My Aleph 1 Exploded and cought on fire.

[DM51]

I am very glad you were not hurt, and I hope you won't mind a few questions, which might just help with this:
1. Did you buy both the cells at the same time and from the same outlet?
2. Did you install both cells in the light at the same time?
3. Are you 100% sure both cells were fresh, and that neither of them had been used before, even for a short while?
4. How long had the cells been running in the light when this happened?

I suggest before someone takes away the trash, you should rescue the other 10 cells from the dumpster and store them somewhere in a cool dry place but safely away from your house. They may be required for investigation.

 

[Barefootone]

Did the rubber at the tailcap also explode?
And was the lens shattered or did the bezel give way?

Glad you're ok. Scary. Very Scary.

bernie

Bernie,
It's nice to hear from you.
The rubber at the tail cap did not explode it stayed intact.
The lens shattered and the metal internal ring that holds the lens in stayed intact.
Yes it was very scary, it shook me up.
Jeff

 

[Barefootone]

I am very glad you were not hurt, and I hope you won't mind a few questions, which might just help with this:
1. Did you buy both the cells at the same time and from the same outlet?
2. Did you install both cells in the light at the same time?
3. Are you 100% sure both cells were fresh, and that neither of them had been used before, even for a short while?
4. How long had the cells been running in the light when this happened?

I suggest before someone takes away the trash, you should rescue the other 10 cells from the dumpster and store them somewhere in a cool dry place but safely away from your house. They may be required for investigation.

DM51,
Thanks for the concern
1. The Battery station CR123's were bought directly from the battery all at the same time.
2. Both the cells were installed in the light at the same time.
3. Both the cells were fresh or as fresh as they could have been when I received them. The two cells had never been used before. I installed them as brand new cells for the first time.
4. The light had been running for 5 to 10 minutes at the most.
I actually did retrieve the 10 cells that I threw away for the same reason you stated. I plan on calling the battery station tomorrow and see what their position is with this very dangerous issue.
Thanks for the input,
Jeff

 

[LEDcandle]

Oh man!! Glad you weren't near the light at that time. Seems like BS batteries are really BS. There have been many cases of exploding batteries here in recent times, all CR123as. Were there any Surefire battery cases?

Everytime I read a thread like this, I really worry about all the flashaholics here who EDC a light so close to them most of the time. I use only rechargeables in all my lights but recently got 6 x Surefire CR123as with my M6, which sit in the MB-20 battery magazine. I'm treating them as a potential timebomb and keeping them separate from my other batteries.

Can't imagine 6 batteries catching fire at the same time; that will be really bad news.

 

[Barefootone]

LEDcandle,
Thanks for the reply.
I have not heard of any SureFires 123's exploding, but I have read that the Battery Stations have exploded as I now know.
Jeff

 

[McGizmo]

Hi Jeff,
Most important you and no one else was hurt!! I am pretty certain Wayne and Cindy have the components needed to get the light back together and I would be happy to cover the expense of getting you what you need to accomplish this. If you can E-mail me a list of what you need I will forward it to Wayne and Cindy.

Newbie did those tests back a ways and was able to get some events to occur with the batteries used here and the 5W boost converter, if I recall correctly.

Take care!!

 

[Illum]

mmm...not pointing any fingers, but theres been too much cases involving batterystations, I think they need to reverify their QC standards and maybe add a new rule.

Barefootone, were the vented cells new before you turned on the aleph or were they used previously?

Don, are you referring to this thread from NewBie?

LEDcandle,
Thanks for the reply.
I have not heard of any SureFires 123's exploding, but I have read that the Battery Stations have exploded as I now know.
Jeff

theres two ancient threads containing surefire cell incidents, but at least 4 on batterystations
one was the first primary lithium cell scare of CPF I know of [the one with the battery shooting through a cabinet door and the Pelican M6 incident] and the other was an incident involving a single cell venting in a surefire M6 carriage

theres at least one known case of cyclops cells and titanium cells....see the provided NewBie link

 

[jumpstat]

Glad no one was hurt. Before this I didn't realise something like this could happen. I could not imagine if something like this happened to someone you love, such as kids or wife (they frequently handle/use them all the time).

Was it due to an internal short circuit or heat induced failure ?

