Rechargeable 123 options, how many mA?

[AW]

awr,

Glad you got your package alright. There is another thread here about the 'nano' charger review:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB16&Number=857505&fpart=1&PHPSESSID=

 

[4sevens]

[ QUOTE ]
rikvee said:
Thank you Billy and Bill, I'm going for the nano charger.
JSB seems to always have trouble getting stock, and the Battery Station appear to have an overseas order phobia....
BTW is 700mA the highest for R123's?
How many mAH are the 14500's, and Pila/Wolfeyes 150s, 150a, 168s, 168a?

answer my own question:
14500 850mAH
150S 1000mAH
150A 1200mAH
168S 1400mAH
168A 2000mAH

[/ QUOTE ]

a few comments...

the 14500's come in 700, 750, and 850 mah.
Though the internal resistance in the 700 is much lower than the 850's
I think they got 850mah from a slow discharge.

I know the 700's dont' have a PTC relief valve so becareful because
they may blow

regarding teh r123's... I just got AW's 700mah and they run much longer than the yellow/orange ones that are rated 550mah (I think).
In my arc4+ the 550mah runs 28 minutes, while AW's 700's run 41 minutes. Nice improvement.

 

[rikvee]

Thank you David, which mAH are the14500's I got from you?

Quote: "I know the 700's dont' have a PTC relief valve so becareful because they may blow "

- mmmm, which ones, the 14500 or the R123???

 

[4sevens]

[ QUOTE ]
rikvee said:
Thank you David, which mAH are the14500's I got from you?

Quote: "I know the 700's dont' have a PTC relief valve so becareful because they may blow "

- mmmm, which ones, the 14500 or the R123???

[/ QUOTE ]

The 14500's and 17500's I've seen not to have PTC - the ones that do
have PTC usually have vents at the + button.

The 700mah 14500's are bright green colored.
The 850mah's I sold are blue /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

actually any li-ion will blow if shorted and overheats
or overcharged or reverse charged.

more picts

 

[rikvee]

[ QUOTE ]
rikvee said:
Thank you bajaiman, I wonder if these 600mAH cells from Jaycar are safe in late versions ARC-LSH's, or do I need the 3V ones from JSBurly's?

JSB, I'd love to buy a 168a and a 168s as well as a 3.7v globe

[/ QUOTE ]

Jon SidneyB, are you still around? (there's money in it...) pm sent

 

[JonSidneyB]

Yes, I am still around.

 

[voodoogreg]

Help me out if I am wrong but it seem's like the more
"smart" the R123 and or other li ion's the less mA they can
cram into the batt?

I plan on buying a batt station chgr, and a couple of batt's,
and on hearing the nano will charge BS batt's probably one of those since i travel A LOT.
Last time i checked JSB/pilas were not available in a 123 size, or there was some trouble with them (this was mth's ago, when i had just joined CPF so no dig on JSB/pila, i just remember checking the site
and seeing threads to this effect. if this has changed
feel free to direct me to some option's)
My two biggest problem's with the whole R123 thing is:

1)I can't find any "safe" voltage R123's for my e1e and E2d incan's. just batt's i can use in a more forgiving LED light. (which ain't a big deal, my main light's are 1X123, and of late are a couple of KL-1/VG 1x123 setup, arc LSH-P, with a HDS basic 60 here tomorrow)

2) the confusion of what is "smart". "protected" and "full meal deal" protected and how it affects runtime and stability.

From posts and threads here, the BS setup has been reliable and better run time then other's, and has not done anything too weird (blowing up, burned out charger/batt's, just the usual li ion protection "shutoff" a few have experianced).

So I guess my Q is, is there something in the pipeline from anybody that will have a safe li ion 123 that is suitable for SF incan's and good in LED's? VDG

 

[KevinL]

I think you're discovering, just like I did, that rechargeables are more trouble than they're worth at times. There are certain CPF'ers who believe in non-rechargeable cells and at times I feel like doing the same. All the points you've raised are legitimate issues and I'd like to throw in one more - calculate their time-to-break-even vs primary cells. If I am spending $50 (hypothetically) on a rechargeable setup that is only going to break even 3 years from now, I might as well go for the convenience of primary cells. Or perhaps it might never break even.

Then there is always the issue of one kind of rechargeable cell not fitting other kinds of light, so you end up maintaining one kind of battery for each kind of light and at worst one kind of charger for each kind of battery too. The lithium ion world is like this. No wonder Surefire stuck with NiCad. Then the rechargeables end up dictating what kind of lights you buy, too. I went through all of this as well and at one point I was so frustrated I almost did what a friend of mine did - he threw down the cash for the 72-pack of Surefire cells. That solved all the compatibility and charger problems at one shot.

Us international folks have it harder, it really sucks when our source of affordable cells gets cut off "No international shipping" "US only" - I wish I was in the US so I could say that too.

