Anyone else with a Boxer 24W having Battery Problems?

[GilmoreD]

I have a Boxer 24W, and am having trouble, both with the Wolf-Eyes 18650s and the Ultrafire 18650 batteries. I've kept the batteries in sets, so they discharge and charge together. So far I've had 1 battery in each of my 3 sets go bad. (1 W.E., 2 U.F.)
Anyone else having battery troubles in conjunction with the Boxer?
Thanks,
Dave

 

[cmacclel]

I have a Boxer 24W, and am having trouble, both with the Wolf-Eyes 18650s and the Ultrafire 18650 batteries. I've kept the batteries in sets, so they discharge and charge together. So far I've had 1 battery in each of my 3 sets go bad. (1 W.E., 2 U.F.)
Anyone else having battery troubles in conjunction with the Boxer?
Thanks,
Dave

Since the cells are in series it's really only one battery. I just think you have had some bad luck

Mac

 

[GilmoreD]

Bad luck with 2 different manufacturers, and 9 batteries?
I hope not.
Dave

 

[cmacclel]

Bad luck with 2 different manufacturers, and 9 batteries?
I hope not.
Dave

There is no way any light can damage one cell in a set of three in series


Mac

 

[Spark Gap]

Dave,

I've noticed that one of my original WE 18650 cells was showing a more significant voltage drop than the two other cells in the set. I put a mark on that battery, and continue to keep an eye on it's performance. When it lags behind the others, I give it a few extra minutes charge by itself, in effort to equalize or balance the cells. At 24W, and 11.1 volts, the current drawn from the batteries is over 2A, and approaching 1C (2200mA), which is taxing them close to their rated limit. I'm sure you have noticed how warm they get after a half hour or more constant use. It's not surprising to find one of three cells lagging in capacity. Since they are in series, the weakest battery will dictate the run time. I alternate the original set of batteries with a set of 2600mA/h 18650s from All-Battery. Typical run time is about 55 minutes either way, so I suspect the 2600 mA cells are falling somewhat short of their nominal rating. I'd like to hear observations from owners of the 10W version of this light. I'd imagine this scenario is less prevalent at less than half the current demand.

Cliff

 

[cchurchi]

My Boxer has killed 7 Wolf Eyes 168A batteries so far. Each of these 7 batteries, when placed in a battery cartridge with 2 known good batteries, cause my Boxer, M300, or Storm to shut off in less then 10 minutes. The bad batteries, when placed in my Sniper (1 X 168A) flashlight, function normaly after switching the bad battery back "on" by placing it in a charger for a second or two.

To be fair, I am pretty hard on the batteries, typically running them for a full hour until shut off when at least one battery has dropped to 2.5 volts. If this is harmful, then the protection circuit should activate at 3 volts in my opinion.

Now that I think about it, it's 8 batteries because I shipped one back to PTS last year. I also went snow shoeing at night new years eve. The temperature was below 0 when I fired up my Boxer. Cartridge 1 lasted 5 minutes before shutting off, cartridge 2 lasted around 40 minutes. All batteries were around 4.15 volts. I haven't determined if the extreme cold is the cause of the early shutoffs or if I have another 2 bad batteries bringing the total number of bad batteries in my collection to 10.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Cchurchi,

If I had to venture a guess, I would suspect that your cells are getting out of balance.

I believe the charger charges until one of the cells protection circuit kicks in. This stops the charge. Hopefully, all of the cells are balanced from the beginning, but this is not always the case.

I would suggest that you load up your battery magazine and charge your cells up. When the charge has completed, set the magazine aside and wait for about 20 - 30 minutes, then measure each cells voltage.

Let us know what you get.

Tom

 

[Daekar]

My Boxer 24W has killed 3 WE brand 18650s so far... I always charge using the battery magazine, but I'm beginning to wonder if I should start using my Pila charger and do them in groups of 2 instead. I never deep-discharge my cells (the thing has never cut-off on me after 60 minutes of steady use, that is to say) but I have had the same "cut off after a short time running" thing, which is usually how I notice a cell has gone bad. After it gets to that point, the Pila charger doesn't even recognize the cell is there and won't charge it at all...

 

[GilmoreD]

From the beginning, I've used my WF139 charger and not the magazine charger. I thought that charging batteries seperatly was better than charging in series. I've still gone through more batteries than I though I should. I've only had the Boxer less than 6 months, and use it about once a week.
Dave

 

[cchurchi]

Hello Cchurchi,

If I had to venture a guess, I would suspect that your cells are getting out of balance.

I believe the charger charges until one of the cells protection circuit kicks in. This stops the charge. Hopefully, all of the cells are balanced from the beginning, but this is not always the case.

