Exploding Lithium Batteries in LED Lights? Quality of Chinese Made Products

i was just in my local sporting goods store and the guy at the flashlight counter was explaining to me that surefire 123 lithium batteries were the only way to go being that other, chinese made batteries were prone to catching fire or even exploding inside flashlights once the battery is drained almost all of the way. he then went on to tell me how Sportsmens Warehouse was selling their own store brand LED light, which was chinese made, and that this particular light had to be recalled because a number of them caught fire when not in use, just sitting in a drawer with batteries loaded in the light! anyway, i took this to mean that he was not a big fan of chinese made products. im curious about this, being that i just purchased a Fenix TK10 and am wondering if there is any truth to these spontaneous combustion rumors or if these were just isolated incidents turned urban legend. i did some research before i bought this light and Fenix appears to be a well respected brand and on par with Surefire for quality and performance but now im wondering if i should have just bought american?

Exploding batteries are because of the batteries, not the lights.

Use quality cells and you'll be fine.

For a toy, buy what you want. When it counts, load it with Surefire, Streamlight, or Panasonic batteries and you will be fine. My pick is Surefire batteries. As stated, the problem was batteries, like cheap "Titanium" batteries or other junk. Not the light.

Biggest thing to watch out for is that all the cells are voltage matched.

Put a new one and a half dead one in the same light and you will have problems no matter what the name on the label is. I do agree that you need to buy quality cells as well.

Are the Rayovac CR123's any good? I know that are American made? Are they prone to fire???

Rayovac CR123's are actually made by Panasonic, so yes, they are good safe batteries.

Surefire and Streamlight CR123's are also made by Panasonic.

Sweet well thank you very much!!!

The guy behind the counter was giving good advice, but it doesn't have to be SureFire brand batteries, ideally just anything made in the USA is going to be made with higher quality control. We have more reports of exploding chinese cells than others here, and the really cheap ones aren't really worth the price if they don't perform as well, (many do not).

Voltage matching means nothing for CR123s as near-dead and full cells will all pretty much measure open circuit ~3.1-3.2V. The only way to match CR123s is with a test done under a load, like the ZTS battery tester does, which is *reasonably* good at measuring CR123s.

Just make sure never to mix partially used and new cells and you should be alright.

Marduke said:

Exploding batteries are because of the batteries, not the lights.

Use quality cells and you'll be fine.

Click to expand...

There's a chance a *really* poor quality light would increase the risk by having manufacturing errors like missing anodising in the battery tube + slanted positive spring.

Loading a batt in such a light may push the positive spring to touch the flashlight body and cause a short.

I was at Battery World a while back and the manager was telling me how the city police ordered a bunch of the cheap chinese made 123's from him against his better judgment and within 2 months they brought them all back as 2 officers had injuries from the batts blowing up...... :thumbsdow

mdocod said:

Just make sure never to mix partially used and new cells and you should be alright.

Click to expand...

Really? I would think that because this is not common knowledge that they would write this on the packaging. Is this a one in a million thing or do they go all the time when you mix them up like this?

It actually says on some ni-mh batteries, never mix old and new, never mix brands.

The liklihood of explosions is made extremely high when mixing new and old lithium cells, one cell may be depleted, which then causes cell reversal.

Cell reversal in a lithium battery causes the cell to start venting (with flame?) .(I think)
This normally activates a thermal protection to stop the cell, but in some cheap batteries, this does not happen.

Lights are normally well sealed.. The pressure builds up... gases are flammable, and highly toxic..

see: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/120888

300winmag said:

Really? I would think that because this is not common knowledge that they would write this on the packaging. Is this a one in a million thing or do they go all the time when you mix them up like this?

Click to expand...

In multicell lights, mixing old and new is VERY dangerous.

Funny that on alkaline packaging they tell you to not mix old/new or batteries of different type or brand. Since with alkaline you only get leakage, I'd thought they wouldn't remove this warning from Lithium packaging...

I've never seen any warning on CR123 lithium packaging, but the packaging for a Nuwai flashlight I bought recently does have the warning on the back.

From the side of a SureFire Cell:

CAUTION: RISK OF FIRE, EXPLOSION, AND BURNS. DO NOT RECHARGE, DISSEMBLE, HEAT ABOVE 212F (100C) OR INCINERATE. DO NOT MIX WITH USED OR OTHER BATTERY TYPES. KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN.

---------------------

Sanyo Cell:

WARNING: FIRE EXPLOSION AND BURN HAZARD. DO NOT RECHARGE, DISSEMBLE, SHORT, HEAT ABOVE 212F OR INCINERATE. DO NOT USE IN COMBINATION WITH FRESH AND USED LITHIUM BATTERIES NEITHER WITH OTHER TYPE OF BATTERY.

---------------------

Duracell and titanium brand (some of the others I was able to find around here) do not contain those warnings about mixing with other cell types...

I have some Chinese (Nextorch) batteries which are quite cheaper than Surefire.

"Lithium batteries with PTC" it says on them - is PTC likely to prevent explosions like this?

They also have the warning "RISK OF FIRE AND BURNING. DO NOT RECHARGE, DISASSEMBLE, HEAT ABOVE 212oF (100c). DO NOT MIX WITH USED OR OTHER BATTERY TYPES. KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN UNDER 9 YEARS OLD.

mdocod said:

From the side of a SureFire Cell:

CAUTION: RISK OF FIRE, EXPLOSION, AND BURNS. DO NOT RECHARGE, DISSEMBLE, HEAT ABOVE 212F (100C) OR INCINERATE. DO NOT MIX WITH USED OR OTHER BATTERY TYPES. KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN.

Click to expand...

Boy am I embarrassed. Never thought to look ON the cells themselves

The Streamlight CR123 cells in my stash also have that exact same warning printed on the cells.

I bet the Panasonic and Rayovac CR123 cells do as well.

The Energizer CR123 cells I have do have a warning on them, but do not mention the risk of mixing cells.

All this exploding stuff has got me thinking: Batteries that I use in my 2x cr123 cell lights as pairs get labeled with a small round green sticker on each. The next pair gets yellow. Or I mark them them with waterproof pens with the same names on the pair.

That would prevent mixups and it is easy.

Wow, I am glad I seen this in time, You saved me a lot of trouble, thank you all for the info.

ev13wt: That is an excellent idea, I am going to mark all my cells with numbers.