This should be illegal… Battery Repair Blocking

Repower your devices with iFixit at iFixit.com/LTT
What exactly happens to those batteries once you’re done with them? And why is replacing them so dang hard? We explore the how’s and the why’s.
Discuss on the forum: linustechtips.com/topic/14115...
Find a battery return location near you:
USA - search.earth911.com/?what=Lit...
Canada - www.call2recycle.ca/locator/
Rest of World - Varies by country, check with your local regulator
Read "Nix The Fix" FTC Report: geni.us/NixTheFix
Check out THT Battery: www.THTBattery.com
Check out Retriev Technologies: www.retrievtech.com/
Buy 18650 Battery Holder/Organizer
Amazon: geni.us/oXmIMP
Buy iFixit Toolkit
Amazon: geni.us/BGhE1XD
Best Buy: geni.us/k74sAD
Newegg: geni.us/1bgwyEF
Buy bebob V150MICRO
B&H Photo: geni.us/9zMsqz
Buy 1900W Battery Soldering Pencil (It's... OK)
Amazon: geni.us/uA7DE
Buy Nickel Strips
Amazon: geni.us/1y3Il
Newegg: geni.us/1y3Il
Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.
► GET MERCH: lttstore.com
► AFFILIATES, SPONSORS & REFERRALS: lmg.gg/sponsors
► PODCAST GEAR: lmg.gg/podcastgear
► SUPPORT US ON FLOATPLANE: www.floatplane.com/
FOLLOW US ELSEWHERE
---------------------------------------------------
Twitter: / linustech
Facebook: / linustech
Instagram: / linustech
TikTok: / linustech
Twitch: / linustech
MUSIC CREDIT
---------------------------------------------------
Intro: Laszlo - Supernova
Video Link: • [Electro] - Laszlo - S...
iTunes Download Link: itunes.apple.com/us/album/sup...
Artist Link: / laszlomusic
Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High
Video Link: • Sugar High - Approachi...
Listen on Spotify: spoti.fi/UxWkUw
Artist Link: / approachingnirvana
Intro animation by MBarek Abdelwassaa / mbarek_abdel
Monitor And Keyboard by vadimmihalkevich / CC BY 4.0 geni.us/PgGWp
Mechanical RGB Keyboard by BigBrotherECE / CC BY 4.0 geni.us/mj6pHk4
Mouse Gamer free Model By Oscar Creativo / CC BY 4.0 geni.us/Ps3XfE
CHAPTERS
---------------------------------------------------
0:00 Intro
1:16 Cautions
1:32 Basic components
2:40 We can do this.. right?
3:46 Pack prep
6:47 Building the pack
7:54 Spot welding
9:35 POP
9:50 Back-up plan
11:50 He's OK
12:50 Mishap
14:02 Battery repair realities
15:10 BMS Types
17:20 Middle Ground
18:09 How YOU can help

[@7_7_5]

I'd love to see a tour on how these batteries are recycled

[@drsnowden]

I loved it too

[@BetteBalterZen]

Plotwist - there's nothing to show

[@technicaldirector8796]

Yes please!

[@DigitalLobstershow]

eh they wont they will end up somewhere in africa in a landfill.

[@anthonyjaccard3694]

Yes please

[@tipprich]

I've always wondered how they recycle batteries. A factory tour would be excellent second monitor content.

[@flexairz]

They don't... its chemical waste..

[@kennymuller3115]

@@flexairz right, because chemicals can't be recycled and because companies that do recycle chemicals would totally exist if it was not possible.

[@anthonydotmoe]

Ouch, delegating to the second monitor

[@songogu9]

@@kennymuller3115 5% of batteries get recycled. To recycle a battery is much more expensive than it is to make a new one... Same case with plastic

[@jacobs1047]

@@kennymuller3115 it's not that they can't, you're being silly to think that any meaningful amount of batteries are recycled

[@PapaLurts]

11:15 Yeah those sparks are from improper welding, not the cell rupturing. Just weld it again and it's perfectly fine. It may look scary but I've had way worse sparks when spotwelding battery packs and nothing happened. You'd notice pretty quickly when a cell is actually damaged because it would start spewing sparks, smoke and maybe even fire. That happens quickly IF you manage to damage it enough

[@PapaLurts]

@@Akkbar21 The source is my own experience. As I said I had worse sparks myself when spotwelding batteries. It's when you don't make great contact and end up vaporizing a bit of the nickel strips Shorting out the battery (usually) doesn't spark like that and just causes the wrongly placed nickel strip (or whatever is shorting the pack) to heat up. Lithium batteries may be volatile and scary but they aren't that volatile and scary

[@Thomas_Bergel]

@@PapaLurts well, you still sound like "dude, trust me"... (although it makes perfectly sense)

[@LiveType]

@@Akkbar21 My own experience also backs this up. If you actually rupture a cell, it'll get hot as "rupturing a cell" is called short circuiting the cell. Then it releases a ton of smoke and depending on how direct the short was, lights on fire. That did not happen with any of the sparky cells thus no rupturing occurred. Maybe it did and they just didn't show the "after" part, but I suspect every cell that they "ruptured" is just fine or at least in not significantly worse condition than what they had in the beginning. I blame bad equipment and possibly improper welding order/not well balanced cells from LTT's side as the general technique and spot weld settings seemed fine.

[@hessxpress3016]

I agree 100% I’ve accidentally shorted one down to 0 V and it got hot to the touch but never exploded

[@alexanderrichman8860]

@@PapaLurts I worked at batteries plus bulbs and i have rebuilt many a drill pack tho they are nickel metal hydride or whatever. same thing happens

[@doug9176]

There is absolutely no reason to throw those cells away. The spark is because you were not applying pressure properly and there was a small airgap for a spark to jump. Those were not ruptured cells.

[@snsayy]

That's what I was thinking!

[@j.t.johnston3048]

They're so scared because they really don't fully understand what they're doing.

[@cryingsurrogate]

That sight got my heart to drop, yep

[@Zensiji]

I want some of whatever you guys were smoking because I've had one of these rupture inside a vape and since then I would rather jump off a 3 story building than weld one of those with my face that close to the lithium cell without a face shield >.>. The vape shop just sets aside batteries they decide are even slightly compromised. Probably a good business practice.

[@OlegSven]

They just kept wasting batteries. Absolutely stupid without any understanding of what is going on 🤣🤣

[@CapriciousCurtis]

The tour of the recycling facility would arguably be some of the most interesting content you could put out. If it's possible, please do! Thanks Linus!

[@youkofoxy]

And of course point out the industry ups and downs.

[@MrBeanbones]

UP

[@blakeslocum2732]

I don’t know what kind of question that was??? Do it!

[@christopherjunkins]

Indeed!

[@shawnnettle384]

Same

[@tedubadu2536]

The tour would, if anything, bring awareness to how problematic batteries are when improperly disposed of. Please do the tour!

[@rydz656]

Easy, just burn them.

[@TopRacer2002]

Yap, same. Please do the video.

[@pihermoso11]

@@rydz656 back in the 80s we sometimes burned trash and with it some 1.5v batteries, those carbon manganese non rechargeable types, one time it exploded and launched into the air like 15 feet, luckily it went straight up vertically and no one was hit.. I've come to the conclusion that burning non rechargeable dry cell batteries are dangerous

[@MrJaiimez]

Also would just be hella interesting IMO.

[@domda9898]

Would definitely want to see how this works

[@DamnZodiak]

Bebop being the battery supplier for Arri is just so fitting. For those unaware, Arri's company philosophy is pretty much the exact opposite of RED's in every way. They started making film cameras over 100 years ago and went from making the best analogue motion picture cameras to making the best digital cinema cams. They realise that their products are, first and foremost, tools for professionals who need to do a job quickly and efficiently. They don't give a fuck which battery or SSD you use, because there are industry-wide standards that assure compatibility. They don't try to be a stupid lifestyle brand, upselling you on shit you don't need and locking you into a massively overpriced proprietary ecosystem. IMO the only reason RED has any foothold in the movie industry (looking at the Oscar nominees of the past ~70 years Arri has an absurd market share) is that Netflix required their own productions to be shot on a native 4K sensor and the only Arri camera you could buy that had that was absurdly expensive. That's why the Netflix market was and probably still is dominated by RED.

[@samantoniak1657]

Well put, and don’t forget they will sue any manufacturer who implements internal compressed raw.

[@user0K]

yea, Linus needs to switch to arris haha

[@ytrew9717]

ok, but do they allow the users, or even better explain how they could change the battery themselves? (Otherwise, it's just another way to make money)

[@proctoscopefilms]

Amen! Their color science is unmatched. Never met anyone in G&E that didn't fawn over their lights either.

