# How to reset battery protection?



## bkumanski (Oct 13, 2009)

I sold my Olight M30 to a buddy at work and he ran the batteries (2 18650s) until one of the protection circuits kicked in (until the light shut off). Now, one of these batteries will not register on the charger and the charge light stays green and won't go into charge mode (Ultrafire wf-139). I believe it is the battery protection because the other is fine and the light works with this battery switched out for another. It is a protected Ultrafire (2400 mah, the grey one). Does the 139 trickle? I had the idea of leaving it on the charger overnight to see if it will kickstart. For future, I told him not to run these batteries down and to recharge frequently. Any advice?

Edit:

I'm adding this here so it's viewable in the first post of this thread - Norm 



oKtosiTe said:


> Sounds like the protection got tripped. If your charger is an i4/i2 or similar, it will not reset the protection (not true, read below), but HKJ's famous hotwire action should:
> (*Edit*: only do this for a few seconds at most!)
> 
> 
> ...


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## buickid (Oct 13, 2009)

Usually the protection circuitry will reset if you leave it in the charger for a short bit. If it doesn't reset, it might be shot. I know AW's cells reset in the WF-139 (open voltage ~5V), the Ultrafire cells might be different. Might be worth it to pick up some new AW cells.


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## MrGman (Oct 14, 2009)

The WF-139 charger info states it will not charge batteries that have gone into protection mode. 

You simply have to take the battery up to a higher voltage through something that has limited current to get it "started" so to speak. I had an old 12V DC converter, one of those old power converter transformer with a DC output that went into a small device like a radio. Current output of that one was limited to about 500mA. I put it across the battery terminals for about 10 seconds and then put the battery back into the Ultrafire charger and then it would charge normally and did in fact charge up.

I had already tested the output of the converter exposed wires to make sure I had the polarity correct using a digital voltmeter. You can use a variety of DC voltage sources as long as you have something to limit the current. 

For instance you can take 2 other batteries of double the voltage and run them in series through a 40 ohm resistor that will limit current. Connect positive to positive terminals through the resistor and negative to negative. The 2 battery stack of lithium ion batteries will go up in voltage to the single cell battery but the resistor will provide ballast once it starts to draw current and protect all 3 batteries. You only need to do it for a few seconds.

If you had a DC voltage power supply with current limiting capability that you could simply set to about 100 mA limit and raise the voltage until you saw it draw current to the battery in question that would be the best way, but I am guessing you don't have it. 

Do not try and go from a high current capable source directly to your battery without some type of resistance to limit current flow. Bad things will happen.


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## bkumanski (Oct 14, 2009)

By bad I'm assuming you mean "vent with flame" or similar. I have a li ion charger for my li-po airplane batteries I will try and give it a "shock" with for a few seconds. Are there any chargers that will reset these cells? There don't seem to be many options out there.


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## TranceAddict (Oct 14, 2009)

find yourself any power supply which limit current to below 2A
mobile charger might do the job ( >5v )


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## MrGman (Oct 14, 2009)

bkumanski said:


> By bad I'm assuming you mean "vent with flame" or similar. I have a li ion charger for my li-po airplane batteries I will try and give it a "shock" with for a few seconds. Are there any chargers that will reset these cells? There don't seem to be many options out there.


 
None of the battery chargers I have found for the lithium ion batteries that charge 1 cell at a time will charge a cell that has gone into protection mode. Your adjustable voltage charger for li-po battery packs that can go up to higher voltages should work. You should have current limit protection and be able to set the amount of current you want to deliver to the battery, correct? If so limit it to about 200 mA. 

but again, this isn't to fully charge the battery, this is just to kick it back into normal mode. Once it will start taking a charge put it on the WF-139 and let it charge properly and auto shut off when it peaks out.


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## asfaltpiloot (Oct 14, 2009)

bkumanski said:


> Now, one of these batteries will not register on the charger and the charge light stays green and won't go into charge mode (Ultrafire wf-139)


 
Had the same problem and found out that the WF-138 will charge them.

Robert.


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## kramer5150 (Oct 14, 2009)

I dont know if this is the right or wrong way but here's what I did with my grey trustfire... and it seems to have worked. I just connected the cell to a 3.6V 350mah wall wart power supply. I just let it charge up for ~5 minutes to get the cell voltage up a little and jump start it again.

