I bought a set of Lumicycle light from eBay and the battery is totally knackered, cells have split due to water ingress. I realise I can get a replacement battery from Smudge at mtbbatteries but I can not afford the direct replacement from him just now, even though it is much cheaper than the replacement from Lumicycle.

Has anyone bought replacement 18650 cells with tabs and re-built the battery themselves?

Has anyone managed to source brand name (Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Sanyo)3.7V 2.6Ah 18650 unprotected cells with tabs in the UK?

Does anyone know where you can get the balancing/protection PCB in-case the one I have is trashed from the leaking cells.

I realise I will have to be careful with building the battery but fortunately my boss at work has years of experience in building Lithium batteries for the oil industry and is willing to help me out.
I have found this guide online that gives general pointers but I need some help sourcing parts.

Thanks

Rusty

Is there not a risk of explosion if you do it wrong?
Can smudge provide batteries as required for your home fix.

easy way is protected cells and a battery holder or just build up a new pack using the protected cells no need for a separate pcb that way

Yes there is a risk, however my boss is well versed in handeling and building Lithium batteries and we have varioius stuff in place at work if something does go wrong.

I would ask Smudge but i feel a bit hypocritical asking to buy the bits from him as he has gone out of his way to help others with cheaper than normal batteries on this forum and his prices for his batteries do seem very competative. I simply don’t have that kind of money just now and wouldn’t like to be seen to be taking buisness away from him.

hopefully replacing the cells in my hope hid pack should total 16 quid. and a fresh pack to be built of cells and a board from battery junction.

mikey-simmo

how are the shipping costs etc buying from batteryjunction? i was just a little concerned buying from the states and incurring large import fees and it taking months for the stuff to arrive.

it costs more than i’m happy with but can’t much about it.

Rusty,
Email me directly and i’ll sort you out with a partly used battery that ive just used for testing with. (Still guaranteed)

Smudge.

PS i’ll sell protected cells to anyone interested but never unprotected

Cheers Smudge,

Just sent you an email

Top tip: Don’t solder wires directly onto lithium batteries as when they explode the molten solder may land on your foot and set your carpet on fire. Not that I would have been foolish enough to do anything like this…

Finished it. although I hadn’t realised that the controller board has a 6.5 a limit. Which mean that it’ll run my triple XRE but prevents my Quad XPG from working. Still I rebuilt the hope battery with fresh cells and that will do it just fine.