Li Ion replacement

google 18650.

Thanks! Seems to be the right size and capacity; but I need something with *pigtails*:

"Of course, the battery has pigtails soldered to it so I'll need something with either pigtails or solder tabs as its replacement (I doubt I could add any sort of battery holder in this small space!)."

I haven't a clue as to how I could otherwise make the connection to the battery (without risking explosion/damage).

Ummm.... Find a picture of a pig. Note the tail. There's no semblance to a battery tab.

Ummm.... Google for "18650 tabs". There are also a mess of cells available on Ebay using the same search key.

I've also been fairly successful with soldering wires onto the cells. However, some cells use a stainless can, which won't solder. For battery pack rebuilds, there's sometime not enough room for the inevitable "lump" formed when soldering wires. That's not the case with spot welded tabs, which lie flat.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I usually cut off the spot welded tabs from the old ones and solder these. But don't know how LiIon react to heat. You've got to solder quickly with other types to avoid damage.

--
*All men are idiots, and I married their King.

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Yep. Same here. I inherited a large box of Metricom battery packs. When I ripped them apart for the cells, I kept all the tabs. They solver very easily and are quite handy. They're also quite sharp. I have the blood stains to prove it.

Dunno. I killed a few NiCads from overheating until I learned the trick. I have a glass of water handy when soldering on the tabs. As soon as the solder even looks like it's about to harden, I dump the battery in the water. That keeps things quite cool and prevents the heat affected zone from spreading.

buy cells with tabs. do not solder to lithium cells!!!!! unless you have very good fire insurance, medical insurance and a death wish. Your wife will be very angry six months later when the GPS sets her car on fire. So, if the battery doesn't hurt you, she will.

Just in case you missed it....DO NOT SOLDER DIRECTLY TO ANY BATTERY, ESPECIALLY LITHIUMS. People will tell you they do it. Are you feeling lucky?

You need a battery tab welder if you try to use non-tabbed cells.

Virtually every lithium ion laptop battery pack ever made contains tabbed 18650 cells. Buy an old battery pack and take it apart...carefully. Sometimes, you can talk the radio shack guy to give you one from his recycle bin. Or ask the IT guy at work.

Cut the tabs. You can (carefully) solder to the remaining part of the tabs if they're 1/4 inch or more without overheating the cell.

Your gps (probably) takes significantly less peak current than a laptop, so a weak laptop pack that's not completely dead may provide useful cells for your application.

Well, you're right. Heat will cause a Li-Ion battery pack to deteriorate rather rapidly. There's also the fire danger. Several web sites recommend against soldering directly to the can on Li-Ion cells. For example:

"Do not short circuit, overcharge, crush, mutilate, nail penetrate, incinerate, reverse polarity, heat above 100 degrees Celsius, solder directly on the metal can."

I guess I've been lucky as my method of dunking the battery into water after soldering seems to have prevented any problems. However, in the future, I probably won't take the chance. It's too risky.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Especially once you know what happens when you mix lithium and water - the lithium catches fire.

And we all know such batteries are so poorly sealed that water pours into them the moment they're dunked in water...

Yep. That happens with metallic lithium. Li-Ion and LiPo batteries use Lithium salts. These will oxidize violently if heated sufficiently, such as when the battery is overcharged or rapidly self discharged by pounding a nail into it. Lots of nice fires and explosions on YouTube. For example:

However, water incursion is a problem in that it causes the battery to swell:

The plastic encased cell phone batteries seem to be fairly well sealed. The tape wrapped variety found inside PDA's and iPod's are not so well sealed. I tried dunking a dead battery I pulled from an Palm something PDA in a class of water. It took about a week to swell. The LG cell phone battery did not swell after about 2 weeks. My guess(tm) is that the inside variety rely on the PDA, iPod, or phone to provide the water proofing.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

What I like to do with them is scrape out the Lithium and use it in the process to make Methamphetamines.

The Lithium Polymer battery is the most dangerous battery of its genre on the planet.

Not to mention a great source of lithium to aid in the manufacturing of Meth.

Probably, but a Sodium Sulfur battery is more fun because it runs at

300C:

Molten Salt batteries, which run at about the same temperature, are also fun:

Yech. I guess you're trying to reduce pseudo ephedrine cold pills with thionyl chloride. To remove the alpha-hydroxy group to produce N-methyl-alpha-chloroamphetamine you can hydrogenate that with lithium aluminum hydride, but it's easier to just use pure hydrogen gas and a platinum or nickel catalyst. Paint thinner, acetone, or kitchen drain cleaner will also work. The result is N-methylamphetamine and hydrochloric acid. Evaporate off the water and you have your methamphetamine hydrochloride.