[@mlw19mlw91]

note to self: Remeber this guy's post if ever I buy a camera

[@ericolafh]

I have designed Li-Ion battery packs for commercial sale and can say that in the case of high end smart battery packs with charge tracking and modeling capabilities, it is not a simple matter of just replacing cells. On our packs, the battery monitor chip required precise initial conditions for each cell in the pack in order to provide a sufficiently accurate lifetime prediction. Of course, the packs I designed were for medical devices, and I think equipment like cameras and power tools do not require that level of precision and I agree with the premise that batteries should be designed to be as serviceable as the use application allows.

[@HifiCentret]

Yeah. I believe most packs I've seen are just fine replacing cells. Of course capacity information after replace is is off and it's required that the cells you use for replacing can handle the conditions the circuit puts on them. For the capacity however it's usually a matter of fully discharging and charging them a few times and capcity reporting is about right again. No matter how sophisticated you try to make the measurement you just can't and it ends up being a qualified guess which tends to drift over time unless it somehow is recalibrated - and that is usually total discharge and total recharge. I agree medical devices can have special requirements. However unless a fever thermometer, ordinary blood pressure meter or similar non critical device you can just grab another off the shelf I really can't imagine anybody will risk going on compromise there.

[@WHATDATTOOLDO]

@@HifiCentret I've replaced cells in power tools a few times always worked

[@DrSloww]

Translation: We designed the BMS so that it won't accept a replacement battery to force them to buy whole new equipment, and we said "our equipment is too advanced to accept just ANY old battery! Just buy a new one instead!"

[@Skeys13]

@@HifiCentretid be fine with having US hospitals use only new medical devices but we should still let them be repairable in case other poorer countries want to buy them used.

[@FOATE]

Some BMS's have a safety feature that if the temperature gets too high, or voltage too high or low, the BMS will basically kill itself. For example Makita batteries have this feature.. I was working with a freshly charged battery outside in cold temperatures, and as the battery drained in combination with the low temperatures, the voltage probably dropped below the point where it would allow the batteries to be charged, BMS just permanently disables itself for safety. The only option you have at that point is to replace the BMS. In some cases even desoldering the batteries from the BMS will basically kill it.

[@jeffharro1]

I've done a lot of these battery rebuilds and just because the spot welder Sparks badly like that doesn't mean the battery was affected at all. That's just the spot welder reacting to a bad connection. So your batteries are fine.

[@ProfessorShroom]

yeah was a lot of overreatcing in this video

[@neb_setabed]

Yeah I was going to say the same thing, the shop that I work at mainly does nickel metal hydride and nickel cadmium and our spot welder arcs like that all the time

[@theairaccumulator7144]

@@ProfessorShroom its a linus video did you expect correct information and useful instructions?

[@monte0704]

I was going to say, lol. The spot welder is arcing, the batteries are fine.

[@RashidTak]

@@theairaccumulator7144 You're right, how dare they show safe precautionary practices to follow to a largely uneducated audience about the subject.

[@YSPACElabs]

When Linus turns the spot welder on, you can see the wires move apart from each other due to the immense magnetic fields created by the high current. That's pretty cool.

[@ZandarKoad]

I saw that, and I was like, "WTF. Those aren't water or air pressure hoses." Was wondering what made them move. That makes sense.

[@mikeg1212]

I noticed that aswell. I was like shoot thats heck of power flowing through those wires!

[@somerandomdragon4655]

timestamp

[@detroxx56784]

Isn't that Lorentz forces due to the generated magnetic field? Not entirely sure.

[@zxcvbnm2992]

9:32

[@mibars]

As a safety engineer working with batteries I must tell you that you should split an "evil" category into "really smart" and "evil". Why? Old cells may have increased self-discharge and if they discharge below certain level they start to damage themselves internally in a way they become unsafe when charged. Mildly overdischaged cells may be safely charged with a very small current while below certain voltage there is so high riosk of internal damage that it should not be attempted. Battery manufacturers take this into account by including a pre-charge feature, but also a lockout function which bricks the battery if any of the cells go down below certain voltage, say 2.0 V. Guess what happens when you try to swap cells and suddenly there is no cell? Yep, it bricks itself as a precaution. Now, that's a "really smart" battery that in turn is PITA to swap cells, but with a right tool a BMS chip on such battery may be turned back on. Then we come to "evil" batteries: They do the same, but they have ENCRYPTED BMS chips or even do some trickery to measure cycle count or cell capacity changes.

[@vhfgamer]

I have 18650 cells from laptop packs that were made before 9/11 happened, and they're still fine.

[@larzblast]

Therein lies the problem though. Nobody makes the reset tool readily available, so frankly, they're no better than the evil ones who encrypt. To that end, it makes more economic sense for someone to find an aftermarket BMS that will play nice or be sneaky and clip a few power supply outputs (at the appropriate voltage(s)) to the BMS before disconnecting the battery pack. It ought to be on the battery manufacturer to have a tamper indicator so that when it does go up in smoke, should the tamper indicator survive the blaze, the manufacturer can wash their hands clean of a DIY'er failing to repack their battery while still allowing the DIY'er to perform the task instead of gouging them for another expensive pack.

[@inventor121]

@@larzblast Apple's tamper indicator bricks their entire phone when tripped.

[@larzblast]

@@inventor121 We're talking about replacing cells within battery packs here, not batteries inside phones. Totally different paradigm (though Apple are evil for what they do with their batteries too).

[@alerighi]

It seems the same thing about inkjet printers: in the past my dad used to recharge ink cartridges, he bought 4 bottles of ink for basically nothing, useful to charge the cartridges forever basically. They could be filled by a hole under the sticker with a syringe veri easily. Then we bought an Epson printer, when it detected that the ink was finished there was nothing to do, it couldn't be reset. Even if you did refill the cartridge it was useless. Of course we did toss that printer away and go for a laser one, but still. There is no reason to allow the BMS to be reset easily: you don't need any fancy stuff, since the BMS is probably a microcontroller, do you tell me that you don't have a spare GPIO that can be brought out to a board contact that if connected to GND will reset that protection? Do you tell me that coding that feature requires more than 10 minutes? And do you tell me that you don't already have that feature for use during manufacturing, but you on purpose disable it after the battery leave the factory to avoid people replacing them? Well.... exactly as the ink cartridge, it's a product made with the purpose of being not user serviceable.

[@cooper10182]

A reputable recycling center tour would be interesting. Especially when alot of them send stuff overseas that just get open pit burned and metals skimmed off

[@Darer007]

If you go to Retriev's website and click on lithium ion, it seems like they also do this. "The metal-enriched liquid is solidified using filtering technology, and is sent off-site for further metal purification." Prove us wrong!

[@laser4117]

Having built multiple 3+ kwh battery packs.....those sparks weren't dangerous, they were just not having a good contact with the spot welder. If you had actually set off one of the cells, there would be smoke pretty quick.

[@lazymass]

Exactly, they were so blinded with safety and fear of lithium batteries, they overreacted to simple bad contact... Throwing out so much good batteries... What a waste.

[@AlexKiraly]

Ironically how a video about anti-ewaste turned into just that

[@sventassudas3215]

Correct, I also built few battery packs myself so I know what's up with those sparks, Linus is just overreacting so much needlessly. TBH, this entire video is kinda meh, I get it that this is not "Linus Tech Tips" forte, they are about more like computer-like components, not like about electrical engineering, but this video is just wack. I like how this video raised awareness on intentional e-waste that is created by manufacturers, I didn't like the repairing attempt video at all.

[@davealancaruana6727]

technical work on this channel has always been cringe-worthy, and today was no exception. The spot welder seems to be putting in a LOT more power than is necessary, I didn't see the batteries actually catch fire or short. Also, that's not a soldering iron suitable for electronics. While the RED battery packs may really kill themselves, I doubt this is true of the Sony battery pack. If I am not mistaken, the BMS will power down totally when the battery is low to prevent parasitic current - it will power up again by applying a bit of voltage (charge, ie) to the output terminals. Please buy a proper soldering iron, Linus!

[@alucidrust]

To give him a chance, this was most likely his first time doing this.

[@PoppyDefiler]

Would love to see a Retriev Technologies - recycling facility tour. There aren't many with the capability and expertise on the tech-field to ask poignant questions. Thank you for keeping it real for all these years.

[@phinok.m.628]

Unfortunately, most BMS in battery packs permanently "shut down" as soon as the voltage on any cell drops below a certain threshold. As always, this is claimed to be done for safety reasons, since if a cell drops below a certain voltage, it'll most likely work fine after being charged again, but it will probably still have taken damage from it. Alternatively, there may be a faulty contact, causing the voltage to drop, which could also potentially be a safety hazard. The thing is, the BMS doesn't know if it reads 0 volts cause you disconnected the cell, or if the battery or wiring is just unreliable. Obviously, one could easily add some kind of reset button, to "reactivate" the BMS. But the battery pack isn't designed to be repaired, and I'm sure manufacturers would argue, they prevent you from trying to fix it for your own good. It's the exact same reasoning all manufacturers use to justify making things impossible to repair. Anyway, if you really wanna repair such battery packs, you can of course just hook some lab bench power supplies up to the BMS while replacing the cells. It's an annoying extra step, but I've done it a couple of times and it works fine. Unless of course your BMS is so evil that it checks for jumps in voltage or difference in capacity. But I haven't stumbled upon such a BMS yet.

