"I can buy my batteries at Circle K"

LEDBE
Patriot

Patriot

Flashaholic
Joined
Feb 13, 2007
Messages
11,254
Location
Arizona
When rating or grading a light's usefulness during an emergency scenario, many often argue that AA lights are the only practical thing to have. People say things like, "I can buy my batteries at Circle K if I need to" or "just try to find 123s at the hardware store when things are in turmoil."


I'm just not convinced at the value or practicality of this argument. I own 8 or 10 AA lights and have nothing against them, but I've never run across a time when I had to make an emergency stop at Circle K in order to fire-up my Infinity ultra. I have nearly a hundred 123s, 60 AAA, 50 Ds and a whole bunch others on par at home, which I keep in rotation. I have a small battery assortment at work which includes up to 15 123s and even have a handful in my truck. Are there actually people out there who wait until the batteries in their light die and then have to think about getting to the store for a fresh 4 pack?


Even if I lived in hurricane territory I wouldn't rely on my local Walgreen's to be my supplier for emergency battery power when things got tough. For the guy who has a mini mag lost at the back of his kitchen drawer, this point of emergency batteries might have some validity if looters haven't already cleaned everything out. Most of us are just flashlight enthusiasts, and not world traveling CIA operatives who might need to purchase their batteries in a small village in Tunisia. Isn't the whole "you're screwed unless you can get your batteries at the drug store" argument kind of silly?
 
My take on this idea -

Sure, if there's a massive power failure I can buy AAs for next to nothing at Menards. But wait, so can every other schmoe that wants them.. hmm..

I've personally been in areas where they've been without power for weeks. There are very few batteries to be found anywhere, with the exception of 9v batteries laying around because people tend to stop worrying about smoke detectors when their houses are piles of rubble. If the proverbial SHTF then you'd better have lots of spare batteries ON HAND ore you're probably going to be sitting around in their dark..
 
I'd expect that when you're in an emergency situation and you really need fresh batteries, either you're stranded in some place where stores that sell batteries aren't accessable, or everybody else in the area needs batteries too. The better part of preparedness is self-reliance.

Not to mention that batteries at Circle K are way too expensive ($8.99 for a single CR2/CR123A?!?!).
 
Well living in a huricane prone area. I find it reasuring that my 123 batteries will still be on the shelf long after the AAA, AA, C, and D batteries are long gone. But that being said I would stock up on multiple boxes of Surefire batteries at my local dealer before hand.
 
When there is a true emergency or long term outage, it is far better to be self reliant. Stores will empty out quickly and if the power is out, some may not have emergency power to stay open, so they can't sell what they do have. If I have a water filter to treat my own water, a store of food with camp stove & fuel to cook it, then I think I should have my own store of batteries.

AA's are best for vacation/business travelling in non-emergency situations when you can restock easily ANYWHERE, so I keep a few AA lights around (Proton, CMG Infinity, Inova X1, L1T (L1D soon), MMag) for those situations. The 1AA's are best for international travel, especially the Proton.

I guess to be truly prepared, you should have a stock of both AA's and CR123's and lights that use both.
 
I ride my bike after dark a lot. There have been times where I've needed to buy AA batteries to get home.

Although now that I've been enlightened I have 4 spare 123s in my pack to power my new lights. Plus an 18650, and a pair of NiMH AAAs for my rear blinky. Pelican 1010 case is on the way.

123s are nice because they can be stored for a long time. And you can stock up on them for $1 each online. AAs are nice because they're very common.

GET BOTH:lolsign:
 
The main reason I stopped EDCing my nuwai that uses CR123's is cause we were on a camping trip up in the mountains and the batts died unexpectedly (not used to havin to have a supply of extra batteries cause the light i used to take camping before the nuwai was the ol mag 3D) so we were headed to another campsite and we came across a little mom & pop store-the only store around (called things & stuff) where i looked for some 123's with no success. Plenty of AA's AAA's etc.. though. Also, i could have pulled the AA's out of my camera's flash to get me by.
 
I'm not sure that the "Circle K argument" is really the best way to illustrate the point, but I think the point is this:

AA batteries are FAAARRR more common, and if you need to find batteries for your lights in an emergency, it will be much easier to find AAs than it will be to find 123s.

Of course, all the points about self-sufficiency are well made, and you should have your own supply. Energizer lithiums have as much shelf-life as 123s now, as well as the other benefits of lithium chemistry, making it easy to stockpile a bunch.

But all of that aside, if the SreallyHTF, and my lights are all out of juice, I can plunder my t.v. remotes, my kids' toys, or a myriad of other devices I have in the house that are stuffed with AAs. Sure they won't be fully charged, but they'll run my Fenix and my JetBeam just fine... while my Surefire sits there dark.

:whistle:
 
It's not so much me I'm worried about, it's all the neighbors.

Last long outage we had, we went around to the houses where we knew there were people at home, but saw them entirely dark, giving them flashlights (we're in earthquake country, so candles can be an extra added risk).

I'd sure like someone to come up with a way to put all our NiMh cells on a permanent low trickle charge, though, instead of having them slowly losing charge in the drawer, for that time we need them all, all at once.

Maybe a tiny little solar cell clipped to each battery, and leave them on the windowsills? I dunno.
 
Well One more thing to keep in mind.

There should be intra-devices compatibility.