I am not sure about ALL versions of WF-139. Mine is a version 2.0, and it will not attempt to charge any cell that measures below 2.75V, protected or unprotected. So I make certain to NEVER deplete my cells that low in the first place. The one time I did, I just used the above method to force-charge the over-depleted cell on the wall wart and get it back up to ~3V. Once I did that it was OK.


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## MrGman (Oct 14, 2009)

asfaltpiloot said:


> Had the same problem and found out that the WF-138 will charge them.
> 
> Robert.


 
Is any company selling the WF-138 charger today? I haven't seen them anywhere.


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## kramer5150 (Oct 14, 2009)

MrGman said:


> Is any company selling the WF-138 charger today? I haven't seen them anywhere.



battery junction
e-lectronics.net

http://www.batteryjunction.com/wf-138.html

http://www.e-lectronics.net/ultrafire-wf138-dual-voltage-rcr123-liion-lifepo4-charger-p-377.html

both have them in stock... according to their www sites.


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## MrGman (Oct 14, 2009)

I just pulled this off the WF-138 info page that you linked. 

"Perfect charger for rechargeable Lithium-Ion cells. Automatically charges them to the level required, will not over-charge cells. Over-discharged cells cannot be charged."

It gives the same statement about not charging over discharged cells as the WF-139 and other Lithium Ion battery chargers I have seen. So I don't know if this is guaranteed to work, especially on protected cells.

So I am still :thinking:


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## Bullzeyebill (Oct 14, 2009)

kramer5150 said:


> I am not sure about ALL versions of WF-139. Mine is a version 2.0, and it will not attempt to charge any cell that measures below 2.75V, protected or unprotected. So I make certain to NEVER deplete my cells that low in the first place. The one time I did, I just used the above method to force-charge the over-depleted cell on the wall wart and get it back up to ~3V. Once I did that it was OK.



Sort of defeats the purpose of protected LiIon's, which is to cut off current when voltage drops too low, so you can save the battery, and recharge it. A LiIon charger SHOULD be able to charge a LiIon cell that has shut down when the protection circuit is activated. Useless otherwise, and if you are going to monitor your LiIon cells so they never drop too low, then you might as well use unprotected LiIons with their advantage of higher mAh's, and higher current potential.

Bill


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## MrGman (Oct 14, 2009)

I agree Bill that would make sense, but some how there is this contradiction. However, since I know how to over come it and its only a minor inconvenience for me I haven't looked into it too much or worried about it for myself. I have numerous DC power supply sources and resistors and meters so its not a problem.

But you would think that the people who make chargers would make them specifically to recharge a "protected" cell that has gone down into protection mode and other wise appears as an open circuit or something that a normal charger won't touch. :shrug:


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## kramer5150 (Oct 14, 2009)

Bullzeyebill said:


> Sort of defeats the purpose of protected LiIon's, which is to cut off current when voltage drops too low, so you can save the battery, and recharge it. A LiIon charger SHOULD be able to charge a LiIon cell that has shut down when the protection circuit is activated. Useless otherwise, and if you are going to monitor your LiIon cells so they never drop too low, then you might as well use unprotected LiIons with their advantage of higher mAh's, and higher current potential.
> 
> Bill




Well... no one has ever said the WF-139 was a perfect charger... even the older revision 1 and 2 models. Ideally it should be able to detect those cells that have tripped, or give the operator the option to "force charge" the cell. But that probably be far too risky, if someone were to mistake a fully charged cell for a fully discharged one.

One of my favorite RC hobby chargers has a user selectable "recovery" mode for those times the cells are over-discharged. It locks out the peak charge detection and forces current across the cell. I have never had to use it though. Some of my RC battery packs are in the $60 range... so its a _costly _mistake in that hobby to over-discharge your cells. I guess my retentive-ness with CPF cells is a carry over from my days racing RC cars.


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## bkumanski (Oct 14, 2009)

Bullzeyebill said:


> Sort of defeats the purpose of protected LiIon's, which is to cut off current when voltage drops too low, so you can save the battery, and recharge it. A LiIon charger SHOULD be able to charge a LiIon cell that has shut down when the protection circuit is activated. Useless otherwise, and if you are going to monitor your LiIon cells so they never drop too low, then you might as well use unprotected LiIons with their advantage of higher mAh's, and higher current potential.
> 
> Bill


 
They are so "Protected" you can never use them again...I guess they are protected from the user? I'll try the force charge tonight. I have another source to attempt it that's only 200mah and 4 volts. Let the kick start begin!