[@oluskloc]

Exactly, I'd just connect it to another similar charged battery paralell and test it. But there's big chance BMS lock down due to numbers of cycles or just shut down after number of cycles (or sudden capacity increase)

[@propheteyebert7063]

The BMSs I used, never permanently shut down. They simply disconnect the battery ground when voltage fall below a threshold. They will work again when new batteries are installed.

[@Sabadasz]

Battery recycling factory tour would be immensely interesting. I've always wondered what they do with spent cells, and how they may - if possible - reclaim used lithium

[@grumbel45]

1) The sparking here should be harmless, that's just the spot welder not making good contact (you can literally see that at 17:28 in the stock footage). 2) Wearing a ring while dealing with Li-Ions is a very bad idea, if that shorts across the contacts it gets hot fast and you might lose the finger.

[@BigBoyDuckie]

Exactly, i already got kinda annoyed that they probably threw those perfectly good batteries away. But props for doing it as safe as possible i guess

[@Cracked1ce]

This! It was hilarious to see them panic over nothing. If Alex was there he would have probably known it was harmless.

[@Caretak007]

Completely agree. I spot weld my own battery packs and sparks happen but the battery cell is unaffected. I have never had a cell explode from spot welding. You just need to monitor the cell's temperature and it starts to heat up then you throw it the sand bucket.

[@chaos.corner]

I thought that was the case. I didn't see anything that looked like a short. They could probably have guarded against shorts by using tape on the parts they weren't working on.

[@SuperUltimateLP]

This^

[@insanelywicked873]

You just need to apply proper voltage to the board right before you disconnect the batteries. You can also repurpose the batteries for things like Ryobi battery packs or portable phone chargers that aren't evil lol.

[@nathankeller7471]

ive rebuilt lots of battery packs. some tips to "reset" the boards are to attach the charger or power supply for a short time before attaching the batteries , after attaching the batteries fully charge the pack before testing in a device. also some boards have two test points you can short out to put them through a learning cycle where they will "scan" the new cells.

[@aurorakins]

As someone whos a huge advocate for recyclable batteries, i would love for a video in a recycling facility to make people more aware of the growing issue with non recyclable batteries in cars and electronics.

[@jamesdean8431]

Everything is recyclable

[@JamieReynolds89]

@@jamesdean8431 No it's not.

[@EmoBrianEno]

@@JamieReynolds89 with enough money and the right tech it is.

[@robbie007pa]

Or how metals and minerals are mined and processed...

[@OfficialExqui]

Every car battery is recyclable.

[@FlyMIfYouGotM]

A word of caution; Linus, you are handling these open packs and cells with a wedding ring on your finger. This is a really good way to loose a finger or worse! Never handle these cells or open packs with ANY metal jewelry on your hands, wrist or anywhere else that could potentially make contact. Rings, watches, bracelets or even long necklaces/chains are a big no no. Way too many amps, way too fast can, like a Vulcan Mind Meld,(Weld?), instantly make you one with the battery pack! For 40+ years, I worked with everything from mini computers to 3 Phase 480V power systems. I never wore any jewelry, rings etc. for this very reason. I just never wanted to forget to remove them and tempt fate. To the point of your video, the deliberate manufacturing of more E-Waste by manufacturers is intolerable and should be made illegal!

[@guruoo]

You can spot the most dedicated ele techs by a complete lack of jewelry, wedding, or otherwise.

[@alexlevoy9803]

I've hear of the danger of jewelry in the context of car batteries and residental/industial power, but hadn't considered that such small cells could output so much. Apparently the 18650 cells can output 30 amps each.

[@FlyMIfYouGotM]

@@alexlevoy9803 Those small cells can actually pack a really big punch. Lithium cells like the 18650's can actually dump even more than 30 amps if short circuited by something like a ring directly at the positive terminal. They won't do this for long before venting and very possibly creating a little Lithium fed blow torch on your finger. Not fun.

[@RolandoGarza]

Great advice!

[@Matty.Hill_87]

I'd have never even considered this, nice tip

[@alec7568]

I first learned about planned obselecense in my IT class. It blew my mind. I was thinking so many countries make big manufacturers adhere to certain emission regulations, but no one seems to carethat much about planned obsolescence except for the user? Just blows my mind.

[@TantalumPolytope]

yea since planned obsolescence gives them more money

[@alec7568]

@@TantalumPolytope you really think they don't make more off planned obsolescence?

[@ChurchofPirateology]

planned obselecense has only been around for a hundred years or so...

[@irregulargamer1352]

Ehhh. Sometimes people are just buying and creating a demand for products with too many bells and whistles, that and too many people do not bother to fix or maintain their stuff well. If you want a dryer and washer With 20 modes and smart functions to be affordable companies are just going to have to cut corners and the people that buy them don't bother to care about what it can handle or make sure its well maintained. It's no wonder stuff doesn't last long. My tip is to go simple but strong, don't cheap out too much and learn about what you're buying including basic maintenance.

[@Reploidx9]

@@irregulargamer1352 This is basically what I do, I will run all my gear to the ground and then fix it back up again. It just makes it a hell of a lot easier when there are manuals for stuff thats out of your comfort zone

[@williamdavidwallace3904]

Too many devices that still have life left end up as recycling because replacement batteries are not properly available. I think that standardization and government regulation are needed. Good video!

[@cryzz0n]

I've been fixing "broken things" well over fifty years, and simply hate the "throw away mentality", because it's such a waste, deliberate. I think you nailed it with "Evil". I grew up "picking the trash" in Chicago, and selling the really weird and cool things from a century before, bought lots of tools with it. I've only just begun delving into battery packs, just to look see, so far.

[@GarlicbreadmanOP]

Yes, a factory tour and a breakdown of the process of recycling a battery would be hella interesting! Do it Linus!

[@MJS-lk2ej]

"if you as a manufacturer have done this, shame on you" 100% of manufacturers just shrugged.

[@yuliangeorgiev]

These are crimes against humanity.

[@nuno-cunha]

@@yuliangeorgiev And you think the manufacturers care? They only care about money, sadly.

[@josir1994]

@@yuliangeorgiev manufacturers: we're using slaves anyways, you thought we'd care?

[@Qardo]

@@nuno-cunha Well, it is hard to sell things. When humanity is dead. So. Yes, they kind of have to care.

[@per4n]

@@nuno-cunha gypsy

[@Mike_droptv]

I've actually manufactured a wide range of the PCB's for ARRI. While they are an absolute pain from a manufacturing and assembly standpoint (IPC class 3, which is also the standard for some military and aviation applications), they got some really ingenious designs, I've never came across anywhere else. Also they seem to be a very nice company 👍

[@dcphillips1991]

I think this was one of the most interesting LTT video's in a while. I'd definitely like to see a tour of a recycling facility.

[@CurtisDoesStuffOnline]

Having worked at a "recycling center", I would love to see how LiON batteries are recycled.

[@socks2441]

i suspect they same way everything else is 'recycled'.. or shipped off to third world countires, or lining the dump . i believe its only about 20% of verified recyclable materials that actually get recycled, even when everything else is done right. i could be wrong, it was a long time ago i heard that stat.

[@aronseptianto8142]

@@socks2441 battery is kind of different though, it's a higher density product (price wise) recycling a 50c bottle just to sell it again for plastics that are only worth 30c doesn't sound economically viable but lithium isn't the cheapest thing to buy

[@socks2441]

@@djhokage1 no, i was exaggerating for cynical humour. i just did a quick google and in the uk its only around 40% of plastic that gets recycled. unrelated to batteries i suppose. but anyway, i too would be very interested in this process, and have no idea whatsoever how or what they actually recycle.

[@socks2441]

@@aronseptianto8142 true. but recycling isnt supposed to just be about profit, its supposed to be in place by the governments to prevent waste and pollution. i absolutely agree with you that that has very little to do with battery recycling though.

[@Michael-dx8qz]

@@aronseptianto8142 it gives you 30 cent back plus the clean up cost that the plastic would otherwise necessitate

[@im_the_spectre]

As someone who works at a BatteriesPlus, where part of my job is to rebuild battery packs, this is both incredibly impressive, and also gives me severe anxiety

[@chrownage8]

I worked at a few of them as well from 2008 to 2013. This video made me grateful I never had to spot weld lithium cells and for the jank designed bicycle pedal used to lower the welder.

[@ricb9689]

I was a store manager of a Batteries Plus for many years, went to the headquarters in Hartland, WI near the Ascent warehouse when I first became a manager for training and saw the big ole testing rack they had for lithium cells ranging from 18650s to cell batteries from Rayovac. They had me sit at a bench and spot weld a dyson vacuum cleaner battery and damn near blew my eyebrows off. While we were never required to rebuild lithium, tool and appliance industries are moving more and more towards lithium and we needed to learn. I just said fuck it and made our policy to just order already built packs from Empire or Ascent and forego the risks of loosing material in the case of a hiccup. The customer only has to pay like $10 difference for a superior product than a done 30 times to get it right rebuilt one. The owner of my store hated loosing money rebuilding lithium's anyway so it was an easy choice to opt out of that risk. As long as you stock and have the product you're golden.

