Apex problem - keeps blinking low battery with fully charged NiMH batteries

[MNDan]

Hi all - just recently my Apex (the orange one - probably the 80 lumen one?) has started telling me falsely that my batteries are low. With fully charged batteries, after only 30 minutes or so of use on low, it will start blinking at me and the status LED blinks red. I then test the batteries with my voltmeter and they are still outputting way over the 4.8 volts required (like around 5.5 volts, actually). It has always been used with NiMH batteries, and has worked fine for 1.5 years.

Has anyone else had this problem? I can keep using it, and it will just blink at me occasionally but still run a long time, but it is irritating and not exactly confidence-inspiring when going for a late night hike.

thoughts?
dan

 

[TMorita]

Are you checking the voltage of the batteries under load?

If it's unloaded, then it's not accurate. Try testing them while the light is running.

Toshi

 

[Woods Walker]

Once mine gave what is believed was afalse low light (red flash) with NiMH batteries. It stopped and I charged them But these were the hated 2500 Energizers. Moved to the 2450s and it never happened again. Maybe your batteries are shot.

 

[Greg G]

I run Eneloops in my Apex and it will blink three times in series twice after about an hour of use on high. I used to change the batteries out with fresh ones, but now I just let it run on low after it blinks.

I'm going to do a runtime test on it tomorrow hopefully and see just how long it will run on high before it peeters out.