LiPo safety question

Thread Starter

Moxxie

Joined Mar 2, 2022
4
I salvaged the battery from a battery bank for a project, the issue is I pulled on the foil pouch due to some double-sided tape, it flatted back down but caused some wrinkling to the foil, there are no punctures or rips to the foil, is the battery safe to use still, or should I just get a new one?

Thanks, Mox.

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Ya’akov

Joined Jan 27, 2019
9,068
Welcome to AAC.

It is as safe as it was. There is a slight chance it was very minimally reduced incapacity but it is no less safe.

It’s not possible to tell from your photo if there is a protection board on the cell. If there isn’t put one on. That is much more of a safety concern. Otherwise, use it (carefully) without worry.
 

Thread Starter

Moxxie

Joined Mar 2, 2022
4
Welcome to AAC.

It is as safe as it was. There is a slight chance it was very minimally reduced incapacity but it is no less safe.

It’s not possible to tell from your photo if there is a protection board on the cell. If there isn’t put one on. That is much more of a safety concern. Otherwise, use it (carefully) without worry.
Thank you for your response and advice on this. I will be fitting a spark fun charge regulator to the battery, I believe it has inbuilt protection, but I will refer to the spec sheet and see if I need to fit one.

Thanks again, Mox.
 

Ya’akov

Joined Jan 27, 2019
9,068
Thank you for your response and advice on this. I will be fitting a spark fun charge regulator to the battery, I believe it has inbuilt protection, but I will refer to the spec sheet and see if I need to fit one.

Thanks again, Mox.
The SparkFun board will provide protection if the cell is connected to it but it is a very good practice to provide intrinsic protection to the cell. A board like this one provides short circuit, over-discharge, overcurrent, and overcharge protection on the cell itself before you can even connect anything to it. The linked one is 4A (overcurrent) but you can get smaller values if you want a faster cutout.

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There may well be a board like this under the Kapton tape on the side of the cell not in the photo. So look there for one. If it doesn’t have one, I would—Sparkfun board notwithstanding—put one on it. If you have any questions about how to go about that, please don’t hesitate to ask.
 
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Thread Starter

Moxxie

Joined Mar 2, 2022
4
The SparkFun board will provide protection if the cell is connected to it but it is a very good practice to provide intrinsic protection to the cell. A board like this one provides short circuit, over-discharge, overcurrent, and overcharge protection on the cell itself before you can even connect anything to it. The linked one is 4A (overcurrent) but you can get smaller values if you want a faster cutout.


There may well be a board like this under the Kapton tape on the side of the cell not in the photo. So look there for one. If it doesn’t have one, I would—Sparkfun board notwithstanding—put one on it. If you have any questions about how to go about that, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Good call, I checked the Sparkfun page and they say the same. I've had a look, but I'm almost certain there is no protection board mounted, they must have integrated it into the power bank circuit itself. I'll fit one before continuing. Thank you again for all your help ^^

Mox
 

Ya’akov

Joined Jan 27, 2019
9,068
Good call, I checked the Sparkfun page and they say the same. I've had a look, but I'm almost certain there is no protection board mounted, they must have integrated it into the power bank circuit itself. I'll fit one before continuing. Thank you again for all your help ^^

Mox
No problem, always glad when I can help.
 

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,167
If there is still any concern it will be wise to not eave the cell unsupervised for the first few charging and use cycles. And have a plan to move it to a place where it can do no harm if it does go into an overheat mode. Really cheap insurance for if something does go wrong.
 
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