Aged Li-Ions ?

[VidPro]

Lux brought up a good point, and i had to deal with it yesterday.
Li-Ion packs sitting on the shelf, or in some wherehouse for 2+ years before you buy them.

i was looking for a li-ion of about the right capacity, and noticing that some of the batts in that store, the packaging was yellowing, aged, dusty, been there a long time.
so i found me one that looked like its not so old.

But what about that?
we have Alakalines that are good for 6-8 years, Dated for freshness, but li-ion batteries rotting on the store shelf, after making it here on a slow boat from china, and who knows how long they sat in some wherehouse? or 2 wherhouses even, one before they went into the pack, and once after.
BUT
you wont see no "Freshness" date on the li-ion packs .

What think ye?

 

[LEDite]

VidPro;

If the new lithium ions were charged only to 3.6 VDC, then they will have very little capacity loss while on the shelf for up to six months.

I use a lot of lithium ion cells and some brands do fail prematurely.

I find that Sanyo, Sony & Panasonic cells last very well. Some I still use, are over 5 years old. They have lost a little capacity, but I would estimate that they still have 80% of original numbers.

Many Chinese & other "brand cells" do not last that long.

Larry Cobb

 

[Doug S]

For an extreme case of aged Li-ion, checkout posts 19 and 22 in this thread:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=108921

 

[matrixshaman]

I found an old Laptop battery pack a couple years ago. It was probably 5 years old then at least. I tore out the Sony 18650's in it and had no idea what they were or what I might use them for at the time (before discovering CPF) and they sat around my desk for over 2 years - they have been put into use just a couple months ago in both Incan's and LED lights. They charged up well and seem to be holding a charge well after some use - I have actually not found a need to recharge any of them yet. I don't think ones sitting on a shelf for 2 years would be of much concern if they are good quality.

 

[OceanView]

...you wont see no "Freshness" date on the li-ion packs...

This is a good point. I bought a new "made in China" Li-ion replacement for my old Nokia cell phone, and it crapped out relatively quickly. Runtime just took a nosedive after a month or so of use. It looked like a genuine OEM battery, just like my original battery, although this was before Nokia started using serial numbers which you could look up to authenticate batteries.

Since my phone model was quite old at the time, I was wondering if this particular battery had been sitting around for years and then sold off cheaply to me (it was very cheap compared to a replacement direct from Nokia). I guess it's possible that it was just a poorly made battery, made to look like a real Nokia battery, too, so perhaps it was not really an "aging" problem per se. But it really made me wonder about the shelf life of Li-ions after that.

 

[LED61]

I'll stick to advice stating "do not buy old stock, even at reduced price". My BB li ions have a manufacturing date. I think all li ions should.