Best rechargeable 123a's

So, I'm newish to flashlights, not to 18650/20700 batteries however (comes from years of vape gear). What kind of amp load can I expect out of my recently purchased four sevens mini2 and mini2 turbo? They claim on their website, only their branded rechargeable can be used safely. Is this all "CYA" here-say? Can someone point me in the right direction?

Also does not help, their batteries are harder and harder to find since they sold out earlier this year. Tired of buying 123a's when I have a nite core i4 (older version) sitting next to my piles of other batteries.

Hello and welcome to CPF

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archimedes said:

Hello and welcome to CPF

Your (lightly edited) post above has now been approved.

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Apologies, and thank you.

That is appreciated, cheers !

Unfortunately the rcr123/16340 cell is not well developed like its bigger brother 18650. AWT and efest are a couple of fairly decent cells, maybe good for 5a and 5-600mah type tank. So i use any of these along with 47's said cell. All work fine, no difference to eye and more than likely all pretty much the same cell under the wrap(not much to choose from!). I tend to charge around 0.25a 0.5a max

Great little lights, UI(user interface) not the best and PWM on highest level(if sensitive you may see it). But these little lights are cool! Nice design on the 2 way clip as well.

Presuming USA side, check places like imrbatteries, goinggear and mtn elec for starters(for cells).

:welcome:

siraig said:

So, I'm newish to flashlights, not to 18650/20700 batteries however (comes from years of vape gear). What kind of amp load can I expect out of my recently purchased four sevens mini2 and mini2 turbo? They claim on their website, only their branded rechargeable can be used safely. Is this all "CYA" here-say? Can someone point me in the right direction?

Also does not help, their batteries are harder and harder to find since they sold out earlier this year. Tired of buying 123a's when I have a nite core i4 (older version) sitting next to my piles of other batteries.

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I'm a fan of the 16340 and the AW brand, but they had a flood in the factory and they're hard to come by.

Like Ven says, AWT is a good brand, but they're hard to find, if they're still even in business.

These seem to be the ones to buy:

http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/TrustFire IMR16340 650mAh (Red-gold) UK.html

Go to Fast Tech dot com and search them out. Shipping will be a few weeks, but they have them.

Chris

Thanks for info. I'm just a bit cautious with batteries. Don't like pipe bombs [emoji23]

So I've read elsewhere that 16340's are very sensitive to over discharge. Especially below 2.5v. Below is data posted from four sevens claim 2.0-4.2... Does that mean the light will discharge below a safe level if left on accidentally, etc?

Theyre claiming their batteries are able to discharge at 2.75a continuous. Are the yellow awt's able to handle the same loads?

How are you controlling your charge down to the amp? My only experience is with an old nightforce i4 (pre-update a could years ago)... Will that charger work okay?

Sorry for all my questions, I appreciate the help!

We have chargers like the Opus BT-3xxx and the Xtar VP2 that allow us to select specific charging rates for our various cells. Little ones like the 10440, or the 16340 get 250mA, or 300mA rates, although as Ven points out, 500mA can work in a pinch. I charged up my first few AW 16340 at 500mA and they lasted a few years.

We generally don't like to go below the minimum voltage (as tested) suggested by the particular manufacturer. Some cells are tested down to 2.50v, some 2.75v, but most of us don't like to go below say 3.30v, where the cell is pretty much empty for all practical purposes.

Chris

siraig said:

..............What kind of amp load can I expect out of my recently purchased four sevens mini2 and mini2 turbo? They claim on their website, only their branded rechargeable can be used safely. Is this all "CYA" here-say? Can someone point me in the right direction?

Also does not help, their batteries are harder and harder to find since they sold out earlier this year. Tired of buying 123a's when I have a nite core i4 (older version) sitting next to my piles of other batteries.

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An interesting predicament. At first I was going to say to just use any ole 16340 you could get your hands on. But after reading their warning on the type of battery, then I guess there is some caution that needs to be adhered to.

They need this special battery (probably some type of IMR type) to get the current high enough to meet their 1020 lumen turbo level. You probably could use a regular 16340 if you promised not to use the turbo level. Most 16340 lights have a max lumen level in the 400 to 500 level. My bet is that the current discharge level necessary to hit 1000 lumens exceeds the safe current discharge ability of a normal 16340 battery.

Google "IMR 16340 high drain". Looks like you might have a couple of choices.

siraig said:

............ So I've read elsewhere that 16340's are very sensitive to over discharge. Especially below 2.5v. Below is data posted from four sevens claim 2.0-4.2... Does that mean the light will discharge below a safe level if left on accidentally, etc?...............

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2.50v is the cutoff where you don't want to go below for fear of ruining your lithium ion battery. With a 18650 / 2xCR123A light, they use a buck only driver and it becomes quite obvious on most flashlights that the battery needs charging when you get to 3.25v and below. That's because the forward voltage drop of an LED is around that level and a driver circuit that is not built to switch from buck to boost so as to maintain a constant current into the LED.........will just dimm.

But with a 1xCR123A / 16340 light, a good driver would want to extract energy from the CR123A cell that drops in voltage below the Vf of the LED. Thus to see them spec a voltage with a 2.0 to 4.20v threshold, it very well could have a buck/boost driver in there. Putting a power supply on the head and ramping the voltage up and down within that range will tell if it does. But my guess is that you will have to be extra careful with this light if running unprotected 16340 battery.