[@girlsdrinkfeck]

i watch a channel called vortecks and he has done many battery packs for Ebikes scooters etc

[@girlsdrinkfeck]

he should also cover the cells he isnt working on in case he drops a strip across them

[@adiiew]

I thought sparking is okay while connecting batteries for a pack, I'm gonna be making my battery pack for my go kart next week. Seeing the level of caution over here and throwing the entire pack away at a spark gives me the feel I don't know enough.

[@chrisprobert6]

Years ago I was working at a golf course in Alton when a huge pile of lead acid batteries shorted, overheated and exploded. I was a few miles away and high up. The sight of the flames and amount of smoke was unimaginable. It took over a week to put out. Since then battery storage laws were introduced. You could still smell it months later...

[@geraldgoll482]

Excellent video. This is exactly the kind of thorough video instructional presentation that makes KZbin worthwhile. Thank you so much.

[@euledereulen]

Having seen industrial spot welding before: I dont think those sparks you saw where hazardous. They are just from the spot welding and not from a defunct battery. What i would worry more about is the fact that you can clearly see a red afterglow on the welded plates, which means you put a lot of heat into them.

[@SqueakyNeb]

I'm no expert but I was thinking similarly. The welder basically works by short-circuiting through the part you're welding, I'd be amazed if they never sparked. Poor contact on one of the tips I assume?

[@sorenfox]

@@SqueakyNeb bingo. It happens all the time with shitty tips.

[@memes4079]

this

[@jebus5656]

I too came here to say this. Dudes tossing undamaged batteries left and right

[@tuxontour]

Well an other hint is that hey were welding only one side of the pack at that time. There should be no possibility to create a short as the circuit is still open. Next with the sony pack yes sony has a chip that rejects 3rd party batteries but any BMS worth its money has also a undervoltage cutoff so after disconnecting you need to try to rechage first to try to reactivate the pack. And last discharge LITHIUM-Cells to about 3.2V so that the energy left in the cell is limited. A fully charged 18650 cell has about the same energy in storage as a .308 rifle bullet so allways be carefull - about a small syringe of arctic silver halve filled with gasoline for non US nerds sounds little but is sufficient for a lot of harm depending of how fast it is released.

[@martinkurien8813]

I have a few tips for you guys: 1. Take off all jewelry on your hands! You could easily accidentally short across a ring and end up with a horrible burn. 2. 3D print jigs to hold your cells 3. Use superglue to tack cells together once they are arranged in place 4. cut nickel strips on a router or drag knife

[@benclimo461]

That's what I was thinking. Use a 3d printer to stick them together, they even have a really expensive one too from when they made the case from a 3d printer.

[@jjjones6786]

Please don’t use superglue.. high temperature adhesive that comes on a role is the best bet if you can’t use cell holders as it adds a small gap between cells.. superglue grips the wrapper so tight and forms such a hard surface that it can pull the wrap off and cause a short if the pack is dropped etc..

[@nonsuspiciouscolour]

@@jjjones6786 Exactly!

[@dlewis9760]

I'd subscribe again instead of coming by occasionally if he got a horrible burn. That would be a must see video. That video would probably be the most viewed LTT ever. Stupid games DESERVES stupid prizes. Get er done, Linus!

[@faithblack3851]

Wait...So we're all just watching for him to blow him self up?...I thought it was just me

[@vaughnvarma8447]

You already have a lot of safety advice here, but having worked with combat robots in the past, one thing I thought was really clever that the safety team always had on hand, back in the builder's pit, was a bucket of saltwater, rather than sand. Rather than trying to keep the oxygen away from the, as you said, almost inextinguishable fire, it provides another pathway for the battery's energy to deplete, so you have less 'fuel' for your fire. At that point, the whole thing is a lost cause anyway, so there's no real harm in damaging anything else attached to the batteries by getting it wet.

[@rossmanngroup]

Future Motion with the Onewheel are doing this now. :(

[@DROGOC0P]

BMS shutdown is BS

[@johnburrows8281]

Linus, i understand your pain. As a battery recycler, including laptop batteries. All BMS boards have proprietary firmware on them thats usually password or code protected. The manufacturers call it manufacturers security access. They claim its for security when in reality its a money cash cow. There are several groups that have hacked firmware from battery controller chips and found all access codes. Black hat event anyone? A very clever individual reverse engineered an apple mac battery....clever stuff!

[@mikkelbreiler8916]

Right To Battery Repair ?

[@diehardAMD]

Right to Repair must be very independent of Battery Repair. Don’t mess with flammable in which fire mitigation does not exist in an extinguisher. Notice that Linus held an ABC extinguisher which does not cover electrochemical. BMS security is the only method protect idiots from either electrocuting themselves or burning down their houses. I’ve seen Linus do some dumb things, and as a practicing electrical AND electronics engineer, Linus has done several practices that are very unsafe but well enough with the budget to him. His budget for appropriate materials is likely much larger than yours. Do not attempt to perform your own battery repairs. However, other repairs on phones and tablets, by all means, go ahead.

[@SimonSays-]

@@diehardAMD Even if its not repairable by average consumer, it still should be repairable by 3rd party repair shops with tools and skills. Thus BMS security should still be able to be circumvented. How do you define what's too dangerous? People will kill themselves even with glass shards from shattered phones, since there is always one, or loose fingers repairing their tractors. Also by making "too dangerous" exception might just encourage manufacturers to make repairs dangerous.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

HACK THIS SHIT!!!! The Manufactuers shall see nothing else but our MIDDLEFINGER in their faces!

[@lazertroll702]

@@diehardAMD I shouldn't try cooking recipes then, b/c .. _fire_ 😱 Nanny mentality like that is blackpill enough to show that this generation is so f*cked & coddled ... that mentality is why we have incompetents like TrueDoh or Bidumb in positions of power.. Are you familiar with the prison experiment? People align to assigned roles. If you imply competency, then that will become the average behavior. Let the outliers take care of their own aspirations for a Darwin award; the easier they are to spot, the easier they are to mitigate. The bigger safety problem comes from gatekeeping knowledge: partially-implemented ideas are dangerous, so why not freely provide full knowledge to include hazard management - especially since curiosity can't be regulated?

[@BigBoyDuckie]

1. the sparks were completely harmless, thats just from the nickel. Ive done my own spotwelding and get that all the time, you even get it when you weld only nickel, without the batteries. 2. the bms probably didnt work because if it detects a voltage lower than ~2.8v per cell it shuts off to protect the cells (when you remove the cells this also happens) and you just need to charge it for a second or apply a positive voltage to the bms, to simulate charging

[@Ezio470]

some people here pointed out that it was the case for the sony batteries but RED batteries actually used volatile bms like DJI does with their drone batteries. However they can easily be bypassed by having a parallel battery with the same voltage connected before unsoldering used cells

[@ps3customgamer]

Those AC welders have a tendency to be crap where they can rupture a cell literally making a hole in the side. They should have been using k weld or a similar mosfet based spot welder.

[@internetusername9593]

@@ps3customgamer lol holy fuck. i really hope this video gets flagged.

[@tuff_lover]

@@internetusername9593 huh?

[@ps3customgamer]

@@internetusername9593 yeah there’s all sorts in this vid like lack of barley paper ends. Which help insulate the anode attached nickel strip to the cathode creating a short.

[@ausnorman8050]

Yes please give us a factory tour of the recycling plant! And I'd be interested to see what % they can recover now from old battery's and what the future looks like for recycling them. cheers.

[@practicalmedicine4359]

Definitely on the tour. There’s so much misinformation about various kinds of recycling it would really help

[@Pryside]

9:50 I spotweld a lot of batteries, and I can tell you the electrodes were not the issue. The main issue was the welding time, that timer you are using is literally making your batteries glow. There is way too much heat for way too long there. Use a spotwelder designed for spotwelding batteries like the kWeld. Your welder is designed for big metal sheets, not batteries!! Even if the batteries would have survived that torture, they would propably leak electrolyte caused by cracks from heat.

[@AmmarAbotouk]

Clearly they didn't do a good at this , I noticed that immediately

[@everythingpony]

Linus always messes up and blames others instead of himself

[@Michelino_M5]

I'm completely ignorant of these things, could you explain what causes those sparks they were getting? And why do they have to throw away everything after those sparks occurr?

[@coreymorse1347]

@@Michelino_M5 The spark is a short that potentially damaged the battery. They are throwing them out because damaged lithium batteries are dangerous.

[@brhestervids]

Yeah, I agree with you Leo. I'm an electronic tech and also weld and can absolutely say the weld time was to long.

