dead surefire sf123A's 5 years old & unused ?

[quantico]

I purchased a couple C3's about five years ago and put them in a emergency use bag. I tried the lights about 2 or three minutes and made sure that the tailcaps could not turn on the light. I went to check on them and the batteries are still above 3 volts, but the lights are dead. I measured voltage on the rest of the cells still in the plastic bag unused. They all show above three volts , but are all dead and will not get more than a very dim dim light. So much for ten year shelf life. The date codes are 04-2013 on the batteries.

I called surefire customer service and they were not helpful at all. I called them because a lamp assembly on one of the two P6's I purchased last week was dead / while new wrapped in plastic package. I own four surefire lights and can't say that I am unhappy with the lights, but the customer service has been poor at best. I planned on replacing the p60 stock lamps with led modules from surefire so I guess I am not really out too much. I just wondered if people expect ten year shelf life from batteries listed as having a ten year shelf life.

My C3-HA's were shipped with a ten pack of batteries on 12/23/2003 from LPS tactical in Newark CA, so the dead batteries are just over four years old right now.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Quantico,

Welcome to CPF.

There are at least two possibilities that would cause a light to only light up dimly. One is dead batteries, the other is corrosion, or a poor contact.

Do you have a way to check the batteries under load?

Sometimes you can put them into a 1 cell light and see if they work. Other times you can place a resistor across the battery momentarily and see how far the voltage drops. Something like a 3 ohm resistor should work.

A bad cell will crop up from time to time, but it is very unusual to have a whole pack of cells go bad at the same time.

Do some testing and let us know what you figure out.

Tom

 

[Mr Happy]

What about passivation?

Note to Quantico: sometimes lithium batteries appear to die after a long period in storage and have a delay before they come back to full output. When you install the batteries and see only a dim light, you should leave the light switched on for 3-5 minutes longer and watch to see if it comes back to full brightness.

Edit: Here's a link to a post where someone tried this successfully: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2395265&postcount=22

 

[quantico]

I don't think it is corrosion as I tried the batteries in a one week old surefire 6p. I have not heard about sleepy batteries that will come back , but I will give it a try. The total run time on each set of three cells for each light was just a couple minutes playing with the light before they were placed in a weapon case with the other cells. They all are still above 3 volts each and that seemed odd since they won't give more than a dim light / and some did nothing at all. I am the only person to the safe where the weapons case is kept so I know that no one else mixed up cells or ran the lights.

I am rather unhappy that all are dead at just over four years as a maglight with decent cells would be ready to go at 10 percent the cost. I sure did not go cheap on any part of my equipment.

Also really disturbing was the complete attitude from surefire about buying a pair of new 6p's in the last week new in case and having a dead lamp assembly in one of them. I could do better from target or a hardware store. I have maybe 50 flashlights from 3 and 4 D cell mag lights to maybe a dozen AA maglights and a good assortment of LED flashlights from sears from the day after thanksgiving sales. I typically but half a dozen LED lights as they seem to run forever on batteries and are reliable. They are easily used in my truck / on my boats / and at work and in the garage.

I really like the idea of high power reliable lights , but my experience with surefire has pretty much been the worst lights ( reliable wise ) that I have had with anything that I have ever purchased. I hope to modify some lights and learn a lot about current LED technology. I will give the batteries a five minute run before I recycle them since surefire seems unwilling to stand behind the lights or batteries.