For example, my emergency/operations handheld HAM radio pouch has AA and D batteries for the it. (I have also rigged a 4D case to the radio through a cable and dummy cells.) . In the pouch I have a modular AA/CR123 flashlight (Huntlight FT-02).

Now my main lights are running D and CR123 sizes, so I have multi appliances compatibility. And low wattage LED lights can be fed with the batteries that become low in the radio.
Now in an operational scenario with many AA lights in the hands of fellow HAM operators it would be good being able to provide THEM some too.

enjoy and stay safe, kostas
 
mchlwise said:
I'm not sure that the "Circle K argument" is really the best way to illustrate the point, but I think the point is this:

The "Circle K" title was only used because it was part an actual quote from a CPF member sharing his opinion about what he thinks is the best EDC light. Circle K is only a metaphor or representation of the concept of being able to purchase batteries as needed while on the run. My post wasn't meant to single out Circle K literally which is why I included a second example quote in my first paragraph. :)

I agree that AAs are the perfect answer for the general public, but for flashaholics there might be better choices. Vermonter73 said that once he had to buy batteries to ride home, but now he's been elightened. I don't think that people should exclude other great EDC lights just because they don't take AAs. Some of the members made good points including the ones about travel flashlights. It also makes sense that everyone including neighbors have AAs inside their home which could be extracted from TV remotes and so on. I suppose that would represent the ultimate worst case scenario.

I still like the smaller battery form of the 123, higher voltage per cell, combined with lithium chemistry for an EDC light.
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Greetings!

The entire "availability" thing seems incredibly silly to me. If you buy a flashlight for emergency use, and expect your local store to have batteries at the TIME of the emergency, you're going to be sadly disappointed - everyone else in the neighborhood is going to clean out stock in a matter of hours. Stupid YOU for not buying a stock of batteries to go with your stock of emergency lights!

OK... so you're out in the woods and your batteries die, so you head to a local mom-and-pop country store to find that they only have AA's. Stupid YOU for not taking extra batteries with you!!!!

Every argument I've ever heard for buying flashlights with "common" batteries boils down to "what if..." where the "what if..." always involves moronic lack of forethought, preparation, or just plain laziness.

The only real answer to this non-existent "problem" is to buy a few dozen packages of $1 batteries to go along with your $100 light. Anything else is just mindless.

Best wishes,
Bawko
 
Patriot36 said:
Circle K is only a metaphor or representation of the concept of being able to purchase batteries as needed while on the run.
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Understood, and I took it as such. :grin2:

What I was trying to say is that ease of availability, for ME, is a consideration in my personal light preferences.

Of course if this had been a real calamity/emergency as in an earthquake, hurricane, tornado, tsunami, or other similar act-of-god type scenario, you wouldn't find batteries at the store, they would be sold out or looted or destroyed. :candle:

But there are other types of emergencies.

Atomic_Chicken said:
OK... so you're out in the woods and your batteries die, so you head to a local mom-and-pop country store to find that they only have AA's. Stupid YOU for not taking extra batteries with you!!!!
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Stupid? Ill-prepared, forgetful, should-have-known-and-planned-better, sure. But I don't think it's a matter of intelligence. There are many scenarios and ways of ending up needing a battery, and having one easily available just about wherever I am (mom-and-pop country store, another country, a relative's house) is for ME an important consideration.

Mindless or otherwise, I prefer AA using lights, and HAVE passed on some nifty looking 123 lights... simply because I didn't like the battery they use. :shrug:
 
I would say if I ever come across some extra spending power, I would prepare my house to able to be removed from the grid status. Solar panels, battery banks, and tons of charged lithium cells, I would say the AW's lithium cells last longer than any NIMH NICD or alkaline cells and they are rechargable so they pay for themselves when you have power.
 
redranger97 said:
The main reason I stopped EDCing my nuwai that uses CR123's is cause we were on a camping trip up in the mountains and the batts died unexpectedly (not used to havin to have a supply of extra batteries cause the light i used to take camping before the nuwai was the ol mag 3D) so we were headed to another campsite and we came across a little mom & pop store-the only store around (called things & stuff) where i looked for some 123's with no success. Plenty of AA's AAA's etc.. though. Also, i could have pulled the AA's out of my camera's flash to get me by.
Click to expand...

Well, hindsight is easy, but for the same weight (critical if you are hiking!), you could have carried a bunch of spare CR123's for your Q3 and still
be well below the Mag-3D's weight with no spare batteries. I remember
my earlier (20+ years ago!) hiking days in the Adirondac mountains of
New York, and would have given my eye teeth for a Q3!!!

George
 
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for me its not so much where i can get the batts, but what batts i already have, what batts i already use, and what batts are easy to stockpile have charged, and ready.
if you have 101 devices that use a standard AA battery and 101 standard AA batts, its a lot easirer than having 50 sizes types and charge rates, and specs, and all that other stuff.
then if you got some device using some weird different cell , its like having 20 gallons of mayo to make a sandwitch, but you need blue cheese :)
 
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We decided to look at things a little differently...

Keep in mind that I do have supplies available for an emergency, however we went to our local stores to see what they had for batteries. I asked myself, when the crowds wipe out the stock of AAA, AA, C and D cells, what's left.

I now have a collection of lights that run on coin and button cells, and one light that will take an alkaline lantern battery. They may not be the brightest, nor last the longest, but they are fine for my back up to my back up lights.

Tom
 
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