brightnorm
Flashaholic
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2001
- Messages
- 7,160
I came across this post by paulr in What's a good light to toss in car & forget? and felt that it raised some serious issues for those of us who rely on our lithium lights. Is this specific to paulr's light, possibly due to a short, or could it be endemic to 123's and LAA's in general?
Any information about this will be appreciated.
Brightnorm
__________________________________________________________________________
General Flashlight
Paulr
#236251
5/12/03
7:53PM
I don't have scientific backing for this but it seems to me you can't rely on the 10 year shelf life of 123's once they are already in a light and used a little. I've carried a UKE 2L in my belt pack for many years and it's great. It seems to me that I've had to change the batteries after just a few minutes of total runtime though, because the runtime is spread out over possibly a couple of years. It's like putting new cells into the flashlight and using it on for a few minutes starts some kind of reaction going in the cells, that doesn't stop after you turn off the light, so they have some self-discharge. So I've put new cells into the light, used it a few times (hardly ever for more than a minute or so), and then found the batteries were dead.
So, if you're going to put a 2L (or any other light for that matter) in your car to "forget about", putting some spare batteries alongside it is also highly adviseable.
Any information about this will be appreciated.
Brightnorm
__________________________________________________________________________
General Flashlight
Paulr
#236251
5/12/03
7:53PM
I don't have scientific backing for this but it seems to me you can't rely on the 10 year shelf life of 123's once they are already in a light and used a little. I've carried a UKE 2L in my belt pack for many years and it's great. It seems to me that I've had to change the batteries after just a few minutes of total runtime though, because the runtime is spread out over possibly a couple of years. It's like putting new cells into the flashlight and using it on for a few minutes starts some kind of reaction going in the cells, that doesn't stop after you turn off the light, so they have some self-discharge. So I've put new cells into the light, used it a few times (hardly ever for more than a minute or so), and then found the batteries were dead.
So, if you're going to put a 2L (or any other light for that matter) in your car to "forget about", putting some spare batteries alongside it is also highly adviseable.