Disassembling 18650 cell question?

I have 2 dead 18650 cells (one 0V, other -0.4V) that I would like to open because I would like to use casings.

So, what do you think, any dangers in this?

There’s one way to find out… J)

Stand back……. a little bit further :nerd_face:

I opened a small Li-Po cell once, out of curiousity. There was a sweet smell, then a bright white light. That’s all I remember. Some of this post may be fabricated.

You mean you werent curious? :stuck_out_tongue:

Flames and sparks ensue with standard LiCo. LiFePO4 should be less volatile and doable.

Bear grylls started a fire with it here, which is popular on survival shows… assuming they are real.

So, I did it :slight_smile:
what a painstaking process…
I was hoping to get empty cylinders but that stuff inside is so densely packed there’s no chance to pull it out without cutting the casings.
It’s really puzzling how they managed to cram all those insulation foils, copper foil, lithium and whatever it is so tightly???











At least I ended up with some copper foil for pill wrapping or something like that…

P.S. No bright light Chloe mentioned in this cells but they both had pretty nasty smell and one of them even had some smoke packed in but it escaped as soon as I opened it :smiley:

You are still alive! :slight_smile:
Good show!

Yeah thats a tad crazy. Hope you didnt get any fumes from the ‘smoke’ it set free. HF poisoning can be critically serious from what Ive read. Some dude, posts here I think, still isnt right 2 yrs after it. Apparently, never will be. Might as well have emphysema from the way I read it.

Kudos though, I have to admit I was curious about whats inside them. Just not enough to hack into one.

After seeing that, I’d say try connecting a cell in parallel with a good 12V battery and burn the innards to a crisp before you gut it. You know you gotta try it. With adult supervision of course. :slight_smile:

Day after and i feel fine :stuck_out_tongue:
supercharging it with 12V has 2 possible outcomes: either nothing is going to happen or it will explode/overheat.
One of the ways to get casings without “any” damage would be to remove some of the foils from center part with
a drill bit to relieve “material crammed” pressure and then just pull all out.

Your playing with toxic chemicals.

I was thinking of using one to make an old lumens project light out of a trustfire flame ...

A real 18650 light :P

maybe easier to just get some ultra- fake heatshrink

How was the other side? lol!

my idea also :stuck_out_tongue: I thought to punt RCR123 inside, tir optics, emitter, driver maybe even charging circuit :smiley:

Yes, opening lithium-based cells can be very dangerous, they can even EXPLODE. It should never be attempted at home. Being that they were nearly discharged, that helped avoid a bang, but next time you may not be so lucky, sometimes the protection boards can fail and give a false 0 or near 0 reading with a FULLY CHARGED or even OVERCHARGED cell which is more likely to go BOOM! or catch fire when tampered with. If you must dismantle one, use appropriate safety equipment and proceed at your own risk! Lithium is a highly volatile metal and reacts violently when exposed to air or water. the cells you dismantled were dead which means the lithium was used up and no longer able to react as readily. Try dismantling a new lithium metal primary cell and see what happens, if you are careful enough not to damage the cell inside the casing and causing a short, you can unroll it to expose the lithium metal foil to open air and watch it burn itself up. it also does the same with water, so if you want to save the lithium for some reason, dismantle it into oil so it cannot come in contact with air or water.

That is very nice instructing pictures ! I liked to pretend it was magic liquid inside but now I understand why cells need to be round !

Too late for warnings now :wink:

That is interesting to see! I am glad you are okay. I did not take any pictures of the Li-Po. It was the sweet smell that concerned me as I thought it might be ethylene oxide. :~

He finds some amazing places to get lost in!

I’ve been playing in the woods my whole life & I’ve never EVER found a battery or a cell phone or a camera!

I’ll be better prepared next time!