I'm thinking of going the 14500 route. IIRC, Battery Junction also has 14505 non-rechargables. Same size, voltage, and power without all that pesky recharging!
I resisted rechargeable batteries for a long time. I didn't like the idea of babysitting batteries. But, when I did finally, I began enjoying my lights more. I used to be concerned with running a battery down, or leaving the house with only half capacity, and not using my lights as much as I wanted because I didn't want to run the battery down. The fun began when I got some AW Li-ion batteries & then some eneloops. It no longer bothered me when I or my wife or my kids ran around with their lights on all the time.
Taking care of rechargeables is easy. There's really not much to it at all, and worth what little time you spend on it. All I personally do is check the voltage before charging, then I charge the battery, then I test the voltage at the end to make sure it is where it needs to be. That's it. I use an inexpensive voltage meter that I bought from Walmart.
Below is what I'm looking for when I test my Li-ion batteries along with some tips on how to handle Li-ion batteries. I learned most of this stuff at batteryuniversity.com.
- Try not to let the Li-ion get below 2.5v. It's ok if this happens once in a while, but try to avoid it because this can damage the cell. Some folks prefer not to let their battery get below 3.0v which should extend the life of the battery.
- Don't let the battery charge over 4.2v. A good charger should stop charging when the battery gets close to 4.2v.
- If your Li-ion voltage drops below 2.0v for more than a week then throw it away.
- Don't store your Li-ion batteries long term with a voltage over 4.1v, and it is ideal to store them with a voltage close to 40% capacity (around 3.75v - 3.8v.)
- Don't use Li-ion batteries in anything other than electronics that are designed for them. The light or electronic must be able to handle 4.2v for a single cell, or 8.4v for 2 cells, etc.
- A Li-ion should last a min of 3 years. I have several AW brand batteries that are over 4 years old that are still running well.
- If a battery gets too warm during charging then it may be a sign that it is going bad. If it is losing more than 0.1v within 24 hours of charging then it is probably going bad.
- Buy quality brands with a protected circuit such as AW, Redilast, EagleTac, & Orbtronics. These are all good quality Panasonic batteries which have been rebranded. There are too many cheepies floating around which are really rejects or very old batteries, and may not perform well at all.
- Treat your cell phone, laptop, ipad, camera, & other devices that use Li-ion batteries the same way as above to get the most out of them too.
Good luck.