Tachead
Flashlight Enthusiast
Ah... the SC52w is an AA light:thinking:. Do you mean with NiMH or Alkaline instead of 14500?
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Unscientific testing of the Zebralight battery checker function
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Ah... the SC52w is an AA light:thinking:. Do you mean with NiMH or Alkaline instead of 14500?
You are right! Yes, I'm after the voltages on the newer Zebralights, no 14500 support (eneloop and alkaline AA only). Apologies!
Hi all,
I recognise I'm picking this thread up very late, but having just got the SC53c N I was wondering the same thing about the battery pips compared to actual percentage left for AA zebras. As is clear from this thread, voltage as an indicator of % is not great for nimh, as it drops down to 1.3 very quickly and then hovers between 1.3 and 1.2 for the majority of the battery life before falling off a cliff to ~0.9. This really confused me at first being used to fairly linear lithium ion discharge curves, wondering why ~25% of my battery was disappearing in 10 minutes of light use
I did some rough tests today, just running my light using a new and fully charged eneloop pro, stopping it every hour to chuck the battery in a Fenix ARE-D1 to check the voltage, and doing the battery pip checker. Here's what I got running the light on M1 (~55 lumens).
So as you can see it ran for 4h50m then dropped down to some tiny level (at first I thought it was just off) and I'm only concerned here with how long it maintains M1.
My % left column is based on the total runtime remaining, not on the volts. So e.g. I calculate 79% after 1 hour elapsed, because at that point there is 3.8 hours out of a total 4.8 hours = ~79% remaining.
The '4' and '3' pip battery indicators are basically useless. I think it goes down to 2 pips below 1.3v, which happens very quickly. I would need to do more precise testing, but the '2 pip' to '1 pip' transition seems to happen somewhere between 50 and 40%, so that is in fact an extremely useful thing, exactly when most people would want to change or charge their battery I suspect, however there is no further indicator that it is getting very low ...
Generally, 4h50m isn't a great runtime for fresh eneloop pro's, should be more like 5->6 hours based on the 1lumen review 🤔 Perhaps importantly, it has been established in another thread that I have one of Zebralights secret 'new' SC53C N with some new unspecified driver that doesn't support 14500's at all, unlike the original -- it would be weird if a driver presumably designed more to support AA's produced lower runtimes, I was hoping for more ... so not sure what that's all about. If anyone has any thoughts about this let me know -- I didn't let the eneloop pro 'rest' before I did this, I just charged it to full then put it straight in - does letting it rest actually improve capacity?
Hope this is helpful to someone,
Stephen
I recognise I'm picking this thread up very late, but having just got the SC53c N I was wondering the same thing about the battery pips compared to actual percentage left for AA zebras. As is clear from this thread, voltage as an indicator of % is not great for nimh, as it drops down to 1.3 very quickly and then hovers between 1.3 and 1.2 for the majority of the battery life before falling off a cliff to ~0.9. This really confused me at first being used to fairly linear lithium ion discharge curves, wondering why ~25% of my battery was disappearing in 10 minutes of light use
I did some rough tests today, just running my light using a new and fully charged eneloop pro, stopping it every hour to chuck the battery in a Fenix ARE-D1 to check the voltage, and doing the battery pip checker. Here's what I got running the light on M1 (~55 lumens).
| Hours elapsed | volts | Pips | % runtime remaining |
0 | Fully charged (1.5? 1.4?) | 4 | 1.00 |
1 | 1.28 | 2 | 0.79 |
2 | 1.27 | 2 | 0.58 |
3 | 1.23 | 1 | 0.38 |
4 | 1.2 | 1 | 0.17 |
4h50m | 0.95 | 1 | 0.00 |
So as you can see it ran for 4h50m then dropped down to some tiny level (at first I thought it was just off) and I'm only concerned here with how long it maintains M1.
My % left column is based on the total runtime remaining, not on the volts. So e.g. I calculate 79% after 1 hour elapsed, because at that point there is 3.8 hours out of a total 4.8 hours = ~79% remaining.
The '4' and '3' pip battery indicators are basically useless. I think it goes down to 2 pips below 1.3v, which happens very quickly. I would need to do more precise testing, but the '2 pip' to '1 pip' transition seems to happen somewhere between 50 and 40%, so that is in fact an extremely useful thing, exactly when most people would want to change or charge their battery I suspect, however there is no further indicator that it is getting very low ...