[@00kidney]

"if you as a manufacturer have done this, shame on you" Frankly, I don't understand why we as a society in 2022 still tolerate and support manufacturers doing this kind of things.

[@TheGhostThatWas]

Sometimes there aren't any other options, and if there are, they aren't feasible for everyone. Same reason why Walmart is so popular in the USA despite decades of anti-competitive practice, destroying local economies, and abusing workers before Amazon took the crown.

[@EpicWolverine]

When most of them do it, it’s hard to find one that doesn’t and still has a good enough product.

[@tiaxanderson9725]

Because, for every industry, only a hand full of brands own the hundreds to thousands of brands you can choose from.

[@kakurerud7516]

Standard consumer does not understand the situation and corps actively hide this information. Think apple who deletes posts on their forums if anyone even so much as implies a iDevice can be repaired without going to apple.

[@LukasKristian]

We don’t have that many options, some big company like apple and in this case red does it

[@ja-qob]

It would be really cool to see that video! Especially since they're apparently a local facility, and that's always cool to see :D

[@landoc05]

I know Linus is giving engineers fits with this one, but IMO this is a GREAT video, showing a novice running risks and tackling a valid issue. It's the sort of stuff we tinkerers can appreciate.

[@TheStopmotionMovie]

Those sparks had nothing to do with the cells being in any danger, it was from improper weld settings/technique. I appreciate the safety concern but I hope those perfectly good cells weren't wasted

[@altersami9660]

Thank you! I was wondering why they were spooked with a few spark from the welder. While I don't have direct knowledge about welding tabs for battery, I was confused because I've never heard about dumping the batteries for something like that.

[@termn8er331]

As a DIY battery builder this was just painful to watch and full of bad information.

[@incandescentwithrage]

The first set they were worried about connecting positive and negative terminals together, but hadn't connected any of the terminals at the other end of the cells yet. It just showed a lack of even basic understanding of how a battery works. The BMS lockout on the red pack could maybe be defeated.. Discharge the pack down to 3v then put a coin cell battery across the the terminals while the 18650 pack is rebuilt.

[@DILLY_DING]

@@termn8er331 as a kid who used to take apart old laptop batteries and make my own battery packs with eBay bms, I am very confused with how overly cautious they are being. They worries about welding sparks whereas I literally used to solder them together. I also tried to make a battery explode purposefly and couldn't get anything to happen. They are obviously not toys and can be dangerous but not as volatile as made out in the video.

[@TosiKuvesi]

Yeah, I'd usually think that, if there's a big spark and you're not sure what caused it or why, exercise extreme caution. But even I think that was a bit over the top. Also, I figure the sparks probably were caused by sanding the welding tip, having metal dust on the tip would probably make the normal small spark just way bigger.

[@bitsbrainsandbeanies2527]

Would definitely watch a first hand look at the Retrieve process, sounds very interesting. I always have wondered what that process looks like.

[@TheZankoh]

It sounds so interesting that you can't be bothered to look up a video of it being done?

[@bitsbrainsandbeanies2527]

@@TheZankoh I mean, I could. That’s not the point. It’s my opinion that LTT does a good job with this format of video and I want to express to them that I would like to see more of this content. Believe it or not, when a creator asks for their demographic’s input in this manner, they actually do want to know. I’m sure it requires a specific budget to create, and Linus would like to know that if he does this, his viewers would actually be interested in watching it.

[@AndyChipling]

Wow, thanks for this interesting video, you are true helpers of the world, and shame on those who try to add extra waste to the world by not being able to repair battery packs.

[@tex_083]

Definitely interested in a tour of the recycling facility! Love it when you guys tour manufacturers like that. :D

[@flatearth9140]

THIS MIGHT HELP...kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZqYgWaNYqmtnLc

[@craftxbox]

There is a chance you had to put the battery in the charger to 'reactivate' the BMS, rather than it being the BMS having completely killed itself.

[@azayles]

Yep, had this happen to me before. Thought I'd hosed the BMS, but just needed to reset the microcontroller on it by charging for a few seconds

[@LinusTechTips]

Yes Tyler at THTBattery.com actually told me this and I have yet to be back at office to try - will update this post with the result -CW EDIT: The battery DID successfully work after popping it on the charger for a second! I've added a card comment in the video for future viewers noting this.

[@toobigtofit3584]

Yep. The safety ICs I work with also have shorting the pack- and the system GND to activate it.

[@teslatrooper]

This is a common feature on battery management IC's, they go into "shipping mode" when powered on the first time (ie after the battery has been removed and reconnected). This ensures that the batteries don't discharge while the device is sitting in a warehouse.

[@thetalesofdaneandco]

This should be higher up in the comments.

[@ZippletTech]

Thanks for the video. 2 major problems here: 1) After replacing cells, many BMS keep the battery disconnected from the output until a charger has been connected. You need to try connecting the charger briefly before testing the battery. 2) The sparks I saw seem to be from the spot welder, rather than the cells venting. Go through the sand box and I bet those are still OK.

[@docferringer]

That's what I was thinking too. He does comment about keeping the tips clean between pulses, but I don't know if there was junk on the tips or if he was anticipating a spark or an explosion, causing him to flinch a little and break contact.

[@KuroiRyuu]

Also BMS chip can have "kick start" protection when you should power up one of its legs

[@nukejunkie2207]

Yeah every time I’ve seen a lithium battery vent it was obvious and immediate. Like before you would have time to get it in the bucket.

[@TheSwiip1]

I agree with you. 1: yes, sometimes it's connecting the two poles befor and after the switching mosfets. 2: You can smell the electrolyte very well when you blow up the cell housing, if they don't smell a thing, it was just the strip exploding because of bad contact. ( happens often when i build batteries ^^ it's scary )

[@brnktv]

This ^ Such a huge waste of batteries. Their engineers should have looked back at the footage and been able to tell that.

[@paulstrollo3187]

great video! as an old navy trained EE and DIY EV builder, i am painfully familiar with the subject. Wish people would quit posting battery "fix" videos with no safety in mind. Clearly you knew what you were up against and were ready for it. Thanks for not hiding the failures, people need to see just how dangerous this can be!!!

[@paulstrollo3187]

forgot to ask, did you check the voltages of built pack? some BMS' cant handle low voltage so will have to charge cells before hooking to bms or not recognized...

[@mwbgaming28]

This is the industry standard, the way it works is that there's a fault flag in the BMSs memory, if a cell string is disconnected (even just 1 cell string), the fault flag is set, and the BMS won't output any power (some can be revived by plugging into a charger, but that is rare) This is comically easy to bypass, though it is a bit tedious You need cells equal to the series number (3 cells for 3S, 4 for 4S and so on) you connect those "bridging cells" to the BMS (solder to the tabs on the PCB) you have to connect them fully, including the intermediate voltage tabs, then you can safely re-cell the pack and the bridging cells will keep the BMS powered up and happy Then once the new cells are connected, you desolder the bridging cells, run the pack through a dozen or so charge cycles, and it should work fine thereafter I've been doing this with laptop batteries for years I have a thinkpad T420S with a 380wh battery, and a Dell latitude E5430 with a 160wh slice battery and 120wh primary battery

[@HCTripleC]

Neil Hamburger

[@clownrock9558]

As has been mentioned, some BMS's need to be "woken up" with a hit of charger before working fully. Also while replacing a single cell isn't always a good idea, you can use the good cells for other things. I have multiple things around my house converted from 2x AA or 1x 2032 to run off a single 18650 with a cheap 1s bms from drill batteries.

[@DoubleMonoLR]

You could also add a cheap DC-DC convertor to run 5V and other voltages,like usb battery banks do.

[@clownrock9558]

@@DoubleMonoLR Indeed, I bought some usb battery bank boards from amazon to reuse some old vape lipo's they work great for LEDs and arduinos.

[@SianaGearz]

An individual well behaved cell can pretty much always be used. If you notice it getting hotter than necessary, then you can chuck it. If you're going to put them in a pack, there is additional hazard. In most cases it's fine. But eventually you might encounter a cell that while it initially matches other cells, happens to degrade faster for some reason, then in particular if the pack contains parallel elements besides series ones, the neighbour cells may very well end up feeding the cell's unhealthy smoking habit. Odds are if you're attentive you may notice things before there's actual fire, but just something to be kept in mind.

[@wool1701]

If you're going to recycle old cells by repacking them, it's crucial to 1/ test the capacity of every cell, 2/ repack them so each group has approximately the same mAh total capacity, and 3/ use a smart BMS to ensure the groups stay balanced. Even then, it's more risky since the chance of an internal short circuit goes up over the lifespan of the cell.

[@PartTimeRonin]

For 1 cell you can also use TP4056 charger module to handle battery protection and charging (they even come with type-c port now) If your device use different voltage but not a lot of currents you can connect output to converter like MrMonotone mention.