 

[nanotech17]

time to get rid of my BS.

 

[luigi]

As far as I know they are safe(ish) in single cell lights.

Luigi

 

[dat2zip]

I am glad you are not hurt. I will be happy to get Don the necessary parts to get your light back up and running.

Wayne

 

[LuxLuthor]

:twothumbs to McGizmo's & dat2zip's generosity. :twothumbs

Braddah Bill made a pretty good list of 'events' in his post here. I had not heard of half of those.

 

[Barefootone]

Hi Jeff,
Most important you and no one else was hurt!! I am pretty certain Wayne and Cindy have the components needed to get the light back together and I would be happy to cover the expense of getting you what you need to accomplish this. If you can E-mail me a list of what you need I will forward it to Wayne and Cindy.

Newbie did those tests back a ways and was able to get some events to occur with the batteries used here and the 5W boost converter, if I recall correctly.

Take care!!

Hi Don,
Yes thank God no one was hurt, but I'll tell you when it exploded I wasn't sure what was going on. I'll tell you it was like a gun shot for sure.
Thank you so much for your generous offer. I will have to take a very close look at the Aleph 1 and figure out what I will need to rebuild it or maybe you meant that you will build the LE. I've never built a light engine for an Aleph :thinking:. I will email you once I figure things out and try to get a handle on what parts are needed.
I looked at Newbie's thread and it's very informative, lots of other incidences like mine.
Don thanks again for your kind and generous offer,
Jeff

 

[Barefootone]

I am glad you are not hurt. I will be happy to get Don the necessary parts to get your light back up and running.

Wayne

Hi Wayne,
Thank you so much for your help with the parts :thumbsup:.
It's been quite some time since we have chatted, I'll have to look you up.
All my best,
Jeff

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Jeff,

Glad to hear that you are OK.

Let us know what Kevin (at BatteryStation) has to say. He may be able to trace the batch from the numbers on the other cells you have.

Tom

 

[Khaytsus]

This is why I am sticking to 1x123's... Unmatched cells seem to go nuclear too easy.

 

[DM51]

This is why I am sticking to 1x123's... Unmatched cells seem to go nuclear too easy.

The disturbing aspect of this incident is that Barefootone used cells which WERE matched. His post #23 above shows that he did not do anything wrong. All previous incidents with pairs of primaries blowing like this have been where unmatched cells were used. Not the case here. These cells (or one of them, anyway) appear to have been faulty.

 

[Barefootone]

mmm...not pointing any fingers, but theres been too much cases involving batterystations, I think they need to reverify their QC standards and maybe add a new rule.

Barefootone, were the vented cells new before you turned on the aleph or were they used previously?

Don, are you referring to this thread from NewBie?



theres two ancient threads containing surefire cell incidents, but at least 4 on batterystations
one was the first primary lithium cell scare of CPF I know of [the one with the battery shooting through a cabinet door and the Pelican M6 incident] and the other was an incident involving a single cell venting in a surefire M6 carriage

theres at least one known case of cyclops cells and titanium cells....see the provided NewBie link

Hi,
The cells were not new, they had been in the Aleph 1 and had functioned well previously. As a matter of fact I had the Aleph 1 out a couple of nights before the failure looking at a Skunk that was digging for grubs in my upper back yard. I had actually been using the Aleph 1 on a number of nights recently.
When you look at the wide spread use of CR-123's not only in flashlights, but in camera's you have to wonder if there have been other catastrophic failures in these other applications :thinking:.
Thanks for the input,
Jeff

 

[fieldops]

I am glad you are not hurt. I will be happy to get Don the necessary parts to get your light back up and running.

Wayne

You guys are great to help him like this. I'm just glad he wasn't hurt. Isn't it even more rare to happen in an Led light? Most of the previous events were incans, I think? the cells must have been faulty.

Thanks for being the best of CPF, guys!

 

[Orion]

Perhaps someone can post the reason why (or, at least, the theory of why) these lithium batteries fail like this.

I only have one light that uses two CR123 battiers. I believe it will be the only one. I have a VERY nice QIII that I modded with a Q4 Cree that I'm not too concerned with, at this point, due to it's single cell operation, but if I want brighter, I think I'll stick to larger flashlights. My current QIII is plenty bright anyway.