my HD45 got really hot! Overheated CR123

[nakahoshi]

Ok, So im going to bed. Before i fall to sleep I usually grab a light and shine it on the ceiling just because. The lights were out and I reach over to grab a light, and i end up grabbing the HD45, but right away it feels REALLY hot, So i think i must have left it on. The light was off. I got worried, so i opened it up very carefully, and the 2 cells inside (Amondotech Titanium) were VERY VERY HOT, too hot to hold in my hand! One of the cells, the wrapper seams to have shrunk itself, like pulled itself tighter, leaving a slim white line. There werent any funny sounds or smells. I put in 2 new batteries, and it works fine. they diddnt heat up right away or anything. The last time i used the light, was prob 20 minutes prior. I must have used it for no more then 5 minutes at the time. the batteries in the light might have had 30 min prior runtime.
maybe the jacket was off on the light (see picture) , but that wouldnt short out? (ground to ground?)
I know i know, NOT AGAIN! but i dont know what to think about this.
-I dont remember in which order the batteries were.
-I dont think the light was on



This is really one of my favorate lights, and Maybe its just bad cells. I have had NO problems with the light before.

Maybe the light shorted out?

It was sitting BEZEL DOWN on my bed stand. and it was VERY VERY HOT.

-I have isolated the cells, and if anyone wants them. Let me know.
-bobby

[TorchEnvy]

What does one do with such a battery? I mean, it's not like you want to go toss it in the ol' 96-gallon trash can in the garage and wait until Thursday's garbage pickup, right? What do you do with it to keep it safe in the event that further bulging/volatility/heat occurs?

[WAVE_PARTICLE]

Funny that you mentioned that. About a couple of weeks ago, I got my XX1T HD45 back from the Shoppe (with a new XX1T ). It came to me loaded up with Surefire CR123's. I turned it on for, perhaps 10 seconds to test out my unit and then turn it off. I opened up the light to check the insides (had a loose spring before), slid out the batteries into the palm of my hands and ...... YEEEEOUCH!!! Boy! One of the cells was scorching hot. The other was warm but no where near the temp of the other. This scared be a bit so I immediately disposed of both batteries. Now, I use my HD45 with protected 18650's and I don't look back......

I don't know if it was the light, or if it was the batteries or if it was just plain bad luck (or good luck....because it didn't blowup). But now that I'm hearing this from you, I think I'll be sticking to single cell application (18650).

WP

[CroMAGnet]

bummer! yet another two cell flashlight having dangerous battery problems. This is why i switched to single cell lion lights only.

have we had any reported incidences with fully protected lion cells?

user error or not this is unacceptable and it's just a matter of time that one of us gets seriously hurt

T

Ok, So im going to bed. Before i fall to sleep I usually grab a light and shine it on the ceiling just because. The lights were out and I reach over to grab a light, and i end up grabbing the HD45, but right away it feels REALLY hot, So i think i must have left it on. The light was off. I got worried, so i opened it up very carefully, and the 2 cells inside (Amondotech Titanium) were VERY VERY HOT, too hot to hold in my hand! One of the cells, the wrapper seams to have shrunk itself, like pulled itself tighter, leaving a slim white line. There werent any funny sounds or smells. I put in 2 new batteries, and it works fine. they diddnt heat up right away or anything. The last time i used the light, was prob 20 minutes prior. I must have used it for no more then 5 minutes at the time. the batteries in the light might have had 30 min prior runtime.
maybe the jacket was off on the light (see picture) , but that wouldnt short out? (ground to ground?)
I know i know, NOT AGAIN! but i dont know what to think about this.
-I dont remember in which order the batteries were.
-I dont think the light was on



This is really one of my favorate lights, and Maybe its just bad cells. I have had NO problems with the light before.

Maybe the light shorted out?

It was sitting BEZEL DOWN on my bed stand. and it was VERY VERY HOT.

-I have isolated the cells, and if anyone wants them. Let me know.
-bobby

[McGizmo]

Nakahoshi,

Is your HD45 a 5W or Lux III?

I sent a 27LT to Newbie for testing but it seems to me that buck driver is less apt to cause trouble with mismatched cells than a boost driver working at the demand of a 5W.

I have a suspicion that the BBx2 and any boost circuit working off 2xCR123 can be susceptible to problems arising from mismatched or inferrior CR123 cells much in the manner of the incans but I don't understand the batteries or electronics to support this suspicion. If your HD45 is a LuxIII then I am simply wrong.

