Splitting CR223

[prof student]

Just MHO, this is an outdoor activity at best.

While I appreciate the goal of saving money, this is in the penny saved, pound foolish arena.

There are enough battery accidents out there. Also, when you have a short and vent the cells, make sure you have access to a local hospital with HF exposure treatment. In Houston you should be ok, as this is used in oil refineries as well.

Please consider not doing it.

What do you mean?

 

[prof student]

Has anyone had any accidents by using the batteries after you take them out of that plastic housing?

 

[Justin Case]

I used to do this all the time before 123A primaries got cheap. Years ago, the 223As were cheaper than two 123As.

IIRC, the cells in the 223As are spot welded together so you have to pull the soft nickel strips off of the terminals (pretty easy).

 

[ltiu]

Has anyone had any accidents by using the batteries after you take them out of that plastic housing?

Not yet. The split cells I have on stockpile have performed well so far. I have a few more"new" and a few in lights. I gave away some to close friends as well and no issues so far.

But I stopped doing it not because it may explode, but more because it is tought to do. I get sore fingers from prying the plastic casing open with a small knife and a screw driver.

 

[ltiu]

IIRC, the cells in the 223As are spot welded together so you have to pull the soft nickel strips off of the terminals (pretty easy).

This part may be easy, but be careful not to contact the positive/negative parts of the battery with the metal nose of the pliers.

 

[Justin Case]

This part may be easy, but be careful not to contact the positive/negative parts of the battery with the metal nose of the pliers.

Why not? The metal tool is already in electrical contact with the battery terminal through the nickel strap. What you don't want to do is short the battery to the other terminal. In the case of pulling the strap from the positive terminal, you esp don't want to contact the bare metal battery case, which is part of the negative terminal.

 

[ltiu]

Why not? The metal tool is already in electrical contact with the battery terminal through the nickel strap. What you don't want to do is short the battery to the other terminal. In the case of pulling the strap from the positive terminal, you esp don't want to contact the bare metal battery case, which is part of the negative terminal.

That's what I meant.

I could not have said it better!!!

 

[Justin Case]

In retrospect, if overall battery height is not an issue, it might be useful to leave part of the metal strap attached as sort of a connection tab. So instead of pulling off the strap completely (which is fairly easy since the spot welds are weak), snip the strap fairly close to the terminal.

Later on, if you need to connect cells together for whatever reason, you can connect them by soldering a jumper wire to the straps that you've left on, instead of trying to solder some wire directly to the terminals.

Same warning as before -- make sure you avoid shorting the battery.

 

[HarryN]

What do you mean?

Hi - what I mean, is that when / if these cells vent for some reason - a short for example, then the fumes are quite bad for you. There is a F ion (cannot remember if it is HF or something else) formed and released.

Exposure to HF is difficult (not impossible) to treat but you need to work fast and be prepared. I am not awake enough yet this morning to remember, but there is a Ca - organic ointment that is used for skin exposure and of course you need to breath as little as possible. You can find it with a search engine.

It is probably tedious, but if you do a search here on cpf either under my screen name, or under "HF" you will find at least one incident where the unlucky cpf'r had a primary cell "pop" in his room and failed to leave the room quickly. He also cleaned up the mess by hand. The next week of his life was quite painful but he did recover. He probably could have done better but the local hospital was not equipped with the Ca based ointment, and he failed to understand just how significant of a problem he had.

In Houston there are a lot of oil refineries, and HF is widely used at them as part of the reaction (I think an alkylation step). I am ASSUMING that Houston area burn wards are equipped to treat HF exposure due to this use, but not certain.

You seem like a nice guy - Please consider to do something less hazardous, or at a minimum, treat the situation for what it really is - a chance for a hazardous gas to be released. Chemist deal with this all of the time, it is just a matter of location, equipment, experience and precaution.

An apartment building, closed windows, pliers and no protective gear doesnt' quite measure up to the chore.