Thank you for all the information. The "turbo" mode is only active for 15 second when switching into high mode. Honestly, I can't imagine that is even "safe" on their 16340. They claim a max amp load of 2.75a on their battery. I imagine the led requires more then that to blast the full 1000 lumens. I'd rarely ever be using that mode anyhow. I can't see the Yellow awt being much, if any, less of a battery. There isn't much room for variation in these little cells. I'd be more worried about charging at a low enough amps. Only way I can achieve anything less then 1 amp/hrs on my current charger, is to charge 3 more batteries all at once.

siraig said:

Thank you for all the information. The "turbo" mode is only active for 15 second when switching into high mode. Honestly, I can't imagine that is even "safe" on their 16340. They claim a max amp load of 2.75a on their battery. I imagine the led requires more then that to blast the full 1000 lumens. I'd rarely ever be using that mode anyhow. I can't see the Yellow awt being much, if any, less of a battery. There isn't much room for variation in these little cells. I'd be more worried about charging at a low enough amps. Only way I can achieve anything less then 1 amp/hrs on my current charger, is to charge 3 more batteries all at once.

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2.75A seems a bit low for discharge capacity on a RCR123/16340, though I guess it would depend on the chemistry. Im no expert on Li-ion batteries, but on Nitecore's website they claim that their NL166 RCR123 is capable of 4A discharge current. May want to look into one of those. I have two for my SRT3 and the light is very bright with them and runs for quite a while at 550 lumens (turbo mode) and the light only just gets a bit warmish, by no means uncomfortable. It seems that the NL166 is easily capable of their claimed needed amp draw.

I have been using both the Fenix ARB-L16 and Nitecore NL166 cells without any issues in several high lumen/power draw lights - for whatever that is worth. For my peace of mind I stick with protected cells.

Cheers,
Tim

This is a really interesting topic. Years ago most of us would simply say stick with AW IMR16340 however I don't think they did well in recent testing published here. I don't know what the best brand of IMR16340 is these days? When I say "best" I mean safest.

ArazelEternal said:

2.75A seems a bit low for discharge capacity on a RCR123/16340, though I guess it would depend on the chemistry. Im no expert on Li-ion batteries, but on Nitecore's website they claim that their NL166 RCR123 is capable of 4A discharge current. May want to look into one of those. I have two for my SRT3 and the light is very bright with them and runs for quite a while at 550 lumens (turbo mode) and the light only just gets a bit warmish, by no means uncomfortable. It seems that the NL166 is easily capable of their claimed needed amp draw.

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It's not that low and if you look at HKJ's graphs, most 16340 cells begin to choke even at ~2.5A., although we're all over the map with some of them. Add to this that many lights are coming with timed step-down turbo modes and things are more interesting now. Even back when I started with my 16340 lipstick lights--high was high until you burned out the LED, or the light got too hot to hold, so a bona-fide 2.50A-3.00A was needed and was only able to be handled by a small handful of brands using the IMR chemistry.

With turbo, a light might only need to handle 3A-5A for 15-45 seconds, so even though that cell would choke in my SWM V11R, or ET D25C Ti. clicky after a couple of minutes, it'll do well on turbo mode for a short stretch.

Chris

What cell do you use with those flashlights?

CobraMan said:

I have been using both the Fenix ARB-L16 and Nitecore NL166 cells without any issues in several high lumen/power draw lights - for whatever that is worth. For my peace of mind I stick with protected cells.
Cheers,
Tim

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I prefer the Fenix 16340 to the Nitecore. I did a run time test with both of those batteries and the Fenix with its higher mAh rating lasts longer.

As Chris has mentioned, the 16340 battery can't last long on a turbo level that is basically like shorting the battery across an LED. I just don't see the point. I guess you have a little pocket rocket for a short amount of time. But these batteries have 700mAh or less and you just don't get a lot of run time at high lumen levels.

I have never purchased a 16340 light based on max lumen output. I like them for their size and I like the ones that are very efficient at the lower lumen levels.

recDNA said:

What cell do you use with those flashlights?

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AW IMRs and AWT IMRs. I had Kinoko IMRs, but the crapped out on me after less than two years.

I'm looking at the TrustFire IMRs that HKJ recently reviewed.

Chris

ChrisGarrett said:

AW IMRs and AWT IMRs. I had Kinoko IMRs, but the crapped out on me after less than two years.

I'm looking at the TrustFire IMRs that HKJ recently reviewed.

Chris

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Thanks Chris. I'm prejudiced against xfire batteries. HKJ got good results but their problem has always been quality control and their bad batteries hurt people. I guess I'll stick with AW. I will try AWT if a reliable distributor is available. I wouldn't use an unprotected battery in ET D25 though. It has no low voltage protection at all.

recDNA said:

Thanks Chris. I'm prejudiced against xfire batteries. HKJ got good results but their problem has always been quality control and their bad batteries hurt people. I guess I'll stick with AW. I will try AWT if a reliable distributor is available. I wouldn't use an unprotected battery in ET D25 though. It has no low voltage protection at all.

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The original 'flame wrapper' TrustFires cells have generally tested out pretty well, it's all the other XXX-Fire items that are the problem.

Chris

I tried my Fenix 700 mAh 16340 with the Mini Mk2 and it could hold turbo for more than a second so stopped using it for that light. Olight makes a battery similar to the 4/7 in terms of allowing for high draw. I have charged a similar battery in a normal charger (without using the magnetic charging cable). Maybe this is the one.

https://olightworld.com/batteries-and-chargers/olight-customised-rcr123a-550mah

There is a seller on Ebay (ex employee of 4/7s) who is selling that battery. Search under [FONT=&quot]Foursevens High Discharge Rate Rechargeable Battery[/FONT]