Generally, 4h50m isn't a great runtime for fresh eneloop pro's, should be more like 5->6 hours based on the 1lumen review 🤔 Perhaps importantly, it has been established in another thread that I have one of Zebralights secret 'new' SC53C N with some new unspecified driver that doesn't support 14500's at all, unlike the original -- it would be weird if a driver presumably designed more to support AA's produced lower runtimes, I was hoping for more ... so not sure what that's all about. If anyone has any thoughts about this let me know -- I didn't let the eneloop pro 'rest' before I did this, I just charged it to full then put it straight in - does letting it rest actually improve capacity?
Hope this is helpful to someone,
Stephen
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jon_slider
Flashlight Enthusiast
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Great Data!
I would recharge any time an eeloop goes below 1.2
I think your almost 5 hours at 55 lumens is great (as long as it is still making 55 lumens up to that point)
dont be misled by ANSI runtime which counts all the way to 10% of initial output.. imo 5.5 lumens is not a relevant part of a 55 lumen runtime.. here is the runtime chart from 1Lumen
it resembles your 5 hour runtime, before dropping to ANSI limit of 10% of initial output..
Try not to worry about how bright the blinkies are, how much total runtime you can milk out of a totally depleted battery, and possible efficiency differences between drivers. I would recharge any time the battery gets down to 1.2V..
Enjoy your great little Eneloop light..
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Interesting. Thanks for taking the time to do this and posting your findings.
Considering whether your single battery may be different in capacity with other NiMH?
Like so many, you refer to 'runtimes' but really not sure how much actual light is being produced throughout that time span.
Thinking that a reviewers' numbers are a standard we can be assured is a solid number, is also up for interpretation.
Curious how your test would be with alkaline?
Considering whether your single battery may be different in capacity with other NiMH?
Like so many, you refer to 'runtimes' but really not sure how much actual light is being produced throughout that time span.
Thinking that a reviewers' numbers are a standard we can be assured is a solid number, is also up for interpretation.
Curious how your test would be with alkaline?
Thanks both, yes it is great for a tiny little light with very pleasant NW tint I am happy really, you're right Jon funnily enough 4h50 is about when the strange wiggle starts to happen on the 1lumen graph then they get another ~30 mins or so before the cliff so very similar That's good to know about 1.2v Jon, that is shortly after the 2 pip to 1 pip transition, so seems like a good indicator to change the battery. Kitrobaskin RE runtime this should all have been at 55 lumens, I am basing that on (1) simple visual inspection where it didn't seem to change but more importantly (2) the 1lumen graph Jon linked which also shows maintenance of that 55 lumens until the end -- mine dropped massively down to much lower lumens very suddenly at 4h50m and that's when I stopped, so that 4h50 should all be at 55 and I'm ignoring anything after that.
That's good to know about 1.2v Jon, that is shortly after the 2 pip to 1 pip transition, so seems like a good indicator to change the battery. Kitrobaskin RE runtime this should all have been at 55 lumens, I am basing that on (1) simple visual inspection where it didn't seem to change but more importantly (2) the 1lumen graph Jon linked which also shows maintenance of that 55 lumens until the end -- mine dropped massively down to much lower lumens very suddenly at 4h50m and that's when I stopped, so that 4h50 should all be at 55 and I'm ignoring anything after that.
The SC53 (SC54 Test Light) driving the Eneloop all the way down to .95 volts adds more evidence there is no Low Voltage Protection on this model... I got my SC53 down to .84v.
Although under normal usage with on-off cycles the lights usually step down giving you a heads up before getting too low (with Eneloop or Lith-Ion).
Lots of variables on the SC54 Test Light as there is no way to tell without testing what the lumens are set to on M1 given it's all new software. ex. also was Eneloop Pro, new, and/or testing at 2500 + mah for the test...
Can't imagine yet what would warrant a model change. I was hoping for a 719a for a AA throw version but that doesn't sound correct boosting an eneloop up to 6v. Maybe a body style change (shorter) or magnetic charging or port with additional Groups (5,6,7,8,9). Taking the todays best battery "Vapcell F12 1250mah" out of the picture doesn't sound like a positive forward move. Adding 3 additional inductors like the SC5 has would have improved brightness (which reported it doesn't) and more efficiency which doesn't look so either...
May wait a little while and just ask them for some more teaser information...
Hey Lips, 0.95 is when it suddenly dropped down to some very low level and I stopped the test, so presumably it would have continued to drain the voltage further. Yes it was a brand new eneloop pro fully charged (not rested) but didn't test the mah beforehand.
I agree I'm finding it hard to imagine what they might be thinking about changing also ...
I agree I'm finding it hard to imagine what they might be thinking about changing also ...