I would suggest that you load up your battery magazine and charge your cells up. When the charge has completed, set the magazine aside and wait for about 20 - 30 minutes, then measure each cells voltage.

Let us know what you get.

Tom

I always measure the voltage of each cell individually after charging all three batteries in the cartridge. However, these readings can sometimes be misleading as 1 or more of the batteries protection may have partially engaged causing the battery to register a lower voltage when testing with a meter. Often, 2 of the batteries will read around 4.15 volts and 1 will read a lower voltage, maybe something like 4.05 volts. However, slap the 4.05 volt battery on a single battery charger for 1 second and now the voltage reads 4.21 volts. Put the battery back on the single battery charger (I have a wolf eyes charger as well as a DSD) until the charging status light turns green, and the battery will often, but not always, read a much lower voltage again. Sometimes the 4.15 volt batteries fresh off the cartridge charger will jump to a higher voltage when placed on a single battery charger for a second. I notice that the voltages are more stable if I pull the batteries off the cartridge charger as soon as the red begins to turn green rather then wait until the led has turned fully green, and then charge them to 4.15 to 4.20 volts using the individual battery charger. I usually try for 4.15 volts.

Before I go on an outing, I make sure all 3 batteries are at 4.15 volts or just over. Even so, IIRC 7 times the boxer has shut off before the 10 minute mark and around 3 times the 30 to 45 minute mark. The bad battery was identified and marked, all 3 were recharged to 4.15 volts and then loaded into my Storm, the Storm is turned on and without fail, the problem battery would once again shut off within 10 to 15 minutes.

Put the problem battery in a lower drain light like a Sniper, and it works fine.

I think the Boxer might be a battery muncher.

P.S. I think about 8 of the 10 failures occured in very cold temperatures. However, I use my Storm and M300 (although I haven't owned them as long) in very cold temperatures also.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Cchurchi,

OK, I ran my M300 for awhile, then charged the cells in the battery magazine. When the charge was complete, I inserted the magazine in the light and turned it on for 1 second. I then removed the cells from the magazine and measured their voltages after resting for 30 minutes.

This is where my cells ended up.

4.204
4.096
4.188

As you can see, I have around a 0.10 volt imbalance. A balanced pack would have all cells within 0.01 volts of each other.

Now, this is after only a few cycles of use. If I did not take the time to re-balance my cells, I would end up driving one of them into lower and lower voltages during the discharge. The cells do have a low voltage cut off, but I think it is set too low for long cycle life.

You will get better performance from both your light and your cells if you keep your cells balanced. Don't bother to check for balance when the cells are discharged, it is normal for some imbalance to exist then, but at the end of the charge, make sure your cells are within 0.01 volts of each other.

Tom

 

[Daekar]

Wow, that's pretty telling. I guess it confirms the "don't charge li-ions in series" thing, and that charge-balancing circuitry is absolutely necessary - either that, or it's necessary to remove them from the magazine to charge them in single-channel chargers.

EDIT: Well, after reading this I decided to use my new multimeter to test all of my 18650s (not just the WE ones I use in my Boxer) and I got voltages varying from 3.97 on a Pila cell to 4.19 on a Tenergy cell. I charged them all in my Pila charger and then tested them after running them 10 seconds in my MRV and every single one read within 0.01 volts of each other - I'm guessing that means my Pila charger is reliable! I think that for the rest of the time I have my Boxer I'm going to remove the from the magazine and charge them individually every 3rd charge or so just to make sure things are spic and span, so to speak.

I also have something to add about customer service for Wolf-Eyes lights: Mike over at PTS is a stand-up guy! I've never had a bad experience with his store and he took care of the battery issue I had immediately and without question. I mentioned in a PM that my Boxer had killed a battery, he asked me for my order # so he could verify I bought it from him, and immediately sent me a replacement. He did mention that it would be nice if I could return the bad cell to him at some point (which I still need to do... sorry Mike!) because Wolf-Eyes gives him credit for all the bad ones he turns in, something that I was very pleased to find out - it means their dealers don't have to suffer for cell-failures that they can't control. If anybody has any battery problems and got them from PTS, I encourage you to contact Mike and "trade" cells with him!

An interesting implication of this is that Wolf-Eyes cells go bad - or are damaged - on a regular-enough basis that a policy has been established. I imagine the charging system for the 3-cell magazine is the primary offender here and Wolf-Eyes engineers must've noticed this, either that or they attribute the abnormal failure rate to the almost 1C rate that the batteries experience. How about we write them and ask them to implement a balanced charging system? Before you all rush off to flood poor Mike's mailbox, I meant WE itself, not PTS. DO we have an e-mail address for them?