WP,

Scorching hot doesn't sound good! Was it the front or first battery that was hot? Did it feel like it was going to burn you? Like you didn't want to hold on to it?

[dat2zip]

The upper battery case is connected to the bottom battery anode which puts the upper cell at the lower battery voltage. If this was exposed and touched the side it would short out the bottom cell.

As for hot. The description so far sounds fishy, but, what is happening I'm not sure there is enough information to start jumping to any conclusions.

I know I stuck in two brand new Surefire batteries in WP light and tested it for low and high briefly to ensure full functionality. I did not test the batteries so who knows.

I would have to say the 5W driver configuration is more at risk of putting a demand on the batteries than a step down configuration. As the battery voltage falls the driver will try to suck more and more current to maintain constant current to the LED.

It seems to me that in the future the drivers need to get smarter to monitor the battery current and temperature so that it's less likely to get into situations that might be stepping out of bounds with the battery technologies we are currently using.

-Wayne

[nakahoshi]

Don,
I have the 5w WWOT.
I am just very lucky to have noticed this before anything happend. WIth all the Cr123 problems, none of them being with a LED light, i dont want to ruin the party by being the first one. This being the case, i think its more from the cells then from the light itself. Maybe i should test my batteries, but I havent had a problem before this.
-Bobby

[WAVE_PARTICLE]

Scorching hot doesn't sound good! Was it the front or first battery that was hot? Did it feel like it was going to burn you? Like you didn't want to hold on to it?

Hi Don,

I'm pretty sure it was the first battery (closest to the bezel), although I can't take that to court. It was hot enough that my reflex was to drop the batteries (almost dropped the bezel with them!). I tried to pick them off the floor with my fingers. One of them was warm but not hot. The other was much too hot to hold with two fingers for more than half a second. After the suspicious celled cooled off enough to handle (around 2 minutes), I checked it out and there was no damage of any kind that I can see and I don't remember of any weird smell or anything. No venting of any kind. Just was just heat.

To be fair, I don't believe there is anything wrong with the light. I just tried it last night with a couple of BatteryStation CR123's (tested to be both 100% capacity with a ZTS tester). Works perfectly for the duration of the 30 mins test without overheated batteries. It also has been great with protected 18650's for the last couple of weeks. My suspicion is that the cells may have been mismatched (not at all the fault of Wayne). In hindsight, I should have kept the cells, instead of dumping them... so that I could test them.

I still use my HD45 without any worries. I dismissed the incident as one of them freak mishaps, but I am more careful now when using lithium cells in a multi-celled configuration....as any prudent person should be.

WP

[Anglepoise]

I would have to say the 5W driver configuration is more at risk of putting a demand on the batteries than a step down configuration. As the battery voltage falls the driver will try to suck more and more current to maintain constant current to the LED.
-Wayne

The above quote seems like a very logical explanation. Can these CR-123a's primaries take the 5W drain? And how exactly does one make sure that both batteries in a two battery setup are 'balanced'. Can this be tested somehow with a DMM.

[WAVE_PARTICLE]

And how exactly does one make sure that both batteries in a two battery setup are 'balanced'. Can this be tested somehow with a DMM.

For me, I use a combination of a DMM and the ZTS battery tester which measures the capacity of the cell under load. I don't think measuring voltage alone is enough to determine the remaining capacity. Lithiums are not like other battery chemistries... voltage doesn't drop as much as capacity dwindles.

WP

[nakahoshi]

Hi everyone, I think i figured this out. The one cell, you see the wrapping has shrunk, exposing the metal part of the battery. This is conected to the ground, and i am pretty sure the battery was shorting itself out, heat is a reaction from the energy having no where to go. It was still scary, but i believe this light is not to blame, and my choice in CR123 cells may be the problem. This was the last light to have not switched over to Rechargables. Maybe its time. I dont know if this is related to different capacitys in the cells, i doubt that it is. I just think it was 6v going through itself, and for 20 minutes, it turned my HD45 into an easy bake oven.
-bobby

[Kiessling]

I wonder why we see such a spike of CR123 problems lately.
All the lights and concepts as well as drive current sused are basically old news.
What is different nowadays?
Or is it just statistics?

Because ... I have a lot of lights loaded with batteries here ...

bk

[McGizmo]

Bernhard,
It is odd. I recall when many of us were messing with P61 lamps in modified E2e's and some P91 lamps in 3x123 E-series tubes. Very short run time and often thermal shut downs. Never any venting or events as I recall. There are a lot of new CR123's out now though.

