battery scaviging and recycling

[monster]

has any one here found a source of returned battery packs. laptops and power tools often fail with just one cell going bad and the remaining cells are all ok. its possible to recycle the remaining cells by building new packs. has anyone done this in the UK?

or has anyone collected batteries from the council run recycling centres (tips, dumps) and made a pack out of these?

maybe between us we can establish a source of cheap cells? even if they are no good for ebikes they may be good for renewable energy storage.

 

[Fecn]

I had a go at collecting old laptop batteries last year with the intention of pulling them apart and building the good cells up into new packs. I know quite a lot of folks in computing, so asked a couple of the right people... and of course... they'd just thrown out 40 laptops the day before... and none since then.

To be honest, I'm not sure if the whole thing is more trouble than it's worth. Having the cells is only part of the problem - You also need BMSes and chargers. Getting all the laptop batteries delivered... cracking them open for the cells... testing them all... welding up new pack configurations... testing the new pack... getting rid of the rubbish etc etc... It seems like a lot of effort when you can get a brand new 260Wh LiIon pack complete with everything for $160 - Granted, the cells in that pack are probably not the highest quality going... but then again.. they're probably better than old scavenged cells anyway.

Having said all of that..... If you do find someone giving away old laptop packs, I'll happily help you out with making them into new packs etc.