Eventually I got a universal charger that handles everything from NiCad to NiMH and unprotected lithium ion, now the unprotected cells have become cheap enough to stock each kind for each light, and one charger handles everything. Too bad about the safety aspects.

I only did the rechargeable conversions for the lights I use most often, the rest I leave on primary cells.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Voodoogreg,

Kevin has brought up some very good points.

The rechargeable 123's are still developing. They have voltage and current limits. The e1E is expecting just over 3 volts and the e2D is expecting just over 6 volts max. You can expect problems when you feed them 4.2 and 8.4 volts respectively. If there was enough demand, SureFire or someone else would probably manufacture a lamp specific for rechargeable use. I think the Pila lights have this covered for now. Current limits for these cells is around 2C. I am finding the cells are coming in at around 500 mAh of capacity, so that limits them to devices drawing 1.0 amp or less.

The difference in voltage is a result of a difference in chemistry. Primary cells come in at 3 volts. Changing the chemistry to make the cell rechargeable brings the voltage up to 3.7 volts nominal and 4.2 volts off the charger.

In order to get maximum capacity, battery manufacturers offer bare cells. Putting a protection circuit inside the cell reduces capacity. Battery pack manufacturers argued that the devices they are making the battery packs for offer several layers of protection to the consumer, so individual protected cells are not required. They would rather have more capacity in the form of bare cells. Battery manufacturers do not want to expose themselves to liability concerns, and in the beginning limited the sale of bare cells.

We now have access to bare cells. I am not sure about the liability issues, but figure that if damage, injury or death occurs because of improper use of a bare cell the manufacturers have offered instructions and warnings that will probably insulate them from a lawsuit.

Li-Ion cells can become unstable and loose capacity when exposed to high voltage, low voltage, and high current draw or charge rates. The protection circuit is supposed to keep the cell within its useful operating range. Another level of protection is added when the devices electronics also limit the operating range. The ARC 4 and HDS lights have this. This provides two levels of protection. Another layer of protection is added when the cells are charged on a charger that is designed for them.

From a hobby perspective, rechargeable batteries are interesting. It is fun to try various combinations out to see what they can do. Unfortunately, you end up with several different chargers and battery combinations, but that is all part of the fun. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Rechargeable batteries shine when you find yourselves burning a set or two of primary batteries a day.

Everything else is in between…

Tom

 

[3rd_shift]

It's looking like using the charger that came with the battery is the safer way to go.
Much like cellphones and thier batteries.

 

[JonSidneyB]

I will explain why this has taken so long.

This is a longer more troublesome process that it might seem to have things like this made if your the little guy. Pila and the rechargable 123s are unrelated to each other. Pila is not interested in making these, I asked them already.

It was probably more than two years ago when there was a thread that said that this should be done. I called and called and called different companies to try and get them to make safe rechargable 123s, no one was interested. They all told me that there was not a market for this. I kept at it and became a pest to some of these people.

When I heard Pila was dropping the "S" series batteries I stated talking to them to try and get my hands on the last few that existed, well the "S" batteries did not get dropped and I started selling Pila batteries. This might seem off of the subject but it does apply. If Pila was involved in these it would have been done quickly since they are experienced with this. Since Pila is not involved in this, their technology cannot be utilized and a different way of going about this had to be done. I will not break the law or step on anyones rights knowingly.

Circuits take up room, as they get smaller they will take up less room but they may always reduce the capacity.

Finally I was able to bring rechargable 123s to CPF but they were not what I wanted. We had a huge communication gap on what we were trying to accomplish. Finally we got on the same page as to what we were trying to do. I rejected the bare cells with short circuit protection.

A slow dificult process to get these right began, it was difficult because they had never done anything like this before. Outside of the People who make the Pila batteries. How many people do you know that have experience making these...Not that long ago there were none. And the fact that it has to be done different than Pila makes it harder. It is strange that one year no one was interested in these and then suddenly people are coming out of the woodwork coming out with various 123 rechargables long after we had them here on CPF.

There were those ugly hand made protected 123s and then the ones on the miscalibrated machines and other such problems. These were the only protected 123s in existance that I know of at the time. Interestingly during this process I received some e-mails giving me warnings on what I was doing during the early stages and I will admit that that caused me to pause this work for awhile.

These will get better and better and better over time. Nothing is ever absolutely perfect, even nickle metal, if nihm was perfect Li would not be the driection things are moving. Even the big boys don't get things absolutely perfect. Funny thing is the big boys didn't want to get this ball rolling. I wanted to see these things come into existance. I hope this does not sound like blowing my own horn but I got this ball rolling and now alot of people seem to think this market does exist after all.

