What can I wrap my battery in?

Is there a safe material to wrap my battery in so it cannot rattle in the flashlight body? I thought of tape but if the battery gets hot the glue melts and mess may ensue. Thanks for your advice!

Why not just wrap a piece of paper around it? Not only will that give less room for the battery to rattle around, but will also dampen any sound if it does rattle a bit.

use some shrink wrap, and maybe put a plastic or paper washer on the top

I'm using silicone o-rings from standard household water supply pipes. 3 of them just make it tight and also don't add additional insulation to battery, as does paper or any other wrap.

I feared too hot for paper and definitely not enough room for oringd.

recDNA said:

I feared too hot for paper and definitely not enough room for oringd.

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Paper ignites at 451F. (Hence the book title.) If your batteries are getting that hot, you've got bigger worries.

However, I do agree with another poster that if you're running them really hard, the additional insulation of paper may not be the best solution.

What torch and what batteries? There may be other reasons the batteries rattle.

The batteries themselves would overheat if the paper gets too hot. Even when i had one cell overheat in the charger it was only about 130F but since i label the cells what they are with the paper and tape, it didn't do anything, even though the cell was about 130F it didn't affect the stuff on it at all. I had another cell where the wrapper got too hot, but a short or something was going on with the cell at the negative end and the La Crosse charger doesn't appear to have heat sensors on the negative terminals so the battery continually was generating heat at the negative side until it reached to the positive side. I bet the temps were above 155F. So unless you are driving your battery or flashlight at those temps you shouldn't have anything to worry about. A clear indication would be that your flashlight would be really warm to too hot to touch.

Chicken Drumstick said:

What torch and what batteries? There may be other reasons the batteries rattle.

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V11Rvn at 3 amps with imr 16500. The extension tube is bored for 18660 and the head seems a little wider too. It isn't a rattle that worries me. It is that if the flat head of battery moves enough to one side to touch the metal ring in the head I would have a short circuit.

How many watts are u drawing to make ur batts hot??

About 10..battery isn't hot enough to burn paper but paper prevents heat transfer to body making battery hotter

I use this http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...g-of-CR123-RCR123s-in-a-bored-body&highlight=

recDNA said:

V11Rvn at 3 amps with imr 16500. The extension tube is bored for 18660 and the head seems a little wider too. It isn't a rattle that worries me. It is that if the flat head of battery moves enough to one side to touch the metal ring in the head I would have a short circuit.

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Is the main body tube also bored for an 18mm battery? As the easiest solution in that case would be to simply run an 18500.

I'd be surprised however if a 16mm battery would have enough movement though, for it to be possible to move far enough to touch the outer contact with the + terminal.

A small o-ring on the top of the battery would prevent this movement.

Why not follow HKJ's tutorial, using battery shrink wrap (available, shamefully, from Fasttech in various names, but also in various colours - search "battery shrink" on FT)?

I would imagine you could build up several layers to get the thickness you desire to stop the rattling.

Only extensions are bored. 18500 will not fit. The flat top on the battery is almost the width of the battery and is only millimeters away from positive ring edge

Not enough space between battery and extension wall for any oring that I have

Fish?

Try some shrink wrap that's cut a little long so that it curls over the edge 3 mm or so. The positive contact looks like it protrudes enough so the battery will still make contact.

Taz80 said:

Try some shrink wrap that's cut a little long so that it curls over the edge 3 mm or so. The positive contact looks like it protrudes enough so the battery will still make contact.

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Good tip but I'm all thumbs.

For my 18500 "3 AAA in a barrel" conversions (on occasion there is length for an 18650), I use the cardboard tube from the middle of a roll of toilet paper. Slit it lengthways, trim to the needed length, then coil it. I've found the larger coils are the perfect amount of added material to fit snugly but still release with a small shake of the wrist.

Mike