Rechargable Lithium Ion - 123A SIZED?

I saw on the PK site a battery labled as such - anybody know of this and where they can be had?

P3

I had heard they were prototypes that will probably never see the light of day. They have to be charged in a very, very controlled manner and can explode if charged wrong. That is one of the reasons any company using them (rechargeable LiIon) makes them odd shapes and weird plugs so you can only use their chargers.

I have heard they were looking at adding a circuit to the cell itself to do the control on the charge, but that reduces the capacity and adds a LOT to the price. The guess on a 3.2v lithium 123 cell, was about $40, and the charger was over $100.

I think this is what caused Surefire to lean towards regulated lights, and hopefully (my wishful thinking) get in to NiMH AA powered lights.

Brock,
Won't a LiIon hold a charge quite a bit longer than the NiMH? Isn't there also a significant weight savings as well? I guess the liability of supplying a LiIon in a configuration that could allow it to be placed in the wrong charger will keep us from seeing these batteries. Bummer.

Very true. They hold a charge much longer, I think the self drain rate was about 1% a week, unlike NiMH at 1% a day. And yes they weigh about 1/3 of what a similar power sized NiMH and about 2/3 the size of the NiMH. I have also heard we are nearing the limit on NiMH AA size, something like 2200 mA and they make 1900 mA, while LiIons are about 1/2 way to their theoretical limit.

Maybe someday they will figure out a way to make it work.

Needed to be charged in a controlled manner?

I note virtually all mobile telephones, digital cameras, camcorders and PDAs use rechargeable li-ion battery packs. Yet these cost $10 USD a pack here.

I reckon the cost of the circuits is minimal when mass produced.

Safety issues - yes, there are reports that these cheap cell phone battery pack do explode but these are rare.

I note virtually all mobile telephones, digital cameras, camcorders and PDAs use rechargeable li-ion battery packs. Yet these cost $10 USD a pack here.

This is true. Anything made in large quantities will get cheaper. Also the charging circuit is in the phone or the device itself for most items. Some of the phone batteries to have the controller built in them, in looking for a battery for my phone the li-ion packs were at least 3 times the price I could find NiMH for. Granted it was about $20, and $8 for the NiMH pack. So you are correct, if they make enough, the price will come down. The problem is very few devices use 123 sized batteries, probably cameras are the biggest users and they are switching to odd shaped li-ion packs. So no company want to spend the $ to make them for such a small market.

The main reason I use Lithium cells is because of the excellent cold and heat tolerance. Are the Li-Ion cells also better than Alkalines for cold and hot usage? Also, I remember a post a long time ago showing various batteries and their MaH ratings, but I can't seem to find it. Does anyone know the MaH rating for a standard Lithium 123 cell? (Duracel, Surefire, etc..)

Regular alakline AA is 2850 mA and lithium is 2900 mA. 123 cells are 1300 @ 3v.

sflate:

Brock's (edit: alkaline) capacity numbers are optimal capacities at rather low 0.0XX mA drain levels. If you look at various battery manufacturer's sites you can see some very interesting graphs about how capacity drops as the drain rate increases. The drop is considerably more severe for alkaline than it is for lithiums, NiMH's or NiCads.

The Alkaline capacity drop rates are so dramatic that manufacturers sensibly decline to make capacity claims without qualifying with these charts.

Very true lemlux, good point.

Guys:

The rechargable 123's that were shown on PK site were available from England last year. The price was high. I believe when I inquired they were charging US$117.00 for four batteries and a charger.

Brightguy (Greg Atwell) and I looked into them last year.

The big problem was the batteries were only rated at 550 mah. as compared the Lithium 123 at around 1300 mah.

The 550mah would operate a camera well enough. Flashlight use was another matter.

I had the site marked, but I don't see it on my laptop. When I am able, I will check the other computer to see whether or not is shows up there. If it does, I will post the site.

The name of the company was Quest UK.

I have not turned up the address for the company in England that was selling the rechargable 123 cells.

I believe it was Quest batteries. Maybe someone in England will know if them.

I thought those were nimh and not li-ion?

