Conserving battery: reversing orientation of battery polarity?

[parump]

Greetings - I am a newbie with a question regarding accidental light switch activation with a hat mounted LED light. The light uses two button batteries (alkaline) with a forward clicky switch that is easily activated. If I reverse the orientation of one of the batteries e.g. plus pole adjacent to plus pole of the second battery, will the batteries not discharge if the clicky switch is activated? I travel with the light and experienced a quick loss of battery power due to compression of the switch while the LED light was stowed in the luggage.

I apologize for the confusing question description. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

better to stick a strip of paper or plastic between the contacts and batteries instead of doing that.

 

[csshih]

some electronics will fry if you put the batteries in backwards. I strongly discourage doing it.

 

[Benson]

Greetings - I am a newbie with a question regarding accidental light switch activation with a hat mounted LED light. The light uses two button batteries (alkaline) with a forward clicky switch that is easily activated. If I reverse the orientation of one of the batteries e.g. plus pole adjacent to plus pole of the second battery, will the batteries not discharge if the clicky switch is activated? I travel with the light and experienced a quick loss of battery power due to compression of the switch while the LED light was stowed in the luggage.

Yeah, for a two-cell light (only!) that will generally work. If the batteries are at all imbalanced, the one with higher voltage may discharge slightly, trying to charge the other one until they equalize, but this will generally be slight enough not to cause any problems.

But it's better to stick a pasteboard tab in, IMO -- absolutely no chance of batteries leaking or exploding from trying to charge, and since you don't have to take a cell out to unreverse it, there's less risk of dropping it (in the dark, presumably) when you go to use the light...

 

[DM51]

Welcome to CPF, parump.

We have a sub-forum for Battery-related questions, so I'll move your thread there.

 

[Henk_Lu]

I got an Inova X5 UV with the batteries popped in like that...

That light has a protection however, which I found out soon after replacing the batteries with their pin forward, as we are all used to. Well, not for the X5, the other way round, quite stupid! :shakehead

I wouldn't recommend to stick them in reversed either, you never know how a light reacts. While I don't see what could happen, if it you'll know, but too late!

 

[ltiu]

Loosen the tail and/or head, works on a lot of lights. Doing this disconnects the circuit and prevents the light from accidentally turning on.

And for lights that have a small parasitic drain, this prevents the light from lowly draining the battery.

 

[lolzertank]

It should work, but it's not a very good idea with primaries (or any chemistry, but especially primaries). Any imbalance in the voltage will cause them to charge (!) each other.

The negative bodies of button cells may also cause a problem.

 

[tylernt]

Yeah, for a two-cell light (only!) that will generally work. If the batteries are at all imbalanced, the one with higher voltage may discharge slightly, trying to charge the other one until they equalize, but this will generally be slight enough not to cause any problems.

Say, can I connect two rechargables + to + and - to - for a while to perfectly equalize them to each other just prior to charging them in series?

But it's better to stick a pasteboard tab in, IMO

I like to use a little piece of masking tape over one end of one of the cells in devices I don't want accidentally turned on (or to prevent parasitic drain on devices that will be stored for a long time).

 

[65535]

Just take the cells out. It's an LED, so unless somehow the battery with higher voltage is in the lower position I don't see how it could possibly discharge the other cell at all.

Not that I would recommend putting batteries in 1 backwards (it's kinda ridiculous) you aren't going to die from it, your batteries won't really notice.