Do I have a defective A1 Tiablo?

[BirdofPrey]

I got a Tiablo A1 recently and put a Tenergy AAA fully charged in it. I've run the light perhaps 25 to 30 minutes and last night, it dimmed to the point of being unusable in the course of about 15 to 20 seconds.

Put a new battery in it and it works good as ever.

Any ideas why it would have dimmed so much in such a short amount of time?

I plan to do a bit of unofficial runtime testing in this weekend when I'm off. Basically, while sitting and watching a couple rented movies I'm just going to turn it on end and cycle through two batteries. I SHOULD have taken a spare with me but by my figuring I had another 20 to 30 minutes of useable light left. I was out geocaching in the middle of a park late at night that had no lights around. Kinda sucked. Was happy for the low cloud cover and the city lights from about 5 miles away bouncing down enough to get back to my car.

I'll get back with you guys on how the runtime goes for me.

Thanks.

 

[Hitthespot]

Sounds like it is the battery. You stated you put a new battery in it and it works fine. I would guess the battery is bad, going bad, wasn't really fully charged.

I think you'll find during your testing with new batteries the light is fine.

Bill

 

[Probedude]

I too think it's your cells. I don't know what the amp draw is of the Tiablo, but I know I've been very disappointed with the rated capacity of Tenergy cells vs how much they REALLY put out. I've not used their AAA's, but have quite a bit of data for their AA's and sub-C NiMH's and now their LiFePO4 RCR123A's as measured on my CBAII. All have fallen short (sub-C's and LiFePO4 VERY short) of their marked capacities.

Dave

 

[Kilovolt]

I'm using my two Diablo's (A1 and MA1) with Energizer NiMH batteries and although I have not really checked the runtimes they appear to be comparatively long. I agree that there must have been something wrong with your Tenergy.


Two hours later:

Just to get an idea of the runtime I put a fresh Energizer 850 mAh NiMH into my A1 and left it on. After about 60 minutes it started dimming noticeably but gave out a lower but still useful amount of light for another 30 minutes. The head's temperature reached a maximum of 27°C over an ambient of 20°C.

 

[BirdofPrey]

Thanks for the headsup. I currently have a fresh tenergy cell running in my A1 sitting on my desk pointing up at the white cieling. Its been 22 minutes so far. No dimming.

I'm disappointed with hearing that Tenergy isn't hitting near rated capacities though. BJ sells them so I figured they were good. Was just planning to order a 24 pack of AAs to go with my other 10 AAs for use in my GPS and a couple other odds and ends.

What is a good battery to choose instead? Not looking to spend a fortune. I was going to buy their 24 pack with 6 cases.

I'll check back in when I see some difference in my A1's output. Hopefully that will be in about a half hour.

 

[MattK]

Hi,

You'll find the Titanium and Sanyo AAA's run significantly longer - the Tenergy cells are more of a value brand than a performance brand.

 

[BirdofPrey]

Hi,

You'll find the Titanium and Sanyo AAA's run significantly longer - the Tenergy cells are more of a value brand than a performance brand.

Thanks Matt. Do you offer a nice "package" deal like you do with the 24 Tenergys with cases in the Titanium brand?

Titanium or Sanyo? Which would YOU choose? Keep in mind, I'm buying AAs as I don't need more than the 10 AAAs that I've already bought.

 

[BirdofPrey]

Additionally, I'm at 1 hour and 20 minutes and the light is visibly dimmer but still outputting very useable light. I didn't start to actually notice it until about 1 hour and 5 minutes.

Is it possible to OVER-discharge and damage the Tenergy Ni-Mh cells?

 

[Probedude]

Is it possible to OVER-discharge and damage the Tenergy Ni-Mh cells?

Absolutely! It's also possible to get a false peak when you first get them and therefore they don't get a full charge. Maybe this is what happened with your first cell.

Here's a graph I took of some 2600's I bought. The later 2600's measured even less mAH and the 2300's I bought a year before (or so) actually had more power than the 2600's!

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1550149

This is in an 8 cell 'pack' that I assembled (spotwelded tabs onto the button top cells). Discharge current was 0.6A.


That said, they are decently low self discharge. So if you consider they are really ~ 1600-1800mAH cells, but low'ish in self discharge, they're great for the price. I've been building packs to use in my RC transmitters. Don't have to worry about the transmitter being dead when I pick it up after weeks of sitting around.

 

[MattK]

Thanks Matt. Do you offer a nice "package" deal like you do with the 24 Tenergys with cases in the Titanium brand?

Titanium or Sanyo? Which would YOU choose? Keep in mind, I'm buying AAs as I don't need more than the 10 AAAs that I've already bought.

Right now only with the low self discharge cells but if you want to call in your order we can put something together for you.