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## darkzero (Oct 15, 2009)

I always considered a battery with protection that has activated & can not be charged back up was because of a faulty or cheap protection circuit? I had some Trustfires that did this. Every single AW protected cell that I have that was discharged to the point where the protection circuit has activated all charged back up fine in my WF-139. IIRC I had an AW protected cell well the protection circuit activate & cut power from the cell. Then the moments later or the next day the protection circuit unactivated & there was power again momentarily until the circuit activated again (put the cell back into a light by accident).


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## asfaltpiloot (Oct 15, 2009)

MrGman said:


> I just pulled this off the WF-138 info page that you linked.
> 
> "Perfect charger for rechargeable Lithium-Ion cells. Automatically charges them to the level required, will not over-charge cells. Over-discharged cells cannot be charged."
> 
> ...


 
I can't really explain why, sorry.
I have both chargers (WF-139, WF-138) and when the 139 refused the 138 did'nt make a point of it and charged the cells.
Maybe the 138 is less "intellegent"?
The WF-138 with 2 or 4 cells can be had at ebay for a few bucks.

Robert.


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## celler (Oct 16, 2009)

It would be nice if someone came up with the correct voltage and amperage wall wart connected to a 18650 battery holders (I see this in B/S/T now) and sold it as a package as a protection circuit resetting device. Maybe a modest money-maker for someone with the skill set.


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## bkumanski (Oct 17, 2009)

Actually, I solved this problem with a very simple solution. I took a short piece of dual strand wire (like small speaker wire) and matched ends on a fully charged cell and the "protected" one. 5 seconds later, its up and running. Easy fix with no odd dc chargers.


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## asfaltpiloot (Oct 17, 2009)

"Improvise, Adapt and Overcome" :thumbsup:


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## Barrie (Oct 17, 2009)

same thing happened with my trustfire 18500
i was given a tip to try at my own risk from a member on here which was to do a parallel short and it worked fine for me 
i haven't had any problems with the battery it charges fine now


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## carling (Oct 29, 2009)

I also use another protected Li-Ion(in parallel) to reset and "charge" the battery that has had its protection kick-in.


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## ACHË (Oct 29, 2009)

Looks like I've been lucky...

All my protected cells_(AW's & ***Fire's)_ have charged fine after the protection has kicked in; even in my TrustFire TR-001 charger.


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## Tony Hanna (Oct 29, 2009)

Mine seem to rebound enough to reset the protection circuit once the load is removed. I wonder if the amount of current being drawn has an effect on this? For example: Would a cell that's been rapidly depleted by a high power led or incan be more likely to rebound enough to reset it's protection circuit than a cell that's been discharged at a low current over a long period of time by a multi-mode led light on low?

It seems to me that these chargers should feature a "Reset" button that could be held in for a few seconds to force charge a cell until the protection resets. I wouldn't think something like that would be very complicated or expensive to incorporate into existing charger designs.


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## liketotallyrandom (Oct 29, 2009)

bkumanski said:


> Actually, I solved this problem with a very simple solution. I took a short piece of dual strand wire (like small speaker wire) and matched ends on a fully charged cell and the "protected" one. 5 seconds later, its up and running. Easy fix with no odd dc chargers.



Excuse my ignorance, but I just want to make sure I understand this solution. What do you mean when you say you "matched ends". Is that + to + or + to -?


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## bkumanski (Oct 29, 2009)

Sorry, I should have said wired in parallel : + to + -to -, not in series. Like jumpstarting a car battery.


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## DM51 (Oct 30, 2009)

Note to the OP and ALL members who posted - this is in the wrong forum. It should be in the Batteries section. I'm moving it there now.

Please take more care where you post threads, and to others - if you see a thread in the wrong place, please say so.


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## bkumanski (Oct 30, 2009)

Sorry, and thanks for the correction.


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## biker1 (Oct 5, 2010)

I know this is an older thread, but it pertains to something that happened to me today.
I had an AW R123A cell trip it's circuit today. I didn't know that the pcb resets itself.