There was a semi-abandoned shack near my house that was used for a meth lab. We didn't have a clue until we smelled the ether. One of the neighbors bought the house from the now impoverished aspiring drug manufacturer and discovered that the house was irrecoverably saturated with meth in the drywall and wood. They tried ripping out the drywall ceilings, but that didn't work. They eventually had to reduce the house to a shell, rebuild everything inside, in order to recover.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Note the following: ;-)

Thanks. When I saw these were commonly used in laptop battery packs, I just fished a couple of laptops out of the trash and cannabilized the battery packs until I found cells with "decent" open circuit voltages. Made sure I cut the tabs that connected them to their neighbors so I would have a fair bit to work with. Soldered some pigtails on and was able to replace the dead battery in the GPS unit easily!

Rescued GPS unit: $0 Rescued Li Ion cell: $0 Working GPS unit: priceless

I've never had luck trying to solder to these cans (partly out of fear of letting the can get too hot!).

I've a friend who will make me a little welder but I would have to fetch it from him (out of state) -- its just not worth the effort for something I do so rarely!

Thanks, all, for the pointers!

Note the following: ;-)

Thanks. When I saw these were commonly used in laptop battery packs, I just fished a couple of laptops out of the trash and cannabilized the battery packs until I found cells with "decent" open circuit voltages. Made sure I cut the tabs that connected them to their neighbors so I would have a fair bit to work with. Soldered some pigtails on and was able to replace the dead battery in the GPS unit easily!

Rescued GPS unit: $0 Rescued Li Ion cell: $0 Working GPS unit: priceless

I've never had luck trying to solder to these cans (partly out of fear of letting the can get too hot!).

I've a friend who will make me a little welder but I would have to fetch it from him (out of state) -- its just not worth the effort for something I do so rarely!

Thanks, all, for the pointers!

Yeah don't they use those for solar mirror array storage?

Acetone and Camp Stove fuel are the staple reducers for Meth cookers but they are looking for ways to use less volatile formulas. I guess from what I saw lithium conversion is stable but doesn't produce as pure of product but when you're hooked on that shit it doesn't really matter what you jam in your arm as long as you get a buzz.

Yeah contamination is a BIG deal. Just because the meth heads left doesn't mean the meth and byproducts left too. People hooked un that crap store it in the fridge right beside food, baby bottles etc....It's a horrible chemical and after years of use it absolutely destroys your nervous system.

The sodium sulfur batteries are used in wind farms and solar plantations for storing energy. Nothing like a few megawatts stored in a small space. The molten salt batteries are used mostly in missiles, artillery shells, bombs, and other places where you really don't care about the condition of the battery near its end of life. Add a little water to the metallic sodium, and you have a lovely hydrogen-oxygen seperator, which at 350C, will merrily burn the battery to the ground.

Note that the 1992 Ford Ecostar vehicle used a sodium sulfur battery.

Bringing topic drift to a new all time low for sci.electronics.repair.

It's all probably a government conspiracy to kill off the meth addicts by giving them a bad recipe and bad cooking instructions. Think of it as accelerated evolution and saving tax dollars. The good may die young, but so do the idiots.

What I find disgusting is that most of the building contamination problems are from the drug maker being in a hurry. Methamphetamine hydrochloride isn't carried by the water evaporation process unless it gets rapidly boiled off, which is often the case when the drug maker is in a hurry. If they took their time, it wouldn't make as big a mess. Kinda reminds me of my mis-spent youth making explosives. The survivors were the slow and careful ones. Those in a hurry checked out early.

Yeah, I've seen the results. Kinda messy. Standard procedure used to be to give the newly arrested drug user a tour of the local neuro rehab facility. That worked well for the recreational users, but not for those that were physically addicted. However, the courts banned this practice (possibly only in California) because it constituted "cruel and unusual punishment".

600 F operating temp! That's as scary as LiPO. Sorry I'd rather walk around with a pound of C4 in my pocket.

I don't see it as a low. I'd like to see everyone be well informed about something that has the great potential to cause them collateral damage. And if the topic drift is a result of that conveyance then so be it.

Well you take that chance with anything you inject but there are better ways to solve the problem. I know you were joking but these days it's easy to share chemistry over the Internet and basically that's what is occurring with the reformulation of rendering solutions. And you get to be your own guinea pig if you're lucky :)

Some former addicts turned counselors actually advocate the legalization of the stuff. They strongly believe that the death rates would start to decline. I don't look for this anytime soon seeing that the drug alone causes so many health problems itself in a short period of time. One deputy sheriff in Multnomah county started a Faces of Meth web site. I guess they have/had a bad Meth problem as it started on the left coast IIRC.

Some of the imagery is quite alarming.