[@Tristoo]

might have been useful to look into spot welding before you did this. those sparks were from the spot welding, not the batteries. if it were the batteries, the thing would have arced (likely no sparks) as soon as the nickel touched both batteries and any potential differential would have jumped across. the sparks may have been grease from your fingers or some other kind of oil or dirt. it's also possible you had it too hot and the metal vaporized underneath where there's not enough space for it to expand without sparking like that. this is standard in spot welding, and while it doesn't make your welds any better, still plenty of industrial sights just have the their spot welders configured to pretty much always spark. just look at any car factory video and you'll likely see just that and also, I didn't watch your diy spot welder video, but grabbing some TIG welder tungsten electrodes for the spot welding prongs probably would have been a very nice idea (as would have been here).

[@pearce05]

Another thing that might be happening is the dielectric strength of the air between the electrodes was low enough that the resistance in the metal strip, from heating, rose above it. So the electrons jumped instead of passing through the nickel. It's definitely not something to be worried about.

[@mikep8080]

I was thinking the exact same thing that they never youtubed how to do this LOL

[@4203105]

You can even see the sparks in the stock footage they used around 17:25.

[@kellyhiggins5703]

YES! I want to see a tour/breakdown of the Retrieve recycling plant!!!!!!

[@pols-czproduction2609]

13:26 You have to reset the BMS after the battery was disconnected, because it thinks its voltage dropped to 0V and is protecting the battery. To do so, just plug it into a charger.

[@czuk123]

Nope, eg Ti FuelGauge bms chips will detect that cell was disconnected and just refuse to pass power. Only way to reset/unlock is with i2c/spi AND cryptographic key. There are companies selling equipement/software to do this (they either brute-force, or exploit some vulnerabilities of FuelGauge chips) but it's quite price'y. Most (if not all) modern laptop batteries work this way.

[@andrekz9138]

HELL yes I want LTT to bring more awareness to battery care. It's mind-blowing how much of our modern lives are dependent on power storage

[@davidefogagnolo]

I recently tried mounting new cells on an old asus laptop, i found out after the replacement that the bms ic is hardcoded to pop an internal fuse when it detects zero volts at one cell input. The whole operation resulted in a big waste of money and time. By the way, I'm writing a master's degree thesis on active cell balancing, I hope they get more popular over time :)

[@traceparadox]

Hey can you share your paper i would really love to read it.

[@quanvuminh9727]

you need some tool from CN , they detect bms and 1 click everything is done , that simple so that why CN buying dead laptop battery for recyle

[@TheAceTroubleshooter]

Thats why you dont replace cells.... You "build" a whole new battery, different mindset, even the case for it, 3d print. Also.... An entire thesis on just balancing... Hmm.. I feel like a more exciting subject would be the difference between the traditional lithium cell and teslas new ones, mainly the internal layout and path the electrons take to get from + to - because that shits fascinating Omnomnom

[@luisfernando55]

@@traceparadox x2

[@mayorplayz]

Even though, i wont ever re-build a battery pack from scratch, but this is just atrocious, people who want to do it and have the equipment to do this should not be stopped in such a non-meaningful way, lets be honest, most dont have the equiptment enough to rebuild a whole battery, most will buy replacement pack from the manafacturer, the amount of people doing this will be nothing compared to the amount of people willing to do this, there is no profit of these high-profileic companies doing this

[@DrPeppa]

What makes this situation even more ridiculous is that these companies love to talk about how the "many ways" they're combatting e-waste, yet they do sh*t like this. They remind me of those annoying couples on social media who are clearly struggling in their relationship, but incessantly post about how much they love each other (you know you've all seen this before lol). On a side note, please do that tour of the battery recycling facility! I would love to check out their process!

[@lundebc]

Definately do the recycle visit, would be fascinating!

[@azayles]

Check that camera pack again. Sometimes if it's a smart BMS with a microcontroller, it needs to be reset, and typically charging the pack will do that. You only need to charge it for a few seconds to initialise the BMS, then it should output the voltage from the batteries. I've had this happen to me before when I've been using a battery pack in a project, and I've had to unsolder then resolder the BMS

[@ttomkins4867]

Some packs will self reset when installed into a charger, others (provided they are not an 'evil' one) require pack voltage to be applied to specific pins on the BMS to turn it back on. I believe the difference is if the charger can detect a failed pack and not charge it. In either case power from the pack keeps the BMS enabled, when the voltage drops too low (lower then where the BMS cuts off output) the BMS itself enters a fail-safe mode because if cells are that run down they might be damaged thus becoming a fire risk if charging is attempted.

[@ayuchanayuko]

Happened to me too to some repacks. I thought the battery circuit was dead until I tried to recharge it thru the device's charger. Linus can also lessen the number of cells he used. He really only needs one cell per series. The RED battery packs would've been way easier with just 4s1p. Better for novice repacking. Better a "lite" pack than a dead pack.

[@heikosale1027]

@@ayuchanayuko Those Red cameras are power hogs though. When they first came out, you couldn't even use most other V-mount batteries on them, you needed their special high-amp batteries. Nowadays I think all of the V-mount batteries are rated for high amperage because they are commonly used on LED lights as well, and they can draw a lot of power.

[@MyFictitiousLife]

I would love to see how a battery recycling facility operates... as it is, it's just not something I hear about in my day to day life and I would love to learn more

[@Mr.Unacceptable]

There is loads of information on the topic. It's better to get someone to build the pack for you unless you are going to do it all the time. Still though it's a fascinating topic. Watch out for the scam sites. They are just lying to you about some new tech that doesn't exist.These Lion batteries are going to get so much better in the next year they have solved some defects in the tech in the last year.

[@evolicious]

**shows dump truck dumping e-waste into a landfill** "wow, that was so educational"

[@cbflazaro]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5qbimWie5x_q9k&ab_channel=YOUCAR

[@Nate_123]

The battery safety info in this video is top notch, well done.

[@pengujedi4559]

Way overkill spacks were from the welder not battery damage

[@Nicholas-nc8ru]

Electrical Engineer here, Your BMS may require a "jump" before use. I would attempt to charge the battery pack with the BMS wired on and wait until the cells are balanced and then attempt to use the cell. Just a suggestion 😁

[@Prash1c]

Good point! Might not even be a volatile storage issue! Just not enough amperage or RMS Volts :)

[@Nicholas-nc8ru]

@@Prash1c my thoughts exactly. I know predatory anti repair/replace measures exist but its unlikely that semi common camera batteries contain them.

[@liquid74]

@@Nicholas-nc8ru I wouldn't be surprised if RED did it tbh. Their RED mags are nothing special but you can't use anything else instead

[@guilhermetorresj]

My thoughts exactly. I've repacked old laptop batteries and some of them were as simple as a jumper between the positive terminal of the last series connection of cells (the one which will read about 12.6V when referenced to GND) and the positive rail of the battery pack which interfaces with the motherboard.

[@David-uo4yd]

We are waiting for an Update about this

[@lapsmores]

I had a friend who recycled automated Walmart cart pushers. The batteries were sent to a reclamation facility but we never got an answer about how the process worked. Seeing it would be awesome and eye opening. Additionally the DOT has some strict requirement for transporting batteries which had a major impact on the cart deconstruction business. It might be useful to touch on that aspect too.

[@HBPowerwall]

As a DIYPowerwaller, I love how this was presented - informative, safe & entertaining. Its a pitty you couldn't revive the red battery and you wasted great cells in the process.

[@vladimirsamas3097]

Is good than people put this battery to waste .. after that's man how make thinks of old battery have more of them 😅😅😅

[@EbonyPope]

Why did they throw it away? They didn't catch fire. Just a little spark.

[@northwiebesick7136]

@@EbonyPope I'm assuming it has to do with the possibility that a spark can make the battery blow up...

[@1stAshaMan]

@@EbonyPope That spark can be the start of a chain reaction that has no other outward signs until it bursts. They're playing it safe.

[@jimmyb1451]

@@EbonyPope Because they don't know what they're doing and don't understand how a spot welder works. Nor do they understand how electricity works or what a circuit actually is. There was no circuit there, they had only connected to one end of the battery.

[@MrMattmoffett]

I'm glad that you have a good enough relationship with a vape shop to trust their batteries. I feel like that's an important part of any 18650 adventure.

[@SangheiliSpecOp]

lol

[@PrograError]

i don't suppose that's a nH code?

[@cosmic_gate476]

@@PrograError it's the name of the battery type for all the old fat vapes that no one uses anymore. I used to have one, not for too long though. I figured there's no point risking popcorn lungs when I don't even have a nicotine addiction.

[@Gorrilatagplushievr123]

@@cosmic_gate476 so you know nothing about vaping recently. 18650 is still very popular and they stopped using diacytl years ago. Popcorn lung is because the flavor is actually what popcorn butter is hence the name. Nobody has had to worry about that for years. Thanks for misinforming the masses with more anti vape nonsense.

