Charging dead 18650 li-ion (below 1V)

[emmanhello]

Hi guys,
Something weird happened here. Should I charge batteries that went below 1v?

How you did that, you say?
About 3 month ago, I bought on ebay a 6x 18650 Palight flashlight(like this one but Palight brand) To go with that, I bought 6x panasonic 3100mah unprotected batteries (because protected were too long to fit.) Item arrived, I was happy, I tested it out and didn't got the rated 7000 lumen, I was unhappy but everything worked fine.I put that light on my desk sitting there for about 3 weeks.

This is where the fun begin. Today, I pushed power button and nothing happened. I tested each battery with my multimeter and got between 0.70-0.85 volt for each batteries. Wow. Did that flashlight just drained and scrapped 60$ worth of batteries?!
Then I put them in my I2 Intellicharger. Battery normally charging. EDIT: Nope, charger don't charge them....

-Will they charge completely or they will be permanently damaged? EDIT: Yes, they're all scrap
-What should I do with this flashlight?
-What should I do with the batteries?

Thanks

 

[Redhat703]

My guess is nothing that you can do for those batteries. For the flashlight, you could use it with unprotected batteries but you'll have to take the cells out when not using it.

 

[Changchung]

The same happen to me with two sanyos 18650, I connect another battery, charged in parallel with the dead ones for almost 10 seconds and then to the charger... Batteries recovered...

Is correct and safe do that? I dont know but I will no lost those almost brand new batteries...

This happen to me because I leave it in the charger for maybe two months...


Sent from my phone with camera with flash and internet on it... :D

 

[jasonck08]

Hi guys,
Something weird happened here. Should I charge batteries that went below 1v?

No. They have suffered permanent damage.

Do not recharge lithium-ion if a cell has stayed at or below 1.5V for more than a week. Copper shunts may have formed inside the cells that can lead to a partial or total electrical short. If recharged, the cells might become unstable, causing excessive heat or showing other anomalies. Li-ion packs that have been under stress are more sensitive to mechanical abuse, such as vibration, dropping and exposure to heat.

Link: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

 

[emmanhello]

NOoo! 60$ that went discharged completed. It's sometime expensive learning from our mistakes...
What an horrible flashlight. How could manufacturer don't care about checking that? You know, it was a 200$ flashlight...

 

[jasonck08]

NOoo! 60$ that went discharged completed. It's sometime expensive learning from our mistakes...
What an horrible flashlight. How could manufacturer don't care about checking that? You know, it was a 200$ flashlight...

Basically any flashlight with a switch other than the one at the tail cap, is going to have some parasitic drain. Most name brand lights are engineered so this parasitic drain is kept to a minimum, and would only discharge the cell(s) in quite a number of months / years. Some lights however, have much higher parasitic drain. I have a dive light for example that would fully discharge a 18650 in 1 month!

It is an expensive mistake, however it could have been an even more expensive mistake if you charged and used these <1v bare cells.

 

[Changchung]

Not necessarily that kind of lights, the lights with press buttom or push buttom had this drain problem... But, I have a magmod with 4 18650 in serie and I am having the same problem, in my case just one batt is drained. The batt dosent dead because is protected.

I think that it is a problem with the 4 batteries in serie... In my case...


Sent from my phone with camera with flash and internet on it... :D