Help newbie solve a battery issue pls

Hey guys, new here, thanks for all the useful info. I have a wierd problem. I have 4 18650 batteries, 2 AW protected & 2 Ultrafire protected.... Each of them individiually work fine in each of my 2 single 18650 lights, an Eagletac T20C2Mk2 and a Solarforce L2 XM-L... I just got a new Jetbeam M1Xm. The 2 Ultrafire 18650s work fine in there (with the extender of course), as well as 4 CR123s... But the 2 AW 18650s appear dead in the Jetbeam (remember the 2 AWs work fine when separated)... Also I just noticed that when I put them one way in an Ultrafire charger the indicator light on the charger changes from green to red (indicating its charging), but when I switch the same batteries in the same charger (just move them each to the other side in the charger) the light stays green... Wierd right? Any suggestions? FYI all this stuff is new, I just became a flashaholic very recently... Thanks in advance!

Do you own a volt meter? If so place the batteries in series & see if you are getting voltage in that arrangement.

Could it be a problem with flat top batteries?

Winner winner chicken dinner HKJ, thanks! Yes both the AW's are flat top, and the positive receptacle (whatever the connector under the lamp module that receives the positive end of the battery) on the Jetbeam is sort-of recessed... What a disappointment, I buy the best flashlight/battery combination I can find, only to find out they are incompatible...

Which flat tops are they? My sets of AW flat tops have 3 raised dots on the negative ends and have always been fine for me. So I wonder if the driver doesn't have enough raised contact area for flat tops?

All is not lost! You can use a tiny neodymium magnet stuck to the flat top to raise it enough to make contact with the driver board's positive spring or contact. Just be careful about short circuiting it with anything with negative polarity (like the light's body or the driver's negative spring) - but this shouldn't be a problem because there's quite a large margin for error.

I bought my magnets on eBay, but I'm sure you'll find cheap ones from other sites. Here's an example just to show what I mean. There are dozens of listings to choose from, so take your pick . Just make sure that they have a diameter comparable to the nub on the positive terminal of the cells that worked (around 3-5mm I think): http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/25-round-Neod...ollectables_WeirdStuff_RL&hash=item20b6468561

FroggyTaco said:

Which flat tops are they? My sets of AW flat tops have 3 raised dots on the negative ends and have always been fine for me. So I wonder if the driver doesn't have enough raised contact area for flat tops?

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Yes, that's what I'm saying. My negative ends have 3 raised bumps too, but its the positive end that doesn't contact the driver of the light.

Thank you for that info. However I didn't choose the best battery I could find and the best flashlight I could find only to have to glue an ebay workaround together to get it to work. I will demote these AW's to work in my single cell lights and get some more sets of "regular" 18650s for my Jetbeams, or possibly excange them. I think I got them at Lighthound which has very very good customer service.

LMF5000 said:

All is not lost! You can use a tiny neodymium magnet stuck to the flat top to raise it enough to make contact with the driver board's positive spring or contact. Just be careful about short circuiting it with anything with negative polarity (like the light's body or the driver's negative spring) - but this shouldn't be a problem because there's quite a large margin for error.

I bought my magnets on eBay, but I'm sure you'll find cheap ones from other sites. Here's an example just to show what I mean. There are dozens of listings to choose from, so take your pick . Just make sure that they have a diameter comparable to the nub on the positive terminal of the cells that worked (around 3-5mm I think): http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/25-round-Neod...ollectables_WeirdStuff_RL&hash=item20b6468561

Click to expand...

In your case Redilast cells are what you need. Equal or better performance than AW's & raised button tops as well.

Thanks froggy I'll look into that.