18650 terminal torture test

[WalkIntoTheLight]

I've read many comments on whether dropping flashlights is a safety hazard, if it dents the battery terminals because of the cell smashing into the spring or post. While I don't recommend continuing to use damaged cells, I decided to do a torture test with an Samsung 30Q cell, to see if I could simulate a horrible drop. Okay, this is way worse than any drop, but here is the results:



In summary, they're pretty tough cells.

 

[nbp]

Cool video, thanks for doing it. Good to know that virtually any drop a flashlight can survive the cell will too. [emoji106]🏻

 

[Lou Minescence]

Thank you for the video. Hopefully you had a face shield on just in case !

 

[WalkIntoTheLight]

Thank you for the video. Hopefully you had a face shield on just in case !

No. There are a lot of really stupid things I did in that video. Oh well, I do lots of stupid things that have nothing to do with batteries, too.

I should at least have worn gloves. But, I wanted to be able to feel if the battery suddenly got hot.

The battery is still sitting outside. I'm going to try to charge it up to 4.2v this time (I think it's around 3.9v or something), and see what happens. Maybe charging will cause some minor internal damage to become major?

I'm beginning to suspect that 18650's are tougher than what the news tells us. Well... until they aren't, I guess.

 

[LED Monkey]

I did have a protected 14500 battery that stopped working after a 4 foot drop on the kitchen tile floor that was in a 1xAA flashlight. I took the battery out when the light would not turn on and tried another battery in the light and the light worked fine, so I tried to charge the dropped battery and it would not charge, so I cut off the outer wrapping and removed the protection circuit it charged up and worked fine after that. That is not a major fail but the protection may not be as robust as the battery.

 

[WalkIntoTheLight]

There are good ways, and bad ways, that a protection circuit can fail. If you damage the wrap along where the outer strip goes, it could be bad! But luckily, they mostly fail to turn off the battery.

BTW, I did a follow-up on that torture test video. Sledge hammer vs. 18650.