Shorting Risk in Aftermarket 123-size Battery Sticks

[Chrontius]

What's "the difference between mostly dead and all dead?" - either way, time for you to find out. I bought Bhustan's Maxfire Rechargable, and the following mail describes the catastrophic failure thereof that happened about ten minutes ago by the time I finish here.

The battery stick or switch - not sure which - suffered a catastrophic failure just a minute ago. I was playing with my shiny new P61, which worked - sort of - but the battery was thoroughly dead due to self-discharge. I topped it off for a few minutes, and tried swapping in my M60, and while I was putting the P61 into the 6P for comparison, (both would be driven at optimum levels, for at least a little while, I noticed the clicky was stuck forward ... and a funny smell. And a slight hissing. I bolted for the pool deck, where the light now sits disassembled; the tailcap spring was either eaten by a battery leak or the switch melted due to a short with the top electrode (which now seems a little loose, and either way the switch is kaput for now). I'm going to operate on the 'stupid stick shorted' theory for the time being - did they offer any kind of warranty on their work?

Further clarification - the top contact was a nubbin that should have been inside the shrink wrap, that was nearly the width of the stick. It had seemed a little loose, but I just squished it back in place and considered it fixed (for now). I think it shifted just enough to short to the metal sleeve serving as a conductor in the light, and the resulting short caused the teeny little negative contact spring to do its best impression of a tungsten filament, and melt the switch element, resulting in the smoke and bad stuff.

The moral of this story: Make sure your battery sticks have nothing sticking out of the + end to short with! Then check your lamp assemblies to make sure that nothing else is touching places they shouldn't!

 

[kramer5150]

Why use a pre-assembled pack when RCR123 cells by themselves are much cheaper? The risk of mis-matched cells and over-charging seems higher that way too. Thank goodness you weren't hurt.

 

[Chrontius]

It was a NiMH pack - 4x123 - and it came with the light. Also, the light came with a nice pack charger cradle (attached to a terrible dumb charger brick I was planning on replacing).

 

[Juggernaut]

I was playing with 3 12 volt SLA batteries the other day "trying to make a new sort of semi parallel with them "didn't work" and I connected the wrong wire to the wrong terminal and BANG! The short was so powerful it literally instantaneously melted the wire in half so one piece landed on the battery melting in to the top still glowing red wile the other end was dripping in my hand. All I remember was the pieces of fire spewing on to the floor "now I have a line of black sing marks on my hard wood floor:eeksign:" also it blew apart one side of the terminal.

 

[Zenster]

The moral of this story: Make sure your battery sticks have nothing sticking out of the + end to short with! Then check your lamp assemblies to make sure that nothing else is touching places they shouldn't!

It is possible, of course, that a short is what caused the problem.

BUT, your description of the incident which includes (seemingly) dead, multi-battery pack, with the light switch left on way beyond dead, sounds a LOT more like the scenario of how mis-matched batteries in a pack (2 or more) can mis-behave.

 

[Chrontius]

the switch wasn't left on way past dead - it was turned on by hand, with a minimal charge of about 4.2 volts on a 4.8 volt stick. On the other hand, the stick was reported to be pretty crappy even new.

 

[Bhustan]

Hey Chrontius--

Sorry to hear about the big bang. I'm glad you are ok.

That battery stick was assembled by Batteries Plus. I wanted to simply replace the original stick that came with the light --a 4.8V NiCd stick if I recall correctly. Even after getting the replacement stick and charging it, it never really seemed to perform to any reasonable expectation. We discussed this prior to the sale.

Anyway, I'm glad you are ok, and am sorry to hear about this incident. Is there any way for you to salvage the switch (the smaller Maxfires use the exact same switch), or is it toast?

Peace,
MB

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Chrontius,

There is always some danger associated when you store energy. I am glad you were able to control the damage.

Since this discussion is mostly about batteries, I will move it over to the battery section of the forum. Carry on over there.

Tom

 

[Chrontius]

Hey Chrontius--

Sorry to hear about the big bang. I'm glad you are ok.

That battery stick was assembled by Batteries Plus. I wanted to simply replace the original stick that came with the light --a 4.8V NiCd stick if I recall correctly. Even after getting the replacement stick and charging it, it never really seemed to perform to any reasonable expectation. We discussed this prior to the sale.

Anyway, I'm glad you are ok, and am sorry to hear about this incident. Is there any way for you to salvage the switch (the smaller Maxfires use the exact same switch), or is it toast?

Peace,
MB

I know the battery wasn't a great performer, I planned on using it until it was replaced. I didn't expect it to assplode the switch - which is charcoal. I'll post a WTB in the marketplace once the body stops smelling like burned metal.

Oh - Silverfox, could you move this thread, please?