[@5PYZ3R]

@@Gorrilatagplushievr123 not to mention cigarettes produce about 100x more diacetyl than vapes when they're combusted and no smoker has gotten popcorn lung. lol I've got an 18650 and a new 21700 box on my desk right now. but I guess he has a point, "old fat vapes" have been pretty much politically killed in favor of the pods sold by tobacco companies

[@JMcdon1627]

Well done, gentlemen. Thank you.

[@derrickbarge2012]

Definitely do a factory tour!!! Awesome video!!!

[@_fwfy]

lol, i was literally just looking up a way to recell my Thinkpad T430s' battery when this showed up, it's a small world

[@BattleOverride856]

Linus has been listening to your phone and spying on you lol....like Amazon and Google Adsense on phones

[@StrokeMahEgo]

@@BattleOverride856 Linus? More like Spynus.

[@TheIdiotPlays]

Good luck, I think those also have fuses that blow if the voltage goes too low. Be prepared to use aa batteries or something to fool the ic :D

[@zoovy7252]

@@StrokeMahEgo spynus 🤣🤣

[@rkan2]

@@TheIdiotPlays Yes, you need to first match the new cells with the old cells and then have a power supply always provide the old cell voltage to the BMS when replacing the batteries...

[@3dduff]

As you commented, since almost everything we use these days has batteries, I would love to see how the old dead bricks do get recycled. The upside is that you would be raising the awareness of battery waste and encouraging your viewers to take it more seriously. Again you guys have made a great piece of content. Thank you.

[@Psycogamingoutdoors]

Often the charge is first discharged with salty water to make them safe to handle to begin with. especially with potentially unstable / no terminals to discharge from. would be interesting to see rest of the steps for sure.

[@Its_Onion]

even though it sounds like the first chip was already gone from disconnected the battery... the first thing i would do is hook up the battery and THEN disconnect the first to avoid any cut off protection

[@wheresmykeys]

Please do a tour of the recycling facility! That would be so interesting

[@InnerBushman]

Late to the party again, but: TL;DR: TRY CHARGING FIRST! Long story long: Some BMS are disabled by default until you apply charging voltage to the connector. This is a safety measure to allow the BMS to evaluate the cells before it allows to draw any current from them. Background: I used to refurbish laptop batteries for a living. I also developed a product with 18650 battery pack on the inside and had to do some reading on BMS chips. Of course there are some BMSes with a kill-switch. It's a kind of one-time fuse which can be tripped by the electronics if they detect a fault condition. One of the fault conditions detected by the BMS was "any voltage missing". So basically desoldering any wire would instantly kill the BMS PCB (there were workarounds for this tho). I hope you LTT guys actually read those comments cause this video deserves a "Part Two: Success!" PS: it wasn't clear from the video material provided but some of the sparks that made you panic could have just been your spot welder arcing.

[@jangebhart1378]

Exactly!

[@allanbruce9473]

I'd be interested in your comments on Panasonic Toughbook battery cell replacement DIY....specifically the CF-5x series. Thanks -

[@ForwardEngineering]

A big thing people miss is that a lot of bms's are essentially "off" when freshly hooked up. You have to supply a charge current to them let's say it's a 4s Lifepo4 pack you can hit it with something like 14volts and 1 amp for a couple seconds. After that the BMS Remains on.

[@juliettaylorswift]

so you're saying linus turned it off, but didn't turn it back on (assuming they weren't evil bms)?

[@dtibor5903]

Yep, exactly, many don't start on their own just by connecting to the battery. This is a safety feature. Most BMS controller chips are from a well known manufacturers, so you can find detailed docs about how they start and work.

[@davidstech1445]

Exactly! That Sony cell needed some voltage applied to its terminals to come back to life. A few of the packs Linus put in the sand because of sparks, just seemed to be some molten nickel flying away, not electrical shorting too. It would be interesting if Linus were to have a look at the ICs on the BMS and look up the datasheets on them, they are readily accessible, and I have replaced a few.

[@Magneticitist]

@@davidstech1445 Yep def just some molten chunks and he tossed a good set of batteries. All BMS boards I've ever bought did also indeed require a charge voltage be applied to the pack after an overcurrent trip before the output mosfets would turn back on.

[@LEXXIUS]

Would be cool if Linus revisited this topic with this information.

[@Gavrev]

The evil BMS reminds me of the trick that Epson used to employ (maybe they still do?) in their laser printer photoconductor units. The unit had a fuse which would blow the instant you fitted the new unit into the printer. This would trigger a counter in the software which would count down until reaching zero. The printer would then reject the fitted unit and insist on a new one, even though the "old" unit was good for at least four times round the merry go rounds of counter life - something we discovered after investing in a bag of replacement glass fuses..

[@TkTzzz]

Love one trick on Xerox printers I had in my previous work, if you try to print a banknote (definetly USD and Euros) it will show an error and if you try to print it the second time it will brick your printer.

[@H3wastooshort]

I got an OKI C511 that does the exact same thing from my old school. At least i could trick it with some software menus so it only complains after ~10 printjobs after wich you just turn it off and on again but who cares free color laser printer.

[@DarrenLewarne]

Yea lots of lasers still do this, madness it is

[@H3wastooshort]

@@DarrenLewarne some day i will open it up and put in a small polyfuse to shut it up permanently by just resetting to 100% every boot

[@Gavrev]

Remarkable stuff peeps!

[@nicholasortiz2027]

I would love to see a video about the Battery Recycling Plant! Sounds really interesting and that information could be very useful as well.

[@MrEbb317]

I would love to see a tour of Recycler plant, I am so glad I watched your video I have been hanging on to 100 or so of old equipment with the thought of repairing my self but upgrading to lithium cells nothing as big as your red cells but I learned something very important i going to review your kits instead

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Did you try charging that Sony pack ? Could just be that it shut off due to undervoltage, and charging could have reset it

[@CountParadox]

Put it on chaaarrrggggeeeee it's sleeping

[@enweave]

My thoughts exactly! As far as I know, for many BMS boards a reset is required after a cell swap. Connecting a charger usually does the trick, if you are lucky. But sometimes you may be not, like when battery board has a gas gauge chip - this is a whole another world of hassle))

[@kyoudaiken]

@@CountParadox That's true. You need to wake up the BMS most of the time. This is normal behavior. Also you should charge the pack through the BMS as well.

[@infamy4k]

A lot of BMS if disconnect from batteries go into a sleep mode, and to wake them up, you just need to provide charging voltage to them on the output.... Charge then test!

[@berniwa]

Most lithium battery protection circuits will remain disabled for safety until they are first charged (TI, OnSemi, ...). So the pack was probably perfectly fine, you just needed to connect it to a charger once, as mike pointed out.

[@NsRhea]

I love these types of videos and would love a permanent "Watchmen" style content from LTT. Nobody watches these manufacturers. We see it here with batteries. We saw it with the HDMI cables. Your new work space is perfect for buying, testing, and 'keeping them honest' videos for years to come.

[@0Aberration]

It took me a second to figure that you meant "Watchmen" as oversight into corporate practices, and not Linus as a naked blue superhero.

[@neon_necromunda]

@@0Aberration its linus so surely he'd be a pink superhero lol

[@NsRhea]

@@0Aberration No, I meant giant naked blue man.

[@joeloden9466]

Definitely would love to see a tour of a battery recycling plant.

[@smdforce3174]

Thank you for the helpful information.

[@oilybrakes]

15:58 Nah, Linus. The "evil" BMS is in every single removable laptop battery out there. In order to swap cells in such a battery, you would have to clamp an external voltage source onto the leads of the not yet dead but week cell, then cut out the cell and solder on a new one, all with the external voltage source still attached, which will mask the removal of the original cell and thus the BMS won't notice. A difficult task imo.

[@carpetdm9635]

"Difficult"? That's near death level difficult ! One mishap and you'll be seeing God.

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

@@carpetdm9635 I think a dead BMS is more likely than seeing god in this scenario

[@FloTheBestEver]

But even if you accomplished the cell swap, the BMS might shut down on you after 1 or 2 cycles when it has detected a rapid change in capacity. Had this happen to me before.

[@Bob23610]

Linus did you try to recharge the pack after swapping the cells as some have safety not to discharge after the pack goes under a voltage's =P

[@HG-fw8hn]

I doubt the BMS firmware is encrypted. Question of dumping, editing and rewriting the ROM

[@kelm102]

I, and some people I knew, was into RC car racing at some point when I was younger, right around the time LiPo batteries became common use. I've seen my fair share of battery fires from shortages, so I just nod my head in agreement every time someone, like Linus, mentions how gnarly they can be when they short out. Shit's no joke people.

[@SobboMonkeVR]

i stuck 2 screwdrivers into one and bridged both of em and put my tongue on it :)

[@Bird-nx5ef]

@@SobboMonkeVR That is not something to be proud of

[@conduit64]

I had a battery powered desk fan blow up on me just a few months ago. Luckily I was able to quickly put out the fire and the only real casualty was the fan it's self.

[@literallyhuman5990]

I've seen a battery explosion, but not from an RC car. But from a Dry car battery. It's horrifying. I'm still thankful to God that I'm still alive.

