do you remember to charge your flash lights during the day?

[Flashlightmaster2021]

I try to make it a habit to keep my flash lights charged during the day that they way they are ready to rock and roll when needed.
Anybody else do the same

 

[Lateck]

I try to keep them charged on a weekly/monthly basis. That way I don't overcharge the batteries.

 

[TPA]

I tend to go for long-runtime lights over brightness, so my stuff lasts a long time between charges. Even at that, I normally charge whatever I'm carrying with me when I'm at a hotel (someone else's power), and I travel a lot, so by default everything is charged regularly.

The only time I go out of my way to charge everything fully is before a hurricane or other expected outage.

I do recharge my USB battery packs before each flight, but that's a different story. 1x 26800mAh battery powers the iPad for Foreflight and also will power my backup PJ2+ COM radio in an emergency. 1x 26800mAh or 20000mAh battery powers my phone and whatever else people want to bring on board.

 

[hsa]

Usually I remember it during the day but it is after the 3rd or 4th time I remember it that it actually gets charged so I try to remember it early.

 

[Flashlightmaster2021]

I try to keep them charged on a weekly/monthly basis. That way I don't overcharge the batteries.

thats good info that i never considered. alwasy learning. stay curious my friends

 

[Flashlightmaster2021]

I tend to go for long-runtime lights over brightness, so my stuff lasts a long time between charges. Even at that, I normally charge whatever I'm carrying with me when I'm at a hotel (someone else's power), and I travel a lot, so by default everything is charged regularly.

The only time I go out of my way to charge everything fully is before a hurricane or other expected outage.

I do recharge my USB battery packs before each flight, but that's a different story. 1x 26800mAh battery powers the iPad for Foreflight and also will power my backup PJ2+ COM radio in an emergency. 1x 26800mAh or 20000mAh battery powers my phone and whatever else people want to bring on board.

awesome. not sure if you already have one but you should get a garmin inreach mini satetlite text messanger. it works any where in world and is really handy to have

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

The only batteries that I charge daily (well, nightly, actually) are my amateur radio handy talkie batteries. I plug them in to charge when I go to bed.

I don't use my flashlights too heavily, and I use them during the day, too, so, charging can be a problem for one, but not for the other. The SF Fury DFT I have several 18650s for, so I can swap in a charged one while recharging the one just taken out. I'm short of Eneloops now, since some have gone bad and I haven't replaced them, so my ML Mini-mag Pro+ can go empty while I recharge its Eneloops, or I can put some alkaleaks in while they charge back up. It all depends on how much I need the Mini at the time.

 

[rwolfenstein]

I tend to discharge my batteries from use. So I only charge them when they die to make sure that I get the best charge on the battery.

 

[aznsx]

I try to keep them charged on a weekly/monthly basis. That way I don't overcharge the batteries.

I don't understand what you mean by 'overcharge'. Proper chargers don't 'overcharge' cells / batteries.

I only charge them when they die to make sure that I get the best charge on the battery.

A proper charger will charge them to the same end result regardless of their initial 'depth of discharge'. I am, however under the impression that regularly discharging them to a low state of charge (higher depth of discharge) before charging them compromises cell life significantly. I'm certainly no cell / batt expert, but do read what a lot of them have written. We may all be wrong;-)
EDIT: I excluded NiCD from my comment(s). They're an exception to some of those comments, but hopefully few are using those any more!

 

[bykfixer]

I carry extra batteies.

 

[alpg88]

That is why i like anduril, 3 clicks and i know if i need to charge.

 

[vicv]

I don't understand what you mean by 'overcharge'. Proper chargers don't 'overcharge' cells / batteries.


A proper charger will charge them to the same end result regardless of their initial 'depth of discharge'. I am, however under the impression that regularly discharging them to a low state of charge (higher depth of discharge) before charging them compromises cell life significantly. I'm certainly no cell / batt expert, but do read what a lot of them have written. We may all be wrong;-)

I think he means charging them too often and always keeping them at 100% soc. Which is bad(somewhat) for the cells as well. The more you can keep it at 50% the better. Me personally I only charge when it's needed. If I check my cells and they're at 3.7v or below, I charge. If not, I leave it alone.

 

[Wound_Up]

I've never had rechargeable batteries in my Preon P2. Currently waiting on some to get here, though. I actually lost my first Preon P2 MKII around Christmas of 2021 and just got a used MKIII from ebay for a great deal. So this time I ordered a bunch of NiMH rechargeable batteries and a charger.

Last time, when I originally bought the MKII around 2012, I ordered the light and some Panasonic Eneloop AAA's but I never bought a charger for them so I just ended up using alkaline batteries in it. Thats not happening this time, so I bought 8 batteries and a charger. That way, I won't ever be out of full batteries no matter what happens.

When I originally found the Preon P2, the website also had a bunch of graphs showing power discharge rates for different batteries and how each affected brightness and runtime. At that time, Eneloops were apparently the best option for those lights so I bought some...but didn't by a charger!

 

[TPA]

awesome. not sure if you already have one but you should get a garmin inreach mini satetlite text messanger. it works any where in world and is really handy to have

I've been meaning to get one and probably will when I start flying away from civilization. I've flown with other pilots who do carry them. All of my flying is generally along interstates or within cell range.

 

[letschat7]

Storacells full of spare 18650s.

 

[Poppy]

I try to make it a habit to keep my flash lights charged during the day that they way they are ready to rock and roll when needed.
Anybody else do the same

Although it is not the best for the lifetime of the battery, I generally keep them fairly well topped off. I usually use a four cell charger. If I insert a cell, and the charger is blinking, the cell needed a charge. Sometimes it only takes a few minutes to top it off, sometimes an hour or more.

I do charge them during the day, and try to keep an eye on them while charging. I pull the cell when it stops blinking so that I am not fully reliant on the charger to stop charging it once it is topped off. I'm not anal about it, but I don't charge them overnight.

 

[bykfixer]

This thread prompted me to charge a battery last night.

 

[ghostguy6]

The only lights I had that got charged every day were my duty lights that came with a charging cradle. The others I would switch out the cells if I knew they were low. I always had at least 6 rechargeable cr123's in rotation plus a box of spare cells. Now I always have a spare light and spare cells within reach so its not a huge deal. My rechargeables only get charged when the battery indicator says they are at 3.7V.

 

[Monocrom]

It's just easier for me to charge them up at night, at my 3rd shift job.

 

[Jean-Luc Descarte]

Daytime is exactly when I charge my batteries. I don't dare leave them unsupervised.

Although charging them is a pretty rare event, all things considered. It's months before any of my non-AAA cells drop below 30%, which is when I jolt them up.