It may be a stretch to state the the HD45 almost blew up in the subject line here. Maybe the battery was close to venting. Maybe it did almost blow up? I certainly don't know.

I wonder if it makes sense to consider that these lights that draw significant power require that power to pump photons out the front end. It seems likely that you won't get the expected light if the batteries are up to no good at the same time. Obviously a dim output is signal for battery change. If a dim output is unexpected then it may be wise to consider that something else might be amis and treat this with caution.

I recall many reports of cells becomming mismatched in use. After some thermal studies, I have suspected that this may be due to thermal differentials in the local temp of one cell compared to the other as much as possibly due to the electrical/ chemical physics at play. If as I suspect, there is a thermal differential between the cells, this would explain finding one warmer than the other if removed shortly after use. After a full half hour seems to point to significant thermal isolation or insulation of the batteries unless there was some electrical/chemical process still at play?!?! In the case of Nakahoshi's experience here, if the first cell provided a short circuit to the back batery this could explain the heat. However if the wrapper shrank back as a result of excessive heat then the exposed shell would be a result and not a cause?!?! I am thankful that this experience did not result in any damage!!

This is all idle musing of a non expert here. I do know that most of our designswith LED lights have been based on maximizing the thermal relief of the LED but there is little focus on thermal relief of the batteries themselves and in fact there is some pretty decent thermal isolation of them. As efficacy continues to improve with LED's we have the option of keeping current flux levels while running less power through the system. Of course many want to push for max light output regardless. Variable output with the LED's does give you alternatives in the same light which helps.

To rephrase a point of Bernie's, it seems that the the rules have changed as we aren't doing much different now in terms of drive levels to these LEDs than we were a few years ago. Has a demand for greater capacity in the batteries caused a change that we are now experiencing? If anything, we are getting more light with a slight reduction therefore in heat compared to when the LED's were not as bright yet still driven at the same level. Confusing!!

[CroMAGnet]

...
I recall many reports of cells becomming mismatched in use. After some thermal studies, I have suspected that this may be due to thermal differentials in the local temp of one cell compared to the other as much as possibly due to the electrical/ chemical physics at play. If as I suspect, there is a thermal differential between the cells, this would explain finding one warmer than the other if removed shortly after use. After a full half hour seems to point to significant thermal isolation or insulation of the batteries unless there was some electrical/chemical process still at play?!?! In the case of Nakahoshi's experience here, if the first cell provided a short circuit to the back batery this could explain the heat. However if the wrapper shrank back as a result of excessive heat then the exposed shell would be a result and not a cause?!?! I am thankful that this experience did not result in any damage!!

...

Interesting. Didn't all the oldtimer lights you guys made a few years ago have this heat desparity? Is this hypothesis a potential reality now and not before?

Drive levels being the same, dual CR123A primaries might have changed like you say. hmmm

Would be nice to isolate the problem and recreate it under safe conditions. Maybe Newbie has will chime in with another angle from some of his testing. Or others remembering battery composition changes.

must use the emoticon for now.

[Kiessling]

It is not uncommon that I see one cell warmer than the other when changing batteries on a 2x123 ight that just gave up.
I never thought this was problematic.

It might also be casued by proximity to the hot LED ... so this temperature differential could be externally made but interact with the batteries performance and stability nevertheless.
???

bk

[WAVE_PARTICLE]

I believe that overheating cells happen more often than we think (were not talking about venting here, which is less likely). I think people simply don't report these instances.... For me, if it weren't for Nakahoshi's post, I wouldn't have said anything about my minor little bout of cell-mishap.

In my case, I believe that if I let the cell continually overheat, the cell would have likely shutdown via its thermal protection circuitry and I would have just dismissed the whole incident as another dead battery.

Oh well.....I'm still kicking myself for not saving that battery.... it would have given us some evidence to work with....


WP

[McGizmo]

I see the changed subject title and thinking about it makes me more suspicious that you did have a possible short in the light. I suspect this because if after a half hour of use the light was really hot and the batteries were really hot, there must have been energy being released at the time you noticed this (short or internal chemical process). I don't believe the light would have been as hot as you state after a half hour cool down or this time lapse from actual battery activity.

I take lights up to 175F (sans electronics andbatteries) to post cure the LED mounting epoxy and these lights reach room temp in minutes.