[@linuxlinux9914]

Lipo batterys are way more dangerous then lithuim ion batterys. Huge reason why they are less likely to be used now a days.

[@KathrynLee5456]

Thanks for the education!!! Well done!

[@mum4w]

Please tour Retriev! That facility is absolutely gorgeous and the work they do is amazing. (Biased as I am technically a Retriev affiliated employee)

[@gamingmarcus]

I love that you use your platform to bring attention to these types of issues. Keep pushing for Right to Repair! I'm looking forward to the battery recycling video.

[@Nyte1997]

The precut nickel strips has fuse on them. So whenever they short, the strips automatically melts then disconnects them to the pack. Lowering the amps on the spot wield would reduce the chances of you having a spark.

[@Knebebelmeyer]

yes...he probably shot out while welding! its only a small cap between the posts on the top side of the battery!

[@Nyte1997]

@@Knebebelmeyer Due to the high current he is probably producing high temperatures which will melt the insulated cover of the battery which will expose the negative part of the battery. It would have been better if he lowered the current and cut those nickel strips to the appropriate length to prevent any contact from the negative part of the battery when you're wielding on the positive part, as the whole body of the battery is negative except from the small circle which is the positive side.

[@Knebebelmeyer]

@@Nyte1997 yes...exactly this is the case!! he use stips that are way to long and reach the negative side on the top of the battery! i saw that in the video but im not so familar with english, so i cant find the right words to tell it proper... i tryed^^...

[@samsen3965]

Wow... Highly informative. Blasting kind! So deerly! thanks for this and you're the MAN.

[@stevenwright901]

Big Clive recently did a tear down of disposable vapes, which contained rechargeable LiPo cells. As your video and his point out, there’s plenty manufactures can do to help us reduce and recycle this kind of waste.

[@RolandKontson]

Hasty reaction to sparks that happen from spot welding. You'll have heating/glowing thin metal and smoke usually in seconds if it's what you thought it was. Love the precautions though! 17:26 the footage shows sparks flying in a professional setting.

[@gg-gn3re]

Also their batteries were nearly dead, even if the shorted the 18650 to itself they'd probably not get sparks.

[@aidanfarley9566]

@@gg-gn3re exactly what I said. At those voltages you would have to do something dramatic to cause them to spark or explode

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

Yeah, it was a little cringe... even if you shortly short those cells, nothing much will happen besides sparks. If there actually is a dangerous currentflow through the cells, you'll notice.

[@gg-gn3re]

@@aidanfarley9566 Yea, I didn't really watch the whole video but he was concerned about connecting a pos and neg terminal on the batteries while the other side wasn't even connected yet, right? Or did I miss where they connected the other side first?

[@Ballistica242]

So what is actually causing the sparking and why do they need/think they need to dispose of the batteries immediately upon it sparking??

[@reefjames6302]

Seemed like the pulse length was too long when you were spot welding. See how the were glowing, that's what spot welding is trying to avoid, excess heat... and it's quicker than soldering. The 14 on your spot welder must have been 140 ms not 14 ms. Either way... more power less time is what you needed, and those sparks were not the battery, it was because you weren't pushing down evenly across both probes of the welder and the side that sparked had less contact with the nickel, and it was vaporised from the bulk current.

[@t0k4m4k7]

Yeah it was kinda painful seeing him throw good batteries out like that

[@heatshield]

anyone know why the cables to the welder were jumping? The one on top was moving like a pressurised hose.

[@youkofoxy]

Yes, yes. This and balancing batteries before spot welding them as it's possible and best practice to balance them before welding. Despite they reputation, lithium batteries can take some heat, Is just not great for battery life and more risky. So they may have thrown away batteries in good condition.

[@123940]

@@heatshield because of the current going trough the cable. When a current is flowing through a conductor a magnetic field is emitted. And this is moving the cable.

[@heikosale1027]

@@t0k4m4k7 I was confused watching the video because the batteries did not seem to be shorted. If you permanently short an 18650, you're gonna see a different result than a short little spark. And how would they have been shorted anyways? The nickel strips were in the right place before the weld, where was that short supposed to be coming from?

[@bramvandenbroeck5060]

I replaced the cells in my PowerBook G3 Pismo twice! This laptop is a trooper!

[@raulmatiasgallardo]

A factory tour would be awesome!!

[@ZTenski]

Using volitile memory for program storage actually is a well known DRM and anti repair measure. A lot of the old capcom arcade game boards have their data on volatile to prevent piracy, and it was quite effective.

[@LiEnby]

it doesn't sound like it'd be very effective. all you need to do is read the data from it while keeping it powered.

[@benni5541]

@@LiEnby if its integrated ram, how will you read it? Typically you would need to etch or mill away the epoxy and other work intensive stuff. Doing that while connected to power is guranteed to fail.

[@Orochistorm]

​@@LiEnby That's not how any of this works.

[@SangheiliSpecOp]

@@Orochistorm thats not how the force works

[@LiEnby]

@Lassi Kinnunen 81 can't have been streight xor since that's vulnerable to a known plaintext attack if you could guess the plaintext anywhere in the file you'd be able to get the key .. hmmm

[@marsgizmo]

Would be awesome to see more from the Recycling Facility 😎 and great vid! 👏

[@RS-ls7mm]

Easy, 95% of lithium batteries are just dumped in a landfill (2021). Only lead acid batteries are recycled (toxic site, you don't want to be there).

[@flatearth9140]

I WENT TO A BATTERY RECYCLING FACTORY ONCE !! WE ALL GOT ON A BUS AND WE WENT TO A LARGE STEEL BIN GETTING LOADED ONTO A SHIP TO INDIA !!

[@flatearth9140]

@@RS-ls7mm I WENT TO A BATTERY RECYCLING FACTORY ONCE !! WE ALL GOT ON A BUS AND WE WENT TO A LARGE STEEL BIN GETTING LOADED ONTO A SHIP TO INDIA !!

[@Emiichoco]

@@flatearth9140 I WENT TO A BATTERY RECYCLING FACTORY ONCE !! WE ALL GOT ON A BUS AND WE WENT TO A LARGE STEEL BIN GETTING LOADED ONTO A SHIP TO INDIA !!

[@nameismetatoo4591]

@@Emiichoco I WENT TO A BATTERY RECYCLING FACTORY ONCE !! WE ALL GOT ON A BUS AND WE WENT TO A LARGE STEEL BIN GETTING LOADED ONTO A SHIP TO INDIA !!

[@djdaddy8080]

Not being present I can’t know for sure, but that sparked one on camera (4-cell pack) wasn’t the batteries. It was the electrodes and the strip. Either dirty tip, angle of press, incorrect head pressure, or partially off the tab’s side. That pack is fine. It may just need some sandpaper treatment if the metal is dirty from the spark. Definitely good practice to assume danger and take appropriate measures, but it’s fine to use. Edit:forgot to add head pressure as a cause

[@michaelsletten8763]

Dude do the bloody tour. That's sounds rad. No edits needed. Make it 10 hrs if it needs

[@_mnejing]

I love that you sourced your cells from a vape shop. We're pretty particular in the industry about cell safety in e-cigarettes. Counterfeits are absolutely no joke and INCREDIBLE rampant. I also appreciate your overabundance of caution, even with some minor sparking (which, really, probably didn't do anything to the cell). Thank you for stressing the safety of how to handle them, because a lot of people treat Li-Ion cells the same as a set of AAs, and they're just... not at all the same. Those minty green cells are actually the same ones I'm currently using in my e-cigarette right now. They're great, last ages, and are very reliable. It'd be nice to see you guys do something about the difference between ICR, IMR, and INR cells.

[@noahlange5102]

Not sure if they're still that color, but when I saw the green cells my mind screaming "25R's!"

[@Megasteel32]

btw if you want to save money on suppliers, you can buy overstock (brand new) 18650s from batteryhookup

[@ahayesm]

My local vape shop sells Imren cells (chinese rewraps) so your milage may vary. I really wouldn't source cells from a vape shop for any purpose, including vapes, unless they had Molicel cells with proof it came from an authorized distributor (outside of some chinese brands I'm unaware of any cells that have authorized distributors other than Molicel).

[@_mnejing]

@@ahayesm Most people are sourcing Samsung batteries these days. Sony also makes good cells, but they're harder to source, and more likely to be counterfeited. That said, vape shops are far less "wild west" than they were, and reliable genuine sources for batteries are far easier to find now than they used to be.

[@Aepek]

7:17 one thing can use is type of “clay” to hold electronics for soldering or if can’t find, the molded play sand that kids use….works great & doesn’t leave residue

[@phydeux]

You just have to make sure it's fully synthetic. Natural clay can have conductive impurities that will wreck your day.

[@laptopDoctorKZN]

Hey.. Before u remove the bms.. Supply the positive and negative terminals with the same voltage using a bench power supply. Then solder it of and onto a refurbished pac.. works like a charm