DIY Forums

Thanks for that bit of research, I'll have to track some of those down. Haven't had much time, but did get another sample of batteries, the voltage distribution was more in the range I expected. The average recycled Alkaline cell is about 1.2V . The higher voltage Alkalines (1.57 and above) only dro...

... For us, back then, it was a blessing to know whether or not a battery is still good enough for the task at hand. As certain types of batteries do benefit from proper charging it might be a nice way to sort your batteries with more accurate, real capacity ratings. Just an idea though. Interestin...

I would agree that for Lithium cells, voltage doesn't tell you a lot about the capacity left, but looking at the discharge curves for Alkaline cells, the voltage drops rapidly to below 1.5V then flattens off a bit - I am betting that those cells showing 1.57V and higher, are basically unused (perhap...

Ok, I thought I'd better gather some actual data, rather than speculating. I took samples from two bucket fulls of batteries awaiting recycling. If anyone wants to look at statistical significance, then sample one was about 790gm from an approx 18kg bucket, sample 2 was about 580gm from an approx 15...

Again thanks for all the links :-) Yes, the amount of energy left in fully discharged batteries is unsurprising small, but I suppose my thesis is that a lot of batteries that are sent for recycling actually aren't fully discharged. The nature of our throw-away societies is that we dispose of things ...

I suppose your post about 'modular' is to nudge me in the direction of defining divisible parts, and perhaps sub-goals, so here is a start Automatic cell selection Rejection of foreign objects Separation of input stream in to individual cells Rejection of physically non-conformant cells (ie wrong sh...

Thanks for the ideas and links, Volumetric check: Just as an idea: 2 old webcams. External webcams are certainly a often discarded commodity, and most laptop webcams have a simple USB interface too. I was thinking of just using a few metal fingers attached to pots to gauge diameter and length. But w...

Thanks for those ideas. As mentioned, at the moment, I am thinking of just cylindrical cells (AAA, AA, C, D sort of thing) as they are the majority by numbers when it comes to consumer batteries, and most in need of sorting. Other shapes and styles of battery would be a lot more problematic when it ...

I have a wish to create a machine, to be displayed at a small recycling centre, that can sort, test and discharge discarded electric cells (otherwise known as batteries if there is a bunch of them). There are a few (possibly conflicting) goals here To sort cells into different types to aid recycling...

When I was shown how to make pads a long time ago, we used PVA wood glue, just brush on a reasonably thick coating to the edge and let it dry.