They may have been NiMh. It's been a while.

The batteries on PK's site were the same color and Mah as the Quest battery that were advertised.

They were NiMh. I've seen the page. Maybe the reason that nobody is making them is the huge profit margin on them I don't see why it would be THAT hard to make a practical, rechargable 123 cell and charger. NiMh or Li Ion either would be nice, used a Pocket PC at school for awhile that used the new LiIon Polymer meaning basically any empty space in the body of the PDA was filled with molded battery, very cool.

My cell phone battery is 4.8 volt 800 mAh and VERY slim. It's also VERY old. So yeah...I don't see why they aern't makign rechargable 123s. Maybe as more and more flashlights and things need 3V...

Brock is right about companies not getting excited about small markets. Back in the late 60's I worked for Gould National Batteries which became Gould Inc. before it became Gould Electronics and was swallowed up by Nippon Mining of Japan.

Gould owned Burgess batteries and also made the "Again and Again" rechargeables that were subsequently sold to Saft. These were relatively minor operations compared to the automotive and industrial battery operations.

For a while we were considering making Pace maker batteries. The material cost per battery would have been pennies. The selling price was estimated at $600 per battery. The product liability insurance costs were potentially staggering over the long term. We decided that we weren't an insurance company and decided not to make pacemaker batteries.

A little off point, I know, but its a story I can't help but repeating too often.

Here is the address for the company making the rechargeable 123 cells: www.questuk.net.
They are a NiMh battery. The site also shows their "intelligent" charger.

Thanks to Richard Vallance of Scotland for the address.

I believe the only reason the battery is not suitable for flashlights is their 550mah rating.

The would however be excellent for powering cameras.

One major problem with Li-Ion is over discharge. Even one discharge below 2.5V will severely damage them. They are not just a drop in replacement. Either the light must have a low battery cutoff or the pack must have one.

If the pack has the low battery cutoff, you could be suddenly out of light with no warning. If it was in the light, an advance warning (Sun/Moon mode?) could be given.

By the way, I ordered a pair of the Quest batteries 3 or 4 months ago and never got them.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Brock:
Regular alakline AA is 2850 mA and lithium is 2900 mA. 123 cells are 1300 @ 3v.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Brock,

Lemlux's point about different energy capacity drop rates for alkaline and 123 cells under higher loads helps clarify some questions I had, but I'm still puzzled by the initial figures of 2800mAh and 1300mAh. Unless my math is badly off the physical volume of an AA is roughly 30% greater than a 123, but the Alkaline AA's have more than twice the mAh of the 123 lithiums, which have greater energy density capacity to begin with. Any idea why?

Brightnorm

I might be confused here but I will explain a bit more.

To look at a battery we really need to look at the whole battery. To say a lithium 123 is only 1300mA and an alkaline AA is 2700mA is only half the picture.

The 123 cell is 1300mA at 3 volts or 3x1300=3900, which is 3.9 watts of power.

The alkaline is 2700mA at 1.5 volts or 1.5x2700=4050 or 4.05w watts of power.

So you can see they are indeed quite close in power in the battery. The problem is most battery run devices won't use an alkaline battery beyond about .6v, so about the last 1/3 of an alkaline is wasted. Personally I change them at about 1/2 full which is a huge waste of battery energy. So basically I get about 2 watts out an alkaline and the full 3.9 out of lithium.

Now step in fully regulated light (Opalec Newbeam). Regulation allows us to use the batteries until they are really dead, by extracting all the power. So once regulated lights become common I would imagine alkaline will be the battery of choice since they are by far the cheapest per watt (for disposables). This also opens up the way for NiMH batteries to come in to their own, again voltage isn't an issue with a fully regulated light so you can use NiMH's and have the same output as lithium, just not as long of a runtime. So now instead of choosing a battery by how bright you want a light, it is how long or how cheaply, you want it to run. The brightness will be the same. I can see that you might have a "head" or "bezel" that can fit on a single 123 body for 1-hour runtime or put the same head on a 2AA, or 8AA or even 4 D cell body, same light, just longer runtimes.

Did I help or just make more of a mess?