May. 26, 2025
Agriculture
Here at Hackerfarm, we use rechargeable lithium ion batteries for just about everything. We also hate throwing out rechargeable batteries if we can avoid it. Recently we were going through our lithium-ion battery stock and found out that a bunch of them were completely discharged and could not be revived. The battery chargers we connected them to were not charging at all. For lithium-ion batteries, the fully charged cell is around 4.2V and a discharged cell is around 3.0V. A deeply discharged cell has fallen below 2.5V and most lithium-ion battery chargers can’t revive cells that have discharged this deeply.
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Once a battery reaches below 2.5V, the low voltage cutoff threshold, it goes into a sleep mode where the protection circuit shuts down all operations. Most battery chargers won’t charge a battery below 2.5V which means the battery you have is essentially useless. What you have to do is provide enough charge to the battery to boost the voltage above the low voltage cutoff threshold. Once this happens, the protection circuit kicks in and the battery can be charged normally. This is also a great way to salvage ’s, especially from dead laptop computer battery packs.
Some chargers have a “boost” feature to charge a deeply discharged battery and revive it but there’s actually an easy way to do it. You just connect the battery to a voltage source (3.5~5.0V) and charge it for around 5 minutes to get the voltage up. Once that happens, you can put the battery inside a charger and get it to charge normally. One caveat is that you should be present when you do this the whole time. You don’t want to leave the battery connected to an unsupervised 5V source since it could overcharge and cause a fire. Also, you’ll want to supervise the charging of the batteries inside the charger to make sure they are okay and don’t heat up or inflate (outgas).
Here you can see me reviving some dead batteries that have been in storage for too long. This particular battery is at 0.423V which is way below the 2.5V cutoff. It cannot be charged at all when placed in the charger.
I’ve set my DC power supply to 5V in preparation to connect to the lithium ion battery. This will be the target charging voltage.
I connect the battery to the DC power supply via alligator clips. I’m using a single lithium ion battery holder to hold the battery as it gets charged. You can also go ghetto and solder wire leads to it or my favorite is to use neodymium magnets on the positive and negative electrodes. Then just drop the alligator clips on the magnets. It’s also important to have a timer handy and make sure you don’t leave the battery charging unsupervised. Overcharging will kill the battery and potentially cause a fire.
Once the battery is connected, you can see that the power supply voltage drops to 3.7V. I’ve current limited the supply to 1A so that it doesn’t quick-charge the battery too fast. This can also create outgassing. You can also use a 5V, 1A DC wall wart to do the same thing without needing a fancy, schmancy power supply but it is much nicer.
After the 5 minutes are up, you can see that the batteries have now reached 3.367V. The batteries charge quickly up to this point because there’s not a lot of energy storage capacity between 0.5V and 3.0V. You can probably get there in around a minute of charging actually. Once you’re above 2.5V, its okay to slap it in a conventional battery charger.
Now I can just throw them in my rapid charger and charge it up completely.
No waste and you can salvage other people’s batteries that they think are dead. Yay!
Next stop…DIY Powerwall…
This article tells you everything you need to know about batteries. We’ll talk about different types, features, charging, lifespans, and our recommendations for batteries and chargers.
An is a lithium ion rechargeable battery. Their proper name is “ cell”. The cell has voltage of 3.7v and has between mAh and mAh (mili-amp-hours).
s may have a voltage range between 2.5 volts and 4.2 volts, or a charging voltage of 4.2 volts, but the nominal voltage of a standard is 3.7 volts.
There are two types; protected and unprotected. We absolutely recommend protected cell batteries. Protected cells include a protection circuit that stops the cell from being overcharged.
Unprotected cells can be overcharged and burst and potentially cause a fire unless there are specific electronics to protect the battery. The popular LG HG2 and INR and Samsung 25r and 35e are UNPROTECTED batteries, only use them in a device designed to use unprotected s.
We also recommend you stick with high quality “brand name” s. Many knock off, no-name brands lie about high mAh (capacity).
The average battery charge time is about 4 hours. Charge time can vary with amperage and voltage of the charger and the battery type.
More info on the : Everything You Need to Know About the Battery
The following is a picture showing various battery sizes. The is cubic mm, the and AA are 700 cubic mm, the AAA is 467 cubic mm.
Note the ’s cannot be used in all AA devices unless they support both 3.7 and 1.5 volt batteries. The at cubic mm, is larger than the battery – the and is not interchangeable.
A battery might say protected mode 3.7v mAh low self discharge for high drain devices. What does that all these features mean?
Protected batteries have an electronic circuit. The circuit is embedded in the cell packaging (battery casing) that protects the cell from “over charge”, heat or “over discharge”, over current and short circuit. A protected battery is safer than an unprotected battery (less likely to overheat, burst or start on fire).
Unprotected batteries are cheaper, but we do not recommend their use. Unprotected batteries should only be used where the load/draw and charging is externally monitored and controlled. The protected batteries normally have a “button top”, but check the specifications to make sure. Generally flat top batteries do not include the protection circuit.
If any battery is damaged or looks corroded or appears to be leaking, get rid of it at a battery recycling center. Be safe.
See “Battery Recycling – How to Recycle Different Battery Types and Corroded Batteries Safely“.
A 3.7v a mAh stores about 2 aH to max of 3.5 aH. It can store about 10 to 13 watt hours. A small air conditioning unit that can cool about BTU uses about watts per hour. So it would take more than 110 of the batteries to run the air conditioner for 1 hour.
In comparison you would need three 12v 40 amp car batteries. But 110 s are smaller than three car batteries.
