well, it's not like the charger lets me dial in the voltage I want. It says the output is 4.2 volts, but obviously there's some variation and it's not 4.2 exactly.

This charger has worked fine with my Tenergy 18650s and also my AW 17670s, so maybe this was just a fluke.

I'll probably go ahead and recycle this cell (or contact Lighthound and see what they say) rather than try to fool around with it.

15 bucks or so for a new battery is a heck of a lot cheaper than the other things that could happen.


Thanks for the info so far.

If it is new, then return it for a replacement.

If it came to you used, recycle it.

I don't take chances with Li-Ion's that act strangely. Zero tolerance.

Greg G said:

I don't take chances with Li-Ion's that act strangely. Zero tolerance.

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Definite :thumbsup:

For anyone who hasn't seen it, this thread

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/262234&highlight=monster

about an 18650 lithium-powered flashlight exploding, where 4 of the 8 batteries were reading zero volts initially. Skip ahead to Modamag's post #94 on page 4 for his analysis. The 4 zero-volt cells may have been bad, then did polarity reversal when the light was on high, then .

Check out those pix on post 1! Blew out the sliding glass door just like a pipe bomb.

I had a batch of C sized Li-Ions of which several self discharged to zero sitting unused in the light. It was a multi Cree mag driven by 4 C batts. Possibly the protection circuit was draining them. Scared the ****ens out of me and I gave them away to a responsible user. When he received them he found yet one more that had drained and died.

edit. To be sure, the batteries were dead. I removed the protection circuits on the affected ones and checked voltage.

The zero tolerance policy sounds like a good policy on Li-ions. It's just not worth the risk to try to save a few bucks.

I'd still be curious about the failure mode though, but I'm not about to try disassembling the battery.

BTW, I don't think I'll try and ship it back because I wouldn't want to send the cell through the mail if I know it may be potentially dangerous. I may write a quick email to Lighthound tomorrow and see what they say, and I'll try to get some info from my local recycling center to see if they can take Li-ion cells.

And yeah, I read the thread on the TKM explosion which was right at the time I received these new batteries; so after reading that thread then I find that I also have a cell reading 0 volts after charging, so I've been a bit freaked out!

Just wondering - how accurate is the measurement of 4.22V?

Well, it's not like the charger lets me dial in the voltage I want. It says the output is 4.2 volts, but obviously there's some variation and it's not 4.2 exactly.

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Get a charger that doesn't exceed 4.2v then. Dump the carp charger you have an get a better one.

space-time said:

For anyone who hasn't seen it, this thread

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/262234&highlight=monster

about an 18650 lithium-powered flashlight exploding, where 4 of the 8 batteries were reading zero volts initially. Skip ahead to Modamag's post #94 on page 4 for his analysis. The 4 zero-volt cells may have been bad, then did polarity reversal when the light was on high, then .

Click to expand...

Not to drag this too far off topic, but....

The cells in the linked thread did not read 0V. The user didn't own a DMM. The cells showed no charge on a ZTS, and then were charged with a WF-139 which indicated (maybe mistakenly interpreted by the user) they were fully charged.

To the OP, if the cell's to be used in a multi-cell light, I wouldn't risk it.

space-time said:

Check out those pix on post 1! Blew out the sliding glass door just like a pipe bomb.

Click to expand...

It looks to me like the broken glass was under the balcony railing. The only damage I see to the door is the dent in the frame/threshold.

...sorry for the off-topic.