123 lithiums dead in the pack

[Trouthead]

A little update. I informed the company of this thread in a PM and received a responce back, saying thank you. No discussion just thank you. Also no response to my direct email to the company. Maybe they are going to send me some batteries???? HAHA or it should it be HOHO as it is the Christmas season.

Also got out a suitcase to use that I have not used in a while and found a still in the cellophane pack of the same battery. The first one I tested was at 20%. Didn't get to the others.

Still going to give the company a few more days to respond, before I name names.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Bfg,

I have not noticed that behavior.

I have a CPF 50 Special Edition G2 with SureFire cells in it. I use it for demonstrations only. I have had the light for about 3 years now and it is still running on the first set of cells. I just measured them and they show up at 60% on the ZTS tester.

I also have a Brinkman LX light that I don't use a lot. It has been on the shelf for at least 2 years with BatteryStation cells in it. I just measured them and they are showing 80% on the ZTS.

Both of these lights have been used intermittently, then stored with the batteries in the light.

I do have both Titanium and BatteryStation cells that did not test to 100% on the ZTS when new. These cells are continuing to test lower with time, and have never been used. I believe there is some problem with these cells, and they should not be considered normal when it comes to performance.

If anyone wants to do a test on this. Start with cells that test at 100% on the ZTS and run the light with the cells for 15 - 20 minutes. Let everything cool down for about an hour, then see where the cells test on the ZTS. Now, put the light, with the cells in the light, on the shelf and let it sit for 2 years. Pull the cells and run another ZTS test and compare the results.

Tom

 

[Trouthead]

Named Names

I guess it is time to name names, although I would guess that most people knew already. The company that I bought the batteries from is AmondoTech, and they were the Titanium series.

I should also note that AmondoTech's warrenty on the 123s
is three month from the invoice date. I am obviously past that date.

At present these batteries are listing for $1.00 each. Not much of a deal if they don't even last in the drawer.

I PMed Wayne the owner who posted a few days ago on another thread. I asked him to check out this thread. He asked me to email him, and stated he was too busy to read the posts. I did, and got into the endless AmondoTech email loop with the email lady, with the final response being "the warrenty is 3 months"

I will never spend another cent with AmondoTech. It turned out I had 18 batteries, and in the last pack I found all were less than 20%, after sitting in the cellophane.

AmondoTech has followed their warrantey so there is not a legal recourse. The whole point of this thread was to see if AmondoTech would do the "right thing" IMHO and replace the batteries regardless of warrenty. Apparently they will not. Not the kind of outfit I will choose to deal with in the future.

I would never recommend AmondoTech for any other products. A three month warrantey on the 123 batteries is indicative of something that we all can guess.

 

[LED61]

Hmm, not to disagree on anything else but the batteries are still listing for $1.00 a piece unless you looked at the two in series pack. More and more I am leaning toward the Surefire batteries as the best American made quality batteries that offer factory warranty, performance, and peace of mind. As an alternative, you can use Duracell Ultra for $2.00 a piece, also very good quality.

 

[Trouthead]

I fixed my mistake on pricing, thanks for the heads up. I also lean towards the Surfires and have already voted with my check book. I leave lights with batteries in them in my truck and car. Might not use them for months, but when I need them I don't want a dead on the shelf battery. Useless to me.

 

[bfg9000]

There's no way to know for sure now since my sample size was admittedly pretty small, but then so were yours Tom in all those shootout tests. It's kind of like how Consumer Reports' performance tests cannot hope to uncover large variances in manufacturing tolerances (ie they only tested their samples) or defects that appear over time (eg consider how well the Energizer 2500s did in the performance tests... at first). Perhaps like Consumer Reports we also need a non-scientific reliability survey, stickied like the performance tests.

I do have both Titanium and BatteryStation cells that did not test to 100% on the ZTS when new. These cells are continuing to test lower with time, and have never been used.

The problem with trying to use the ZTS to test this is observer effect. That is, the very act of testing alters the outcome, because the ZTS momentarily puts a large load on the cells, making them no longer "new." If you tested them when they were new then you have already used them...

Only large statistical tests can prove such things, which is exactly why drugs are so expensive. Vioxx underwent randomized controlled trials with n=10,000 people but the heart attack risk thing was too low to prove with that number, and wasn't noticed until 100 million more people started taking it. Well I'm not about to fund such a costly study but at least I do now know enough to realize I shouldn't be so cheap with 123As in the future!

 

[LED61]

The problem with trying to use the ZTS to test this is observer effect. That is, the very act of testing alters the outcome, because the ZTS momentarily puts a large load on the cells, making them no longer "new." If you tested them when they were new then you have already used them...

I respectfully disagree, the load imposed by the ZTS is insignificant. Try running a Duracell Ultra for 30 seconds in a Fenix P1 and then run it through the ZTS. It will still test 100%.

 

[bfg9000]

I respectfully disagree, the load imposed by the ZTS is insignificant. Try running a Duracell Ultra for 30 seconds in a Fenix P1 and then run it through the ZTS. It will still test 100%.

Considering the next step down is 80%, it would be pretty unreasonable to expect 30 seconds of use in an LED to not show 100%...

That and we weren't talking about the ZTS using up capacity at all. I mean flashing a Maxfire for a half-second should also be insignificant, right?

 

[Trouthead]

So because I used a ZTS that means the indication of bad cells is wrong???
I don't think so. Maybe I will have to try a couple of hunderd tests of a good battery on the ZTS to see what happens.

Taking a fresh new battery and testing it with the ZTS and getting 0% or 20% is certainly an indication of a bad battery.