[nakahoshi]

Don, The batteries took a long time to cool down, i took them out of the light and set them in room temperature. They were still realllly hot for about 10 minutes, then began to cool. The one with the shrunken wrapping stayed hotter for a little longer.

I changed the Title after thinking about it and reading your coment aove.

The HD45 is a fine light, no problems at all. I dont think the "light" would have blown up. The HD45 can handle alot of heat, its a solid light. Again, unlike WP i have the cells if anyone wants them for testing.
I have 18650's on the way, and im done with primary cells for awhile.

One other thought, if the light was turned BEZEL DOWN, the cells WOULD be making contact with the Positive nub on the converter, right? Just add that to your thought process, and the light was stored like that (and always is)

Thanks for keeping up with this don
-bobby

[bwaites]

So what is the driver draw here, about 1.5A? Isn't that very close to what the Lamp Assembly in the Pelican M6 draws?

That shrinkage is due to the cell itself overheating, and short would show a burned type spot at the short contact area, wouldn't it?

I have 2 AA Li Energizers that look exactly the same, and they came out of a wireless mouse!

I would theorize that as the number of Li cells in use rises, the QC is dropping just due to the shear number of cells being produced.

Newbie has pointed out that 2 manufacturers of 123 cells make the crimp completely different than most of the rest, and that the cell crimp may play a part in some of these cells issues.

My gut feeling, and it comes from nothing but reading all these posts, playing with the cells in my shop, and TRYING to make this happen and the only time I have was accidently in the mouse with AA cells!

There MUST be a combination of multiple obscure factors to trigger this.

Bill

[McGizmo]

Bobby,
No worries on the light. We all want to know what is going on here as of late. FYI, The batteries are always in contact with the anode contact on the PCB as well as the rear cathode spring in the tube. The circuit is opened when Kilroy is no longer in contact with the battery tube shoulder. Light orientation has no bearing on this.

[Fringe]

Man this thread is disconcerting and makes me want to sell all my two cell lights! Please say it isn't so.

[nakahoshi]

"it isnt so"
-bobby


18650 is the way to go

[Fringe]

I don't know anything about that. I still have yet to get much into the object that powers my addiction.

[kennyj]

All this talk of battery issues is making me fear my 2x18650 WA1111 Maglite...

Although, I've had the first battery get quite hot in that sucker several times, and I've gone through several dozen cycles with two sets of LG Chem 18650s and haven't had any problems yet.

I agree with the notion that it's likely a QC issue. The popularity of CR123A-powered devices is skyrocketing, in large part due to flashlights... the fact that you can get several CR123A-powered lights at Wally World and Target now, in addition to the increasing popularity of things-not-made-by-Maglite with fire and police, means that there's going to be more and more competition and that there's going to be more and more effort to bring manufacturing costs down. They ain't just for flashaholics anymore.

[cmacclel]

What I Don't understand is that I thought all these Lithiums had PTC protection. If the PTC worked then how can the cells got hot enough to melt the heatshrink covering or even worse vent from being overheated? If the PTC's worked we would'nt have to worry about anything.

Mac

[ouchmyfinger]

What I Don't understand is that I thought all these Lithiums had PTC protection. If the PTC worked then how can the cells got hot enough to melt the heatshrink covering or even worse vent from being overheated? If the PTC's worked we would'nt have to worry about anything.

Mac

see this thread: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...&highlight=PTC

While I don't really claim to understand exactly what NewBie did, he seems convinced that many batteries have their PTCs somewhat damaged by the manufacturer in order to squeeze a little more juice out of the cells.

edit: I can't keep all his threads straight, there is also another that goes into more detail on this issue with primaries.

[WAVE_PARTICLE]

If the PTC's worked we would'nt have to worry about anything.
Mac

Maybe the PTC needs its own thermal protection too....

WP

[kennyj]

That's actually really scary... and stupid. Don't they realize it's only a matter of time before people start getting hurt, and retaliate with class-action lawsuits?

[NewBie]

I don't know that I can buy the cell wrapper shrinking causing the battery to get blazing hot.

I've not seen this shrinking to this extent, happening on other cells.

The shrinking was probably an aftermath type thing, once the cell got hot. The battery wrapper does shrink with heat, but I can say I've seen it split like that, or shrink to that extent before, even with all my testing I have seen. The shrink amount may be different with this brand cells.