I have read here that there are some chargers that charge tripped protected cells, while others do not. It appears from reading the above posts, people are under the impression that it is the Charger that is Enabling tripped AW Protected Cells to Charge.
While it is true that the Charger is charging the Tripped cell, it is because the AW pcb Reset itself before you ever put it into the Charger.
So therefore, the Charger is charging a NON TRIPPED cell.
If you have an AW cell in a flashlight that trips the pcb, the pcb resets itself once the load is removed.
I just found that out today, and when I came upon this thread while googling about pcb's, I wanted to include what I found out.
Others must have known this already though.


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## eastside66 (May 9, 2012)

I had trouble with my trustfire batteries going into protective mode and the charger I have, ( a two cell charger ) would not charge them, ( just the green light ) so I put a fairly charged battery in the charger and it started charging, ( red light ) I then put the dead tripped one in beside it and it started charging , then I took the fairly charged one out and put the other tripped one in and both are charging normally, (( RESET! )) Hope this works for you!


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## Bullzeyebill (May 9, 2012)

This is an old thread that again is being bumped, however information presented is good, so we'll let it run.

Bill


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## IT_Architect (Nov 26, 2012)

eastside66 said:


> I had trouble with my trustfire batteries going into protective mode and the charger I have, ( a two cell charger ) would not charge them, ( just the green light ) so I put a fairly charged battery in the charger and it started charging, ( red light ) I then put the dead tripped one in beside it and it started charging , then I took the fairly charged one out and put the other tripped one in and both are charging normally, (( RESET! )) Hope this works for you!


There are actually a few different scenarios that can cause this problem.

1. There is a safety feature to where it won't charge the battery if the cell voltage is too low. I've put my 1.2v NiMH batteries into my LiPo charger and wondered why the green lights were on when I knew the batteries were dead. After a frustrating 1/2 hour or so, I realize what I'm trying to do. Since the batteries only have a voltage of 1.2V or less, it refused to charge the batteries.

2. While the cell protection has not tripped, the WF-139 seems to be set a little higher than most other chargers, and thus refuses to charge the battery. Guys get around this by buying one of the cheap chargers that come with batteries, which require at least two batteries in them in order to charge. They put a fully charged one in with the dead one. It will start to charge. After a few minutes, remove the discharged battery and put it back into your WF-139.

3. The cell really has tripped. In that case there isn't much you can do. Normally, the only time this happens is when the batteries have been in a discharged state for an extended period of time during which they self-discharged below the shut off voltage or there is something really wrong with the cell.


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## Stormstaff (Oct 16, 2013)

I hope it's not an issue for digging up this old thread but I figured it was better to do that than to start a new one.

I have a Wolf-Eyes DX9 that runs on 3 x CR123’s but I got the rechargeable kit at the time of purchase that had 2 x LRB-15A’s (3.7v, 1400mAh Li-ion w/ protection) instead of. Well, one of the batteries says it’s fully charged when it only reads 2.82v on my meter.

So, if I'm reading this right, I may be able to "jump start" the tripped one with a full one? My good one is at 4.16v


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## SilverFox (Oct 16, 2013)

Hello Stormstaff,

That is correct. Hook the cells in parallel. That is + to + and - to -. It should only take a moment to reset the protection circuit.

Tom


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## gravelmonkey (Oct 16, 2013)

Stormstaff said:


> I hope it's not an issue for digging up this old thread but I figured it was better to do that than to start a new one.
> 
> I have a Wolf-Eyes DX9 that runs on 3 x CR123’s but I got the rechargeable kit at the time of purchase that had 2 x LRB-15A’s (3.7v, 1400mAh Li-ion w/ protection) instead of. Well, one of the batteries says it’s fully charged when it only reads 2.82v on my meter.
> 
> So, if I'm reading this right, I may be able to "jump start" the tripped one with a full one? My good one is at 4.16v



I might be wrong but wouldn't a tripped cell read 0V? It sounds to me like the cell(s) might need recycling. Or you might have a problem with the charger? :thinking: Hopefully someone who knows a bit more can confirm or correct.


