Is my battery goosed ?

Metaxa said:

I have a Fenex E15 as my pocket torch and thought it must be time to charge it. It has a Fenix 16340 in it.
I have a couple of spare Nitecore RCR123s in my battery box (probably been there over a year) so I thought I would rotate them.
I tried both Nitecore batteries in the E15, one did nothing, the other flashed briefly and went out.
Got out my multimeter and both were showing 0v.
I have two Nitecore chargers, a UM20 and an i4 (fairly new). Both claim to be able to recover flat batteries. Tried the Nitecores in them both. One of them started recovering, the other displayed EE in the UM20 and 4 flashing leds in the i4 so I reckon it's goosed.
Question is, is the other one likely to be ok if it takes a charge (it wont be left unattended whilst charging) or should I bin it ?

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ChrisGarrett said:

If they're protected cells, you might have tripped the PCB circuit and that's why you're reading 0.00v.

If they're naked cells, you drained them flat and I'd just look at the AWT high drain 16340s at IMR batteries dot com. and go that route, recycling your current crop.

Some chargers can reset the PCBs, some can't. What you can do to reset them, is bridge both the positive and negative ends of the 'dead' cell with a good cell of whatever size and see if you can't get that working.

Paperclips, wires, a dinner knife, all might work.

The AWTs are $4 per cell before shipping, so you're not out a lot of cash.

Chris

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