Cytac 139 charger w/ AW 750mAh's

[regulatorrecovery]

I'm using my Quark (2)123 way more than I intended, and the battery cost is killing me. Unfortunately, I'm green in knowledge regarding "real" rechargeable batteries.

After scanning dozens of posts, I'm still lost as to where to start with a simple setup that I can actually purchase and have in my possession inside of a weeks time.

I'm considering the Cytac (AW) 139 w/ the 750mAh AW RCR123's - I haven't found much for reviews from experienced users.

If there are better tangible options, I'd love to hear those as well. My budget is $100 to $150 for a dependable charger and 4-6 batteries. My main concern is ready availability, and a charger that I don't have to watch over for any length of time to make sure I don't roast my investment.

If this isn't possible, I'll just have to change to a different light.

 

[tandem]

There is a thread on the Cytac which quite coincidentally came back to life today. Given your stated budget personally I'd suggest keep the cells you've specified but buy a Pila IBC instead and gain a little additional confidence in the process. Pila IBC dual bay charger can be had in the mid 40$ range and you may require some spacers.

Is it worth it going to li-ion cells? Without knowing much more about your usage and plans for the future it is hard to say but I'm going to say no on the assumption that your current light is meeting your needs. If that is the case you can these days pretty much get similar output from a 2xAA NiMH powered light. If you were to tell us that you've got plans to acquire a Triple XP-G 700 to 1000 lumen drop in for a SureFire sometime in the next year or two, then I would say it is worth the additional hassle and safety concerns because you are heading down that road sooner or later. If that's not the case, if general purpose lighting is your current and future need, then stick with safety and move on.

There is no doubt about it -- NiMH cells and chargers are true consumer items and due to the chemistry they are intrinsically safe while li-ion rechargeable cells and chargers are, regrettably, not intrinsically safe and therefore require a higher level of knowledge and more supervision to use in a safe manner.

For some use cases li-ion rechargeable cells clearly make sense, but for a great many more folks who have general lighting requirements they probably make less or no sense.

If you do decide that li-ion rechargeable cells are more hassle than they are worth then selling your existing light on CPF Marketplace and switching over to a 2xAA light is a good approach for you given you are already open to the idea.

You can pick up a decent charger and excellent NiMH cells (Sanyo Eneloop 2000 mAh or equivalent ~10 a four pack on sale; ask around here for charger advice), AND a new light, for less than the budget you've indicated you are willing to spend on li-ion cells and charger. You get as a result guilt-free lumens without the additional safety concerns hanging over you.

Welcome to CPF!

 

[Nasty]

I recently built a M*g11 and this charger to go with my 18650s....no problems at all. Then I decided that since I had the charger, got 14500s for AA lights...it opened a whole new world of bright. I'll be adding more as I can afford the stuff.

 

[skyfire]

ive had good experience wth the cytac charger so far. fits all my rcr123 and 18650 without problems. pila would be a better option. there are some good hobby chargers as well.

my perfer choice of rechargeables was 17670 for my quark 123-2T. single cell, better runtime, gives you warning before cutting off, as output will lower with lower voltage.

with 2 x rcr123, I get full regulated output until it goes dead, which took about an hour.