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## Stormstaff (Oct 16, 2013)

gravelmonkey said:


> I might be wrong but wouldn't a tripped cell read 0V? It sounds to me like the cell(s) might need recycling. Or you might have a problem with the charger? :thinking: Hopefully someone who knows a bit more can confirm or correct.



How do you recycle? Or am I off for another search?


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## Stormstaff (Oct 16, 2013)

SilverFox said:


> Hello Stormstaff,
> 
> That is correct. Hook the cells in parallel. That is + to + and - to -. It should only take a moment to reset the protection circuit.
> 
> Tom



It doesn't seem to be resetting.


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## erknjerk (Oct 16, 2013)

Does an intellicharger reboot protected cells?


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## gravelmonkey (Oct 17, 2013)

Stormstaff said:


> How do you recycle? Or am I off for another search?



I don't know what the situation is for you I'm afraid. Here, lots of big electrical retailers and some supermarkets have used battery bins on the counter by the checkout. Failing that, you could try taking them to your local refuse centre, they usually have a seperate area for dealing with used batteries.


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## Stormstaff (Oct 17, 2013)

gravelmonkey said:


> I don't know what the situation is for you I'm afraid. Here, lots of big electrical retailers and some supermarkets have used battery bins on the counter by the checkout. Failing that, you could try taking them to your local refuse centre, they usually have a seperate area for dealing with used batteries.



OH! That kind of recycle. I had it in my head as some term used here for something like resetting, LOL.

As far as resetting, can anyone give me a rough time frame on how long I should need to "jump start" one battery from the other before it resets? Ballpark? 10 secs, 30 secs, 2 mins? I don't want to short myself or burn something up


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## ginbot86 (Oct 18, 2013)

Stormstaff said:


> As far as resetting, can anyone give me a rough time frame on how long I should need to "jump start" one battery from the other before it resets? Ballpark? 10 secs, 30 secs, 2 mins? I don't want to short myself or burn something up



Depending on the cell voltage itself, it should usually be a second or so to reactivate the protection circuit. If you leave it on further, you're basically charging the 'dead' cell with another one.

When a fully discharged Li-Ion cell is allowed to relax for a while, its voltage will settle to 3.0 to 3.3 volts per cell. Some protection circuits will auto-reset at this voltage, but most that I've seen won't reactivate until an external charge current is supplied.


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## SilverFox (Oct 18, 2013)

Hello Stormstaff,

If it doesn't reset after a couple of seconds contact it would appear that there is more wrong with the cell and protection circuit. That turns it into a crap cell and needs to be recycled.

Tom


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## Stormstaff (Oct 18, 2013)

Thanks all. Looks like I have a junk cell.


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## Bullzeyebill (Oct 20, 2013)

i've had good luck putting a "dead" cell in another charger, a charger that is not too sensitive. 

Bill


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## lightseeker2009 (Oct 21, 2013)

I bought my son a small RC rock climber. It uses 6AA batteries. When the alkalines, that it came with went dead, I used 2X 14500's with spacers to power the truck. After just two minutes or so it just stopped dead. Upon inspection, the one 14500 gave a voltage of 4.06V, the other one was 0.00V. seems the truck draw too much power and the protection circuit kicked in.

All I did was to put it in my cheap charger for 5 seconds, as I was scared it would go poof. I took it out and it measured 4.03V, so the protection circuit was resetted merely by putting it in a charger.


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## Marten (Oct 22, 2013)

Just as a matter of interest. I received a Trunight Neutron 1C from a supplier last year, with a "dead" Ultrafire in the tube. As I assumed that the protection had kicked in, and being inquisitive, I placed it in my Pila IBC charger. Although I could only get it up to about 3.8v (I assume that this cell had basically reached its life cycle or had been damaged), the charger was able to reset the circuit. 
This cell was obviously discarded afterwards.


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## bobx (Oct 21, 2014)

Hello guys,

I just wanted to let you know my woes, and what I am doing to try and solve the problem.


I bought 4x UltraFire 6000mAh (blue) 26650's for my 4-battery A-LETO LED flashlight. I pre-charged all the batteries on a Nitecore D4 (which has 4 smaller slots, but 2 large batteries can be charged without problems). All was great, lots of power on that Flashlight.
Then one night I had to re-thread my winch in my 4x4, and I decided to use the flashlight as a lightsource. I was fiddling around for like 45 minutes, and then the light started slowly fading. Eventually, after 10 more minutes it faded completely. Since I don't know much about Li-ion batteries, I had no clue that you should not under-charge them under a certain voltage. I am used to the old NiCads where you depleted them totally on purpose, so they could take a full charge.