The temperature to make this stuff shrink is typically extremely high, so I can just imagine how hot that cell was that you could not hold!

Most likely, the cell got hot, and then the wrapper shrunk.

Also, consider the wrapper itself has a thickness. I am seeing 5-7 mils thick on a few I have here. This would actually provide a physical barrier, even if it split.

Example:



Does the HD45 also have a coating on the inside of it's barrel, which would also provide a likely insulator, on top of the physical barrier cause by the wrapper thickness?

If something goes wrong within a Lithium Primary, or a Lithium Secondary cell, the PTC is not going to do much good at all. All the PTC can do is interrupt the external load by increasing in resistance. If you abuse a cell (or even if you don't), and something happens internal to the cell, there isn't much that mechanical, chemical, or electrical protection can do. Basically things are SOL, and take cover.

This is especially important for Lithium Secondaries, aka Lithium-Ion, Li-Ion, 18650, ICR17735, r123, and others. Why is it more important? You keep using them, over and over, and if there is some sort of damage, such as discharging them too low, discharging them beyond their 1 to 2C ratings (many of the small r123 cells have a 1 or 1.6C rating on the datasheet (with only a few that are specified for 2C) -ahem, when the reseller is willing to provide it...), over-charge, charge at too fast a rate, got too hot on the dashboard of a car, mechanical damage (small dent on body), etc. later on, you keep cycling the cell, increasing the likelyhood of a problem.

BTW, personally I'm not likely purchase any Lithium Secondary cell where the original manufacturer's datasheets are not provided. This is especially important with cells comming out of China, as their specifications vary widely, and one *must* run the cells within their specifications, or you are in fact abusing it.

One of the better spec'd r123 Li-Ion cell's datasheets is found here, and I noted a few things on it:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/r123.doc

If you are going to switch to Li-Ion, I'd encourage folks to brush up on things, found in this thread:
http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/show...2&page=1&pp=40

[k-2]

Just catching up on the primary lithium threads.

I've twice seen the type of wrapper shrinkage that nakahoshi shows on his Titanium cell. I loaded my PT Surge with 6 new Energizer AA L91 lithiums (and 2 dummy AA's - the bulb would blow with >6 L91's. Also, the dummys were correctly placed, one on each side, given that the holder is 4 series x 2), and perhaps 2 weeks later, I removed the battery pack while playing around. All of the cells had severe wrapper shrinkage , exposing the underlying metal, just as in nakahoshi's picture. The light was indoors the whole time, ambient temperature <80 degrees F, not exposed to sunlight. The longest that I ran the light with those batteries was less than a minute at a time, probably not more than 5 minutes total. The light never got hot to my knowledge. The light still worked at full brightness when I noticed the wrapper shrinkage. The only thing I could think of at the time was that the L91's did not like to be kept in an airtight container (the PT Surge is dive rated to 500 feet). Since lithium primaries give off a distinct smell, it seems logical to me that they give off a "gas" constantly, although I would guess that it would reach some sort of equilibrium within the light. This equilibrium would be at a higher pressure in a dive rated light vs. a light such as a Surefire. Perhaps the increased pressure somehow caused the wrapper shrinkage (or battery bulging)? The light has since been loaded with alkalines and put in my car. The light and alkaline batteries work fine, almost one year later.

The other time was recently, when I loaded my Elektrolumens "My Little Friend" 3 x lux3 LED light with 4 new Energizer AAA L92 lithiums. I left it on for 2 hours straight to observe runtime and brightness. It did get hot, but I could always hold it. Ambient temperature was <80 degrees F. When I took the batteries out of the holder, one of the batteries had severe wrapper shrinkage, exposing the underlying metal. It was not any warmer than the other batteries, and none of them were hot. Sorry, I did not test its voltage.

I've never seen this with NiMH batteries, and I have run an Osram 64623 12v 100w bulb for over 10 minutes straight in a 3D Mag with 12 4/5A's. It got so hot that the black plastic inner ring on the switch itself melted, (Kiu socket, Mag switch) jamming the switch. The only way to turn it off was to unscrew the end cap. IT WAS HOT! But the batteries were fine.

Just my observations. Hopefully this will stimulate more discussion. For instance, heat may be a reasonble explanation for the Titanium and L92 wrapper shrinkage. But what about the L91's in the PT Surge. Is the airtightness of the PT Surge the cause? If so, the Surefire battery holders certainly are airtight and water proof, although to what depth? I will leave the explanations to the experts.