I know you were not digging on the delays but the truth is there were some delays on the company making these end at some point and at other times I simply ran out of money. I wish this could have been done faster as well. I have not yet taken a draw off of Pila sales yet but instead I many months was taking money from my 9-5 job and putting into the business. Another thing that may have delayed this process is my feelings about sales. Giving a sales pitch on a product makes my stomach hurt, so instead of a sales pitch I decided that the best way for people to know what Pilas are was to actually give away several thousand dollars worth of these so that people could get a third party opinion on these at that time not so well known batteries, this was money that could have went to the 123s but I think it might have payed off. Another thing that has slowed me up is that I have also been working on 4 more battery ideas, not just shapes but new shapes and internal designs for other uses. I probably should not have spent that time but I did. I am in hopes that this will be able to help finance the other batteries but I also know the new designs will take time to get right. Today we now have protected batteries, just like computers, where do you jump in? Internally protected batteries is a new thing and we have been witness to it happing here on CPF through the many prototypes that have filtered out amoung us out here.

This is new stuff, we could not just go out and buy these. They had to be created on a shoestring.

If this sounds like a rant, I don't really think it is. I am at lunch on my 9-5 job right now so I am rushed. I have also been disturbed by about 1% of the e-mail that I have been getting, and I am tired and cranky.

I might proof read this later and clean it up a little or I might delete this whole post. Not sure what I think right now.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Jon,

Thanks for putting all of this into a perspective we can understand.

Thank you also for seeing this project through. Several of us are getting a lot of benefit from your efforts. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

By the way, information like this is often much better than any sales pitch you could dream up.

Tom

 

[Anglepoise]

Thanks for the explanation. I like many of us look forward to the day one can buy a re chargeable C123, that can be used just like a AA rechargeable. I don't want it to explode but at the same time I am not prepared to continually monitor it so I do not drop below a certain voltage. I am sure you will let us know when a safe and fool proof option is available. Keep up the good work....

 

[JonSidneyB]

I do think we have a safe working battery now, but with all things, it will get better and better overtime.

 

[newo]

Jon

I ordered a kit / set of these from you and received a shipping notice yesterday. Didn't notice the mAh rating on these on your site. What is it? Any peculiarities on these I might want to know about?

 

[voodoogreg]

I too want to thank john for his post, i am so new to this
a little bit of "history" help's a great deal.

I am relativly happy with BS $1.00 primary cell's, so I am
am content to wait for the developement of a suitable "all around" li ion 123. (and appreciate the work you and others have done
to that goal)being a li ion batt newbie, i was more
confused on the "reason's" why the several available R123's
differ so much in many way's.

Like someone said, being a consumer, when it comes to rechargeables we figure like our cell phones and laptop's,
flashlight li ion's should just "work" not thinking these could be any different then a nimh AA, But that the cell has to be designed around the app,(several styles of flashlight's in this case ).
So the R&D for light's W/li ion power is a pretty new any very different app! Certainly the reason for so many threads on this subject, many of which tend to be,(i am guilty of this as well!) headed as: "Will these R123's work with my__? and receive some info but not all the factors that go into these batteries. Add to this, the differing opinion's of how to go about making R123's and I imagine keeping things close to the vest which is understandable.
I just look forward to new developments in the r123 for FL's situation, and bet it will be worth the wait.
I do think in the mean time i will get some BS R123's and charger since my main light's are two KL-1/VG 1x123's and my HDS basic 60 i should have in a couple of day's,
mostly since the runtime seems to be the best at the moment,
and offer enough protection for these LED lights.I just glad CPF is such a great forum to learn about this stuff! VDG

 

[KevinL]

Just to clarify, my frustrations are with lithium technology, available lights, voltage mismatches and things not coming together as they should, rather than a dig at JSB, so let there be no misperceptions /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I was part of the early adopters of the protected R123s and to date they seem to be doing quite ok, I still use them but now my primary light is the U2 with a different kind of cell, so they don't see so much action. The U2 is fantastic because it provides a low-voltage cutoff that prevents it depleting the unprotected cell too far, and I change them often anyway.

But what we really are looking for is a direct-drop-in-and-go replacement for CR123s, that is exchangeable one-for-one, just like NiMH/NiCad replaces AA cells seamlessly. Hopefully, just like NiMH, it will have better capacity, lower voltage drop under load, and not require a protection circuit. Oh, and be cheap. Yes, it is asking for everything. No, I am not asking any of us here to step up and do the impossible because I know it is the impossible.

I'll keep waiting. In the meantime, unprotected cells are probably the best thing that could have happened to me.

 

[JonSidneyB]

I don't think its impossible at all, In fact I think it will be done one of these days. Its just going to be very expensive to do the full process for the first time.

There will many many hand made ones just to get to this point. Then there will be tooling up from the first run. Then the learning process begins to find out that what can be done by hand is not so easy to do by machine. Then there goes the redesign a few more times then try to do by machine again. Of course a few things will go wrong until the machine is mastered as well. At this point something in the real world will come up not expected and another redesign will have to occur. This will happen over and over as expenses mount. In the mean time there will be people asking many questions about the parts that are working right, how they were made, how to get them from someone else even though there are no others at that time. This will eventually happen. The real consideration will be will something cause these to not be needed by the time they are ready. It could be that the everyone will start building to the LI standard and the 3 volt ones will not be needed anymore.