Anyway, took the batteries out, and one of them read 0.00 volts, and would not charge. I didn't know about the voltage protection, so I stashed it into the "dead battery" bag. So, I went and bought 2 Trustfire 5000mAh (they are black and red and gold), and decided to put in 2 and 2 into the flashlight. 
After another day at home cleaning under the kitchen, the same thing happened. Took them out, and voilla, another one of the UltraFire 6000mAh is dead.

And that's when I arrived at this thread here.

I am trying jumpering now, i.e. using a charged battery to "wake up" the dead ones. But so far zippo. I am measuring the voltage of the jumpered pair every few mins, and it still reads 4.16v . One would expect, IF the dead one would actually charge up, to lower the total voltage of the pair to some average.

So, I suspect neither of the dead batteries can be recovered. They are like an open circuit, i.e. 0.00v

Time to send the batteries to the manufacturer, painted as sticks of TNT with an old russian TIMEX wired to them ?

LOL


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## SubLGT (Oct 21, 2014)

bobx said:


> Hello guys,
> 
> I just wanted to let you know my woes, and what I am doing to try and solve the problem.
> 
> ...



Your experience confirms the advice I have read on CPF multiple times : don't buy batteries with "fire" in their brand name.


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## Bullzeyebill (Oct 22, 2014)

You have got to read some of the stickies in this thread, and other threads in this forum that discuss Li-ion batteries. There are alot of well done reviews regarding rechargeable Lithium batteries.

Bill


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## Norm (Oct 22, 2014)

I've added this to the first post in this thread for easy reference - Norm



oKtosiTe said:


> Sounds like the protection got tripped. If your charger is an i4/i2 or similar, it will not reset the protection (not true, read below), but HKJ's famous hotwire action should:
> (*Edit*: only do this for a few seconds at most!)
> 
> 
> ...


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## lumen aeternum (Feb 10, 2015)

So how is this different from putting into the charger backwards? Other than you had better have a programmable charger so the amperage is low, and only leave it in there for a few seconds ????


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## Norm (Feb 11, 2015)

lumen aeternum said:


> So how is this different from putting into the charger backwards?



Where are you seeing to put the cell into the charger backwards? 
You need to put it in as normal, not all chargers will reset cell protection.

Norm


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## Othelzer (Jun 25, 2017)

I got a lot of 26650 batteries when radioshack closed
and half were under the battery protection limit

this is my first post so I was a navy trained diesel and gas turbine tech with
a minor in electronics and electricity im just a wrench not a sparky.


so I have been trying a week to charge the 26650's and it was not working

I came to the forum for ideas and the fist thing I learned is that a trickle charger is
totally useless if it has electronic battery tending

maybe a old school trickle charger would work but not the new ones
after trying a week to get these up, it dawned on me I had the 
super electrician triple power supply with voltage and current adjustments
and over voltage and over and under current protection

I found half my 3500 ma hour 26650's were dead
and if one was dead the whole series would not charge

I had made a battery holder with 1 inch schedule 40 pvc pipe
and used a allthread with a 1/4 inch nuts on the inside to connect to ground
with some copper sheeting I had from a mouse intrusion build in the kitchen
just folded it into a square on top of the nuts in the tube for a ground

that is a grand start but I didn't have 6 volts for [email protected]'s
I needed the master power supply I had hoarded some time back

the power supply could contour the amps and the volts
to give me the proper charge rate for the dead batteries
its all hand work no automation

one of the problems I had was a dead battery in a string of 4
i moved that battery closest to the positive terminal and bingo
it started charging , @ 1 amp @ 0.4 VDC above the starting voltage

now I can resurrect all the batteries down to 1 volt , I do not have any
that are more discharged to test.

thank you for all your help guys with my first li-ion cells
I am trying to use these in a small quad motorcycle
I believe I will need 2 or three banks of 4 to work
i'm tired to death of buying motorcycle batteries every year