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Daekar,

To get my cells back into balance, I simply hooked them up together in parallel and let them sit for a few minutes.

Then next round found the cells at

4.203
4.204
4.214

This is much better, but still a little off. Once again I paralleled the cells and ended up with 3 cells very close to 4.205 volts. Now, I don't like having cells above 4.200 volts, so I installed the magazine in my light and turned it on.

The M300 runs for around 60 minutes on a full charge (cells at 4.2 volts each). I prefer to have my cells at 4.15 volts each, so I turned the light on for 3 minutes. Now I have 95% of my runtime available, and my cells are below 4.2 volts.

It may take 2 - 3 cycles to get your cells balanced, but once you get them balanced they should stay that way for several cycles, unless you run them all the way down to the low voltage cut off.

I still don't like the fact that this charging system charges the cells to over 4.2 volts, so I will probably use my Schulze to charge them.

By the way, a very simple way to balance your cells is to place a small magnet on each end of the cells you want to balance, line them up, then connect all of the + ends with a short piece of conductive material, I use 6" of 1" by 0.25" thick aluminum bar stock, then connect all of the - ends with another short piece and loosely clamp the pieces onto the batteries. I use one clamp for all three cells, but if your cells are different lengths, you may have to adjust things to fit. One setup I saw used a fixed bar for one end, and a flexible bar, or foil, for the other end. One clamp was used for each cell. In this set up, the clamps were picked up at the dollar store.

Tom

 

[GilmoreD]

From the last two posts...
Does this mean that the charging method that comes with the Boxer is not very good???? and may be destroying batteries??? I've been charging mine in single chargers all along, and still have troubles. What's a guy to do?
Dave

 

[Spark Gap]

Demanding 2 plus amps from 18650 cells at 100% duty cycle until the low voltage cut-off, is like driving an engine just under red line RPM until the car runs out of gas. As mentioned earlier by SilverFox, the best solution is to turn off the light before the discharge limiting circuit is tripped, whenever practical. Lithium batteries do not like to be deep discharged. This holds true for most all battery chemistries, with some exception to NiCd. Check out Batteryuniversity.com for more good information on this subject.

Cliff

 

[GilmoreD]

I can only think of one time that I ran the Boxer for "full run time", which should be an hour. At best... I run for a half hour. Mostly it's for ~15 minutes.
That's why I'm perplexed that I'm going through batteries.
Dave

 

[matrixshaman]

How about this for a solution - I've got a Boxer 24w also that I've been thinking about this since I've heard the battery woes alot for this light. Get some of those A123 cells in the new 18650 size since they can take a lot of abuse and high discharge rates as well as high charge rates and still come up smilin' - at least that is what I've read. And there is no chance of 'vent with flame' like you have with regular Li-Ions. My only question is that since they are essentially 3.3 volt cells rather than 3.6 volt is will they have enough voltage to drive the HID circuit in the Boxer. My guess is they will. Any opinions on this? I'm about ready to buy some of these cells to try it out.

 

[Spark Gap]

Voltage will not be an issue as much as run time. The A123 LiFePO4 cells do not have the power density of Lithium Cobalt Oxide. I believe you are looking at about 1200 mA/h vs 2200-2600 mA/h. The ballast in the Boxer ought to work down to around 7.5V+/-.

The second consideration is charging. Since LiFePO4 charges at a lower voltage than typical lithium secondary batteries, they will be fried quickly if charged in the stock Wolf Eyes charger.

Bottom line is that you can expect about 30 minutes run time, and must charge the batteries separately outside of the magazine. They will however be a safer battery. I have considered this as well, but may make more sense in the 10W version, where you would get more usable run time.

Cliff

 

[matrixshaman]

Cliff, Thanks for the info - This is what I had thought. Less run time per charge but at least I won't be killing the batteries after a dozen or so charges. And for the way I use this light it will be fine since I'm normally close to a charger and only typically will use it 1 to 5 minutes or so at a time. I've got a couple thoughts for a charger for these A123's but I'm wondering if a Maha C777Plus II will work on them? I've got my own charger I built that has fully adjustable voltage and will probably do okay but I need to look into what people are using to charge these best.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Matrixshaman,

Not a good choice...

I just ran some tests using the 18650 A123 cells. There is no problem with the load, but charging killed them.

I was getting around 32 minutes of runtime with the M300, but the beam was no longer very white.

The charger charged them up to 4.6 volts. After 4 cycles, 2 of my cells went open. I inquired about this and it is common for these cells to fail open under these conditions.

The can handle 4.2 volt charging, but 4.6 was a little too much. Of course the proper charge voltage is 3.6 volts.

Tom