The capacitor that wasn't

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I dug this out of some dirt while weed eating and thought hey cool it's a capacitor

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Like maybe someone got mad at a TV when their kicker missed a field goal or tried to recreate Wendy O's flaming school bus through a wall of TVs 

But now it looks like a battery

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True story I have an elderly customer she had a Toyota hybrid SUV said it was a great car had it like 12 years but anyway it ended up getting totaled she was unhurt but told me about a hundred times she was so glad it didn't catch on fire like the big batteries or whatever.
Anyhow I believed her but it didn't really sink in I was like yeah ok yeah good thing 
About a month later I was mowing this guy's grass he's a young buck really good guy but a wild man I'm making a pass and hit something with my mower a loud thump it stops the engine I start cussing and pull it back....and there's a small fire   
So I'm trying to wrap my head around this wondering ok maybe the blade sparked and ignited the dry grass...yeah kind of a long shot but who knows .... meanwhile I see some strange debris where the fire 🔥 is 

About that time he runs out and says "oh wow you found my phone" and says him and his gf were fighting and drinking and she had thrown it out into the yard 

So I went back and told that lady wow now I know what you meant 

[J M Fahey]

It IS a battery.
Does it take charge?
Use a 12 V supply and charge this through a 50-100 ohm resistor.

[g1]

Yes, it's rechargeable lithium type like you find in modern cordless drill battery packs etc.  Many batteries in series or series-parallel arrangements to make a 18V or 24V battery pack.
They used to use Ni-Cad type for all the rechargeable stuff, but they are using lithium-ion types more and more, which is where you get the fire hazards.  "Don't park your e-bike inside!" etc.

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Omg......          


So I spent like an hour soldering leads to the battery no matter what the battery had like an anti solder force field around it and the solder buggers clinging to the iron     
Then I kept getting this sticky green scum so I kept scraping and cleaning

Somehow by miracle I got two leads to stick and now I cant believe what I'm seeing


   

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The whole time I thought well no way it's holding any charge but the deal here is if you guys tell me to do something I have to do it

WOW

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Illuminati confirmed 

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[Kaz Kylheku]

The battery was likely "recycled into the weeds" by someone who found the run-time degraded, not because it was totally dead.

I have a phone with a battery that charges it and powers it well enough to use, except you have to do that twice a day even though it's mostly on standby.

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Yes sir thanks I was actually in a pickle 🥒 driving to work wondering what exactly is the difference between a capacitor and a battery?!?!

I'm gonna have to think about it
They both charge up and have polarity at the terminals



Edit: one possible clue is a capacitor is not gonna supply a steady voltage or current for any length of time and requires constant recharging

[J M Fahey]

Yes sir thanks I was actually in a pickle 🥒 driving to work wondering what exactly is the difference between a capacitor and a battery?!?!

I'm gonna have to think about it
They both charge up and have polarity at the terminals



Edit: one possible clue is a capacitor is not gonna supply a steady voltage or current for any length of time and requires constant recharging

A capacitor will charge to any voltage you apply, batteries have a built-in "fixed" voltage which comes from a chemical reaction.

Also in principle most capacitors are bipolar, batteries are always single polarity.

[Kaz Kylheku]

The word "battery" originally referred to an array of (i.e. "battery of") capacitors connected in parallel!

What is the difference between a modern battery and cap?

A battery (chemical cell) generates electricity from a chemical reaction. When a rechargeable battery is charged, the chemical reaction is basically forced to go backwards.

A capacitor only stores charge directly, like on metal plates that are separated by a small gap.

The smaller the gap, the bigger the capacitance.

Even the electrolytic capacitor is nothing like a battery. There isn't a chemical reaction going on in it. Electrolytic caps have a high capacity because the gap is so small: it consists of just the oxide layer on the aluminum anode. (Or tantalum.)  The electrolytic gel provides the cathode, so it forms a close contact with every surface imperfection of the anode for maximal area.

There are supercaps in which there is a chemical reaction in the electrolyte: they are kind of halfway between a capacitor and battery.

Other differences between capacitors and batteries is that:

• in a battery, charges can flow between the terminals through the chemical solution; a capacitor blocks flow of charges (other than the "battery-like" supercaps)
• capacitors obey the mathematics of capacitance; batteries have different charge curves based on their chemistry. The "battery-like" supercaps deviate here; their capacitance is strongly frequency dependent. Batteries exhibit memory effects and hysteresis. For instance, if your gasoline car won't start because you left the lights on, it's possible to get it to crank if you just turn everything off and leave the car alone for 15-30 minutes. The electrolyte in the lead-acid battery is depleted close to the electrodes. Given a little time, it liquid redistributes a little bit and voltage and current delivery bounce back.  Capacitors do not bounce back this way. They just hold charge, modulo leakage.
• capacitors can fully charge and discharge many times a second. A picofarad-scale capacitor in a radio frequency circuit charges, discharges and reverses polarity at radio frequencies. Even the 60 Hz charging and discharging of a filter cap in a power supply is not possible for batteries.
  
• because capacitors charge many times per second, in order to do that, they have a vastly better lifespan in terms of charge cycles than batteries, which degrade with each charge and discharge.
• capacitors have low internal resistance: they can dump a lot of current without a lot of loss.
• capacitors reach much higher voltages than batteries; the maximum voltage in a battery cell is determined by the energy level changes in the chemical reaction: e.g. if a cell is 1.5V, that's because of the type of chemistry, similarly to a diode having a certain voltage drop based on the type of substrate: both are linked to electron energy levels in atoms. Whereas the maximum voltage in a capacitor is determined by how much charge can be crammed in before the dielectric breaks down and there is an internal arc. We have capacitors rated for 1000V or more.

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Hey guys you rock thanks for taking the time to help out with this c

I wonder now if getting the little battery hot with the soldering iron kinda percolated everything inside and helped it generate some more voltage 

[J M Fahey]

Hey guys you rock thanks for taking the time to help out with this c

I wonder now if getting the little battery hot with the soldering iron kinda percolated everything inside and helped it generate some more voltage 

Using solder and a soldering iron is actually bad for batteries.
The joint between outside terminal and inside actual battery is damaged by heat, so battery packs are made by soldering steel tabs to battery body , using a special spot welder, which turns metal red hot for a fraction of a second but not long enough to let it go inside.

I HAVE soldered brass or copper terminals to batteries but sanding body very well and using a very hot iron, so it´s very quick.
Worst is to spend minutes there because of dirty surface or inadequate iron.