I am working on a new project to use dollar store gorilla glass
to make the glass electrolyte batteries that they have just posted
to the news network..... I plan on using sodium sodium plates
and some form of borate on one side for the ion exchange
they claim the glass electrolyte can charge in 15 min or less
we will see Id love to make my basket case quad battery from scratch
and have it work and charge like that. Ill post if it works out well

but anyone can buy the glass now and join me in the cutting edge
of battery design

note there is a layer of sticky tape on gorilla glass
and gorilla glass the good stuff is already a borosilicate
which is exactly what you want, 

a layer of boro-lithium or boro-sodium would be a good experiment

good luck sparkies


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## IT_Architect (Jun 25, 2017)

Othelzer said:


> I am working on a new project to use dollar store gorilla glass to make the glass electrolyte batteries that they have just posted to the news network..... I plan on using sodium sodium plates and some form of borate on one side for the ion exchange...Ill post if it works out well but anyone can buy the glass now and join me in the cutting edge of battery design note there is a layer of sticky tape on gorilla glass and gorilla glass the good stuff is already a borosilicate which is exactly what you want, a layer of boro-lithium or boro-sodium would be a good experiment


I'm incredibly interested in this but didn't find information like you are finding. All I found were some high-level articles about Goodenough.


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## alabamaXL (Nov 12, 2019)

this method is probably not recommended, but it works to jump start the protection board on a couple of ultrafire batteries that I've had sitting around for much to long. I cut the shrink wrap away from the protection board and carefully slipped a wire underneath. you could also just tape a wire to the metal case of the battery, but be careful not to short out the lead that goes up the side to the positive terminal. I used a test clip/jumper wire to connect my wire to the negative terminal of a little XTAR MC-1 ant charger that I have and it lit right up. That charger can only do 500mA minimum charge, and Battery #1 that I tried this on started getting warm to the touch, so I pulled it off and put it in a MiBoxer C4 plus that monitors internal resistance and limits charge rate to 100mA if internal resistance is measuring high. Battery #1 is now charging nicely without the protection circuit bypassed(though very slowly!) without worrying heat build up. if the internal resistance ever comes down to a reasonable number, I'll consider using this cell.

The second one I'm doing now, it didn't seem to be warming up at all in the MC-1. This battery is now in the C4-plus, and also charging slowly through its protection board. Hopefully I'll get lucky and they'll both still be usable.

These measured about .25V between + and - terminals with pcb bypassed before I started charging. probably have permanent damage, so I don't recommend that others try this at home.


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## alabamaXL (Nov 12, 2019)

Update: Cell #2, (both are ultrafire "880mAh 16340 protected cells) seems to be improving, and the internal resistance as measured on the charger is dropping, and charge current is rising slowly. this one might be salvagable. not holding out hope for the first one I tried this on, but I may loot the protection board for another salvaged cell that tests good but is unprotected if it doesn't perk up.


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## ab1jx (Sep 28, 2020)

Very exciting. On Aliexpress there's a Uranusfire 20 watt flashlight which uses a pair of 18650 cells IN PARALLEL anyway. I have 3, just bought 4 more to give away as Christmas presents. Just popping a cell in there (wiith a good one) should reset it.


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## ab1jx (Sep 30, 2020)

There's still quite a bit of intentional mystery around this. I went to 3 electronics companies (Mouser, Digi-key, Newark) and downloaded 10 datasheets from various companies about their 18650 cells. Most don't mention protection circuits at all. None gave any official method of how to reset them.

This is from an Ultralife datasheet:
Protection Circuit Module and Fuses: Over Voltage Limit 4.35 +/- 0.025 V, Under Voltage Limit 2.5 +/- 0.1 V, Over Discharge Current Limit 3.5 - 4.5 A.
Recommended charge rate is 466 ma to 4,2volts in a temperature range of 0 to 45 C. Hold at 4,2 volts until current declines to 50 ma. Maximum charge rate is 1.63 A @ 23 degrees C.

My first experience with it was when I absent-mindedly stuck a cell in a charger backwards and then the cell didn't work. I didn't plug the charger into the wall, it must just have a diode in there as reverse polarity protection. I've had a couple others trip as well so out of maybe 30 cells I have 3 that don't work anymore. I haven't thrown them out because they have 0 voltage, usually no continuity, it seems quite obvious that there's a blown fuse inside. I haven't tried opening one.


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