it is really easy to squish would that be a problem?
All that it does is provide a space between the cells so that they can actually flex easily. I canāt see an issue with it being really squishy unless you somehow manage to fully compress it when wrapping your pack.
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It should also be mentioned that if youāre gonna fully-shrinkwrap a flexi pack, you should definitely use polyolefin shrink tube, not PVC.
all I have is pvc
Iāve got a bunch of salvaged cells to use, working with only a 4-bay smart charger and a multimeter how can I test the cells to make sure theyāre suitable to use? I want to make sure they donāt drop in voltage super fast, sag too much or have severely reduced capacity.
Youāre really only gonna be able to test capacity with those.
Youāll need an electronic load as well if you want to also check cell performance.
Proper cell testing like that is quite tedious and not worth the trouble in my opinion. But everybody values their time differently.
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not worth the trouble to test, so just use the cells anyway? or not worth the trouble of using salvaged cells in the first place?
Both 
The process of salvaging the cells for reuse is time consuming enough as it is.
Iāve used salvaged cells in several projects, with the mindset from the start that this is highly likely going to be a waste of time and materials and preparedness to lose said project as a result.
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thereās a cost saving here I just canāt ignore though. Iām willing to put in some time if I can save a few hundred money units. at least if I can capacity test I can ensure the cells wonāt die after 20 mins.
Fair enough. As I said, people value their time differently.
Capacity checking the cells is not likely to be any indication of how said cells will perform though, so your efforts there could well and truly be in vain.
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It can help spread out the load though, typically lower capacity cells are older.
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Capacity testing is only gonna provide one data set tho.
IMO its not enough data to determine whether or not the cell is worth using
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For an electronic load, does it have to be the fancy lab equipment type or can I just use a big resistor and a multimeter and a lil math?
What else would you suggest then
Either you capacity match and spread the cells using repackr, or you just use them anyways.
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And prepare for catastrophic loss
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No?
Iāve been running reclaimed cells for over 1k miles and just now one parallel group is starting to slip
I know where they came from and their age though
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Personally, Iād want to check (with a decent measurement tool), their internal resistance.
Using an electronic load would be good to monitor how they behave under different loads, akin to their expected use.
These two points of information would be enough for me to use salvaged cells in my own project. However, itās long since been that Iāve had to use salvaged cells.
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This is my situation. I know how these calls performed last time they were used. A couple cells in the pack became corroded from moisture and Iāve separated out all of the cells with any rust or corrosion and any that tested under 3V. The rest of the cells look fine visually and test a stable voltage with a DMM but Iām worried that because of the other bad cells in the pack they came out of there might be some sleeper duds.
Really, by āsalvagedā I mean Iām just changing the shape of the pack theyāre built into. The cells I have are all the same cell and most are the same age.
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Use bigger P groups to spread out risks of odd man out cells taking each group down.
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