FST 2600mah 18650, $0.80/cell

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purduephotog

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I figure if I post this here, then I'll stop contemplating driving 250 miles to pick up another 60 packs of these. They're on clearance for 5$ a pack + tax.

I opened a pack from BlackWeb (Walmart brand); it had 7x 18650s made by FST in them. I charged up 1x, 2x, and 4x (easily separated), then ran them through a coulomb counter.

The 1x read 2.57A, the 2x read 5.2A, and the 4x read 10.7A. (4.20->3.00). They came off the drain test very low- no significant rebound like the used laptop batteries I've been doing lately.

The strip is steel, is done quite poorly, and it looks as if the batteries were under too much pressure when the tabs were welded. YMMV.

The SKU at Walmart is100214312. You can see them via brickseek inventories; they've been on clearance for awhile.

I can't post links yet, so you'll have to be smart about going to brickseek and typing in the SKU.

image_peewyr.jpg
 
Well, they are basically new cells. Just sat for awhile. At $.80/cell, that's pretty good for new cells. They may just need to be cycled a few times and they may come back to life as expected.
 
You could probably sell the empty cases on eBay. Even if you only get a buck or so each. Id buy the empties - but postage to Australia would cost a fortune.
 
Just checked on this myself. Only saw them listed for $6~ with an Amazon link. Link brings you to all those that are available. None listed new under $15

*Edit*. NVM. forgot to put in my zip code. 65 units near me. I'm going to pick one up tomorrow. Great job on the find!
 
Yep, there's a few close to me, too. Picking up what I can tomorrow :)
Will see if they will transfer from another store as well
 
Dangit, if they do you're gold. I couldn't get them to find them the first times.

Yep they're totally new cells. Like I said the tab welding wasn't too pretty, but... I don't really need 200 packs to make a power wall, do I? I could just, oh, do something with 210 cells and call it a day...

Korishan said:
Well, they are basically new cells. Just sat for awhile. At $.80/cell, that's pretty good for new cells. They may just need to be cycled a few times and they may come back to life as expected.
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They're at the reported capacity- the tester is a 5W resistor / so pulls about 1/2A. For a single cell it was right around 2570ma, for 2x cells it was right around 5200ma, and for 4x cells (in parallel) it was at 10700ma.

Korishan said:
Yep, there's a few close to me, too. Picking up what I can tomorrow :)
Will see if they will transfer from another store as
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They're very nice. Did you find any 9$ powerbanks yet?
They have 20000mAh in total, with 6 3400mAh 20650s. They're named Tzumi 20000mAh powerbanks. During Black Friday and nearing holidays, they went down to that price.
 
I actually forgot to check them today. I will definitely do it tomorrow, tho.
 
Dang, went to the local Walmart which said 16 in stock but they were sold out.
 
Yep, same here. The local one said they had 2. But apparently someone had them in their cart, or they were stolen already. :s

Oh well. They do have a new model 20k for $24
 
rev0 said:
Dang, went to the local Walmart which said 16 in stock but they were sold out.
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Not with that many off. They're somewhere, probably not where they're supposed to be. I found one in Automotive. There might even be some in the electronics 'restock' that you have to practically beg the guy to go find.

Grumplestiltskin said:
Not intending to hijack in any way, but a coulomb counter? Now that's a great idea for a cell tester...
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OK this took forever, but the item I used is "ZB2L3 Battery Capacity Tester External Load Discharge" (first hit in google). It came with a 5 ohm 7W resistor that gets nice and toasty, and it pulls about 1/2A. I bought a bunch and was in the process of building up a combo tester/discharger/charger using dedicated 5V power supply and some TP4056 chargers.

It's pretty slick- pick the cutoff voltage and it runs. I haven't used it with anything bigger than a Liion, but there's no reason it can't do SLAs or whatnot. Banggood didn't have the best price, aliexpress did, so YMMV. I don't think there are a dozen different varieties. I did put a post-it-note over the LED so I could read the thing. Just too bright.

Korishan said:
Yep, same here. The local one said they had 2. But apparently someone had them in their cart, or they were stolen already. :s

Oh well. They do have a new model 20k for $24
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Check brickseek. If it's got more than 5, I'd say they've stock somewhere but just don't know where. I watched brickseek update in real-time when I was clearing out one store :)
 
purduephotog said:
Not with that many off. They're somewhere, probably not where they're supposed to be. I found one in Automotive. There might even be some in the electronics 'restock' that you have to practically beg the guy to go find.
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Spent another 20 minutes in store, checked any slightly relevant section but still couldn't find it. They see the stock on their scanners but there's no location listed so they were as lost as me.
 
There's some around me, like a scavenger hunt lol. What might be an idea, take these cells out and put in some of your lower mah cells to use as emergency power or give to family.
 
Ohhh. I still remember when I could get these getting for 9$CA, meaning 7$, at almost 1$/cell for a 3400mAh cell that can handle 10A each.

I should've bought at least 20 of them. That would've been about 107$/kWh, meaning I could almost have the same price per kWh that Tesla has with hundreds of thousands of cells.

I feel so bad only buying 2. And to think I actually saw a bin full of them... If only I went in disguised during the night that winter day... It was gone the next day, as I saw it being thrown out to the recyclers.
 
BlueSwordM said:
Ohhh. I still remember when I could get these getting for 9$CA, meaning 7$, at almost 1$/cell for a 3400mAh cell that can handle 10A each.

I should've bought at least 20 of them. That would've been about 107$/kWh, meaning I could almost have the same price per kWh that Tesla has with hundreds of thousands of cells.

I feel so bad only buying 2. And to think I actually saw a bin full of them... If only I went in disguised during the night that winter day... It was gone the next day, as I saw it being thrown out to the recyclers.
Click to expand...

Damn thats a sad story :D
 
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