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PeLu said:
There is a so called 'smart battery standard' developed several years back. Among the companys were/are M$, Intel, Benchmarq et al.
The idea is that you have a small IC built into the battery pack which monitors the battery all the time, counts charging and discharging Ah, calculates self discharge dependent from temperature and many many things more. It even tells the charger how to charge the battery, so newer chemistries could be used with older chargers. It is all in one IC with a singlke wire interface. Youc an even read out a serial number, name of the manufacturer and manufacturing date. It also is able to tell how much power the battery is able to deliver savely at the moment, depending on charge, state, temp and so on. It recalibrates itself at any charge/discharge cycle. This is the way to go for larger torches/flashlights.
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*looks in Surefire's direction*
A 10X Dominator with this kind of "smart" lithium ion pack.. I'd buy it the moment I could and never look back /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/drool.gif I think a number of other customers would appreciate the reassurance of a truly smart pack with battery gauge too, so they know whether they need to top it off. Besides, the 10X is supposed to be the be-all-end-all light in their handheld range.
It sounds like the ultimate battery pack. I've had indicator lights on my laptops since eight years ago, that was when lithium ion started becoming really popular. Incidentally, with regards to safety, laptops sit on...uhh..laps. And I haven't heard of anything about lithium ion packages undergoing "explosive discharge" and inflicting damage to vital organs yet. Lights are truly wonderful things, but I think thousands more laptops containing lithium ion have shipped as compared to lithium ion lights, and still no casualties yet. It sure does seem that it's safe enough for the general public to use. After all, the amount of bumbling users I work with every day carrying laptops is amazing, and still nobody has managed to kill either themselves or the laptop.
Granted, laptops have proprietary chargers, but I figured that the 10X does too (can't imagine you could charge it in anything other than SF's own docking station).