Recharge cycles vary and are limited. Think of it like a bucket. The trick is that the bucket also gets filled with a tiny bit of other junk over time, so there is less room. As the battery is reused (recharged), the battery degrades due to oxidation and electro-chemical degradation.
This happens to any rechargeable battery such as an , , , , AA, AAA or even a car battery. They can only be recharged a limited number of times.
You want to select rechargeable batteries that can be recharged many times. We specifically recommend ’s because they have the ability to be recharged 300 to as many as times.
The way you recharge your battery impacts the life of the battery. If you can measure it, you want to deplete from 3.7v down it to about 3v before you recharge. If you are not sure, use the device until it indicates a battery needs to be replaced. For a flashlight, run it till the light is dim or goes out.
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A good charger will tell you the voltage of the battery so you can eventually get a sense of the life of the battery in various devices. If you recharge too frequently you “use up” the life without a return.
Some people don’t let it dip below 3.3v (or even higher). Each brand and model of has different maximum cycles. So this is really a process of matching your device and usage to the life cycle of the battery.
Be aware that an battery that drops below 2.5v may “lock” the device so it can’t be used. The “lock” function happens in devices such as vaping devices.
Here is a list of 7 ways you can tell if you need to get rid of an (or other rechargeable battery). Look through these to determine if your is nearing the end of its life and needs to be retired:
These are the 6 signs your is dead and it is time to get a new one. If you ignore these warning signs you risk fire or even having the battery explode while being recharged.
A trick is to buy one or two similar s and mark them “new” with a Sharpe (or label them A, B, C, etc). Then use them and compare their voltage and discharge rates with the questionable s.
Basically you are comparing good vs unknown this way.
You can also gauge temperature this way. Charge both the new and unknown one to see how hot the new one is compared to the one you are unsure of.
There are a number of different chemical combinations for batteries. We recommend that you focus on protected mode, the chemistry can change and isn’t always reported. Many simply say Li-ION (meaning Lithium Ion).
There are actually a number of Li-Ion batteries. Here are some of the current “types”. Depending on your device type one might be better than the others.
Flashlights, electronics, laptops, vaping and even some electric vehicles use s. The Tesla uses of these batteries. Many high lumen flashlights such as the Thrunite TC15 v3 (best buy) or Fenix PD36 TAC (mo43 durable) use the or the even larger flashlights like the Nitecore P20iX a lumen flashlight.
Laptops and other electronic devices use one or more ’s and have recharging electronics built in. ’s are also used in vaping (smoking) devices.
s are are generally Lithium Ion batteries. If you are familiar with electronics you can change out some battery packs manually, but be careful – using the wrong type of or using it incorrectly can cause a fire.
Overall best battery – The Orbtronic battery. This is an 3.7v mAh Protected cell. This is a high drain battery. We like it but it is expensive.
Best low cost battery – The Olight ORB-186P26 mAh 3. The Panasonic is an 3.7v mAh Protected cell. This battery is less expensive and slightly lower amp hours than the Orbtronic. Also, this lower cost protected battery is still more expensive than the unprotected ones.
Nitecore NLR available directly from Nitecore. This is an 3.7v mAh protected cells with a built-in micro-USB charger. It is a few dollars more, but it allows you to charge it on the go and not have to carry a dedicated charger. The unit we have has slightly different packaging.
The cheapest decent one is the Titanium Innovations at mAh. It won’t last as long as the mAh Nitecore but is 1/2 the price.
The Orbtronic, Olight, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Surefire, ThruNite and Nitecore are good reliable rechargeable cells. Be sure to buy them from a reputable source such as BatteryJunction or direct from the manufacturer. Note: Amazon stopped selling s.
We don’t use the lower voltage and amperage s, because they have lower amp hours and low peak wattage and lower sustained wattage.
We are willing to pay a few more dollars for the longer life, higher capacity and better quality.
batteries are rechargeable, so you will need a good charger. We use two different chargers.
The best battery charger is the Nitecore UMS4 Battery Charger because it can charge pretty much anything.
Specifically, it supports: lithium ion , , , , , , , , (the is also known as RCR123), , and Ni-MH and Ni-Cd AA, AAA, AAAA, C rechargeable batteries. This is our favorite charger for the s.
Our runner up and “best buy” is the XTAR X4 Charger. It is a USB powered charger. It charges the batteries with any USB power source. This unit is dependent on the power source, and is a bit more expensive.
It has an LCD display for charging status. A 2amp interface yields slower charge speeds. Even the 5amp is slow because it charges at .5 amps. We have used the XTAR and Nitecore with a Nektek solar panel that has a 2amp USB interface and it has worked well.
The best mid priced flashlight is the Thrunite TC15 lumen flashlight. It is about 1/2 the price of the PD36 and but a bit less bright. It is a GREAT buy (we have the older TN12 in emergency kits). We suggest two of these instead of one of the Fenix.
It has the following modes: Strobe (975 lumens for 226 minutes), Turbo (975 lumens for 126 minutes), High (652 lumens for 199minutes), Medium (266 lumens for 9.7 hrs), Low (19 lumens/177 hrs) and Firefly(0.29 lumens for 62 days) and it can charge itself with a USB power source. It is waterproof (IPX8) and has a max throw of 223m (764ft).
The toughest flashlight is the Fenix PD36 TAC. It is not cheap but it is durable and very bright, and has a pocket clip. The light level is lumens, and it is water resistant to IPX8. This is a “duty” quality flashlight.
The PD36 TAC offers five different brightness levels and strobe:
It has a 300 yard or 274 meter throw.
Both the Fenix PD36 or the less expensive ThruNite TC15 are great LED Flashlights that use the powerful battery.
Want more information on Long-Circulating Sodium Battery Cells? Feel free to contact us.
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