Animalmother
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2011
- Messages
- 664
It quotes the height as 65.2mm (+0 / -1.0) so it isn't protected ... You tend to find that the protected cells are up towards 69mm even though they are classed as 18650 ... Some are being called 18700 , because of the increase in length due to the protection circuit.
I am jus suprised they sent a unprotected sell granted it was for free but i can a new person putting the cell in and having it drain completely on him.
It was for a yezl t9 i dont think its even regulated let alone low any voltage protection. Thats why i was suprised.
You need to be conscientious when running unprotected cells in lights, which is why I only use them in single cell designs. Don't let kids play with lights that run unprotected Li-Ions, or even protected Li-Ions for that matter.
Chris
How are you careful using them? How do you know when they'll be empty?
New people might not know about the drain on these.
Since it is unprotected how am i safely able to use lets say for hiking where ill be out for a period?
I charge up my cells to 4.2 volts then the next day I do a run test ... I put the torch on full power and regularly stop the test whilst checking the battery voltage (off load) ... I take the cells down to about 3.8 volts ... This gives me the run time on that particular torch and battery ... When I use the torch in future I know for example that on full I can use it for (say) two hours ... However , I don't often use my torches on full , so I will get about four hours of use to take the cell down to about 3.8 volts ... My guestimation of the battery run time is not too accurate but since I don't use the high mode too often , I have not yet been down to my prefered 3.8V level ... I check the voltages of my cells and if below 4.0V , I top them up anyway ... Li-Ions don't mind this sort of treatment.I meter the lights I use. I check the cells often because I'm anal that way. I rotate them in and out, so I'm not using just one cell, constantly. I've done run tests on them in increments, so I have a 'general' idea how long they can run, but honestly, if I were out camping, I'd have that nifty new solar charging setup with me that I built last week and I'd be charging them up willy-nilly.
You could always bring a small analog meter with you, or absent that, stick with protecteds.
New people shouldn't be playing with unprotected Li-Ion cells. We don't let children drive cars for a reason.
Chris
Scroll down this page, and you can click on the link for protected cells.