 

[LED61]

More and more the ZTS is earning my respect as being an accurate measurement of capacity. I base myself on the fact that after using partially depleted quality cells like surefires or duracells, and actually running those specific cells in a P1 the runtime corresponds right in the nail to the capacity the ZTS was indicating. True there is a lot of ground to be covered on this but ZTS to me is fairly accurate.
Also, titanium and other chinese cells are the only cells out of many brand name cells that I´ve seen display such erratic readings on the ZTS. Variances of 20% to 60% in the same brand new cell in consecutive tests several seconds apart are not uncommon. And since I certainly don´t regard them to set the standard, well......draw your own conclusions.

 

[bfg9000]

Yeah, that's definitely bad alright. Some of us have Titaniums that test 100% even after long storage and we don't know if that's from luck of the draw or because we've never put a load them before storage.

In any case they're too erratic to trust, as LED61 said.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Trouthead and LED,

I know there was a bad batch of Titanium 123 cells, and it appears you both got some of them. I have been told that the problem cells are all gone. Not sure what to make of your experience LED, but I believe you got them from someplace other than Amondotech.

When both of you mentioned your problems, I decided to order a dozen cells from Amondotech to see what they are currently shipping. All of my 12 cells tested at 100%. I guess we will have to keep an eye on this for a while to see what is going on.

I am getting ready to do a high current drain test and we will see how the Titanium cells hold up against the others.

Of course the big question now is how will they hold up in storage...?

Tom

 

[Stingray]

Interesting that this came up now. I just had about 15 Titaniums die in storage that were bought last November and are only a year old. I was totally perplexed when I went to change batteries in a light last week and they were all weak or dead. The ones I used last year during the hurricane were all ok at the time, but the rest didn't even last a year in storage.

 

[Markcm]

ZTS misuse?

Anyone finding "duds", have you tried conditioning them as Silverfox mentioned earlier in this thread?

When I read this thread, it made me wonder what was going on. Are there really so many duds out there or is the ZTS instrument being misused?

I grabbed a batch of brand new cells (only about a week old from the manufacturer) and found of 25 that 23 read 100% and 2 that were reading 20% on my ZTS, I tested each one 5 times and got 20% every time. Then I put these two cells in a light pulling over 1A for only a few seconds, waited a minute and retested them, low and behold both cells are now reading 100%, an hour later now and they're still at 100%. Far from a conclusive scientific test and I only tried this one sample very quickly but it is enough to make me question all these "duds".

I am not posting any "facts" here, just general discussion and my observation. Any new readers to this thread using a ZTS or other analyzer to sort out "duds" might want to try loading a suspect "dud" cell and retest.....No guarantees as I'm sure there will be some defects in new batteries but maybe some of these are actually good batteries that have not formatted yet.

 

[SilverFox]

Re: 123 Lithiums dead in the pack

Hello Markcm,

The problem with that is that some of the cells that have been rejuvenated have poor shelf life. If you are going to use the cell right away, that sometimes works (actually it works almost all of the time. I say almost because if a cell is really dead because of other problems it won't work, but I have had very good luck with all the cells I have tested.), but I would limit the use of these to single cell lights.

In multi cell applications, I still want cells that start out at 100%.

Tom

 

[LED61]

Hello Trouthead and LED,

I know there was a bad batch of Titanium 123 cells, and it appears you both got some of them. I have been told that the problem cells are all gone. Not sure what to make of your experience LED, but I believe you got them from someplace other than Amondotech.

When both of you mentioned your problems, I decided to order a dozen cells from Amondotech to see what they are currently shipping. All of my 12 cells tested at 100%. I guess we will have to keep an eye on this for a while to see what is going on.

I am getting ready to do a high current drain test and we will see how the Titanium cells hold up against the others.

Of course the big question now is how will they hold up in storage...?

Tom

Hi Tom, have fun with the testing. Those few that did test 100% in my batch performed very well in my SF M6, so I hold high expectations for your batch:naughty: , now if they only were more consistent and not so erratic...

Alberto

 

[Stingray]

Re: ZTS misuse?

When I read this thread, it made me wonder what was going on. Are there really so many duds out there or is the ZTS instrument being misused?

I don't have a ZTS, I just popped 2 into the light (E2d) and the light was very dim. I checked them on a DMM and they were around 2.7V. Then I checked 2 more and they were around 3.0, but when I popped them into the light, it was still dim and orange, and when I took them out and re-tested them, they were now about 2.7V. This happened wiith all the Titaniums I had. I put in two new Surefires and the light is working fine.

So I had about 15 bad ones only a year old.

 

[Trouthead]

I fiddled around with the rejuvination process, and got every battery to at least read 20% on the ZTS. Two read 100% after rejuvinating, while a couple read 80% but an hour later they were at 60%. Regardless I tested and conditioned or "rejuvinated" all the bad AmondoTech Titanium batteries, and have put them in envelopes with the % of charge on each. I will test again in a week.

Really I consider these batteries to be a loss. I have replaced every battery i own (cr123) with Surefires, and Battery Stations,which seem to be a good comprimise between price, performance and shelf life. But for admitidly a limited test I will check on these batteries again after sitting a week. It is funny that the "dead" on the ZTS batteries wouldn't light up anything, but after "rejuvinating" they do have power. For how long will be the question.

A lithium battery that has less than a years self life is worthless. Maybe with fiddling and rejuvinating these Titanium pieces of junk can be made to work, but there is no way to trust them, and other than the fun and interest of it, it takes too much time and effort. Had I not heard about the "rejuvinating" I would have just dumped them all.