Opinions, please...best batteries for me?

[roymail]

I still qualify as a newb so bare with me. I use my lights several times a week for a variety of purposes both in and outside. I've never used rechargeable batteries, and I'm not really sure I need them. Duracells and Energizers work OK but seem to drain pretty quickly.

Would I be better off by using a more efficient LED light with longer runtime and stay with alkalines? Or, what else do you suggest? I've got a standard 2C cell light and a 2AA minimag. All opinions and suggestions are welcomed. Thanks!

 

[VidPro]

both , , of course.
depend in if you like the color of leds, even "warm" ones, some situations the lack of spectrum is glaringly different, outdoors especially.

so a easy way to "test" leds , and therin be amased at the ouput and runtime you can get with them, is a Drop-in replacement for your regular mag bulbs, both lights mentioned have many types of available Drop-ins that would not be permanent.
try and get drop-ins that have "new tech" leds with more output for the ammount of power used, High powered leds, not multiple 5mm ones, and ones with good heat sincing capability.
OR
just buy some of the new complete lights with that in it, even energyser and mag have inexpencive led models out that work ok, and use the new technology. or there is cheap stuff that costs little from china, to get a person hooked or started on the light Drugs

for rechargables setting up a AA recharge "system" with batteries and charger would be cheap and easy, it would pay off quick, the new "tech" in batteries is "LSD" low self discharging ni-mhy technology, that stays charged, and is much more usable than the old technology, with NO caveats.
the lsd technology is now (just rescently) available in C and D sizes also, or an AA can be used in a C converter shell.
then
that just leaves getting a charger that does AA & C & D cells, chargers for the large cells are a little more expencive, but worth it over the very long term.

switching to LEDs will give you about 2x runtime, putting in rechargables would give you about 1.5-2X runtime, doing both would combine to 3-4 times the runtime. using some sort of driver or device that has "levels" like low med high, would increase runtime respective to light output. all dependant on what item is used of course.

then reverse all that, and visit the Incadescent forum, to run your old mag at WAY higher output, with way shorter runtimes than you had before. or visit them anyway, because there are just better bulb items for a Mag C light.

 

[yellow]

get good, long storage term batteries into the C and keep it somewhere for emergencies.

Get a Fenix L2D-Ce if You want AA batts, or
a P3D if You want CR123a batts
www.fenix-store.com
... and use this light with rechargeables - Ni-Mh: Eneloope, CR123a: rechargeable CR123a's

From the 1st time You fire the Fenix on, You will never understand, why You did not already had one, beats You actual lights BY FAR.

 

[Nubo]

In simplest terms, I like rechargeables because it means I'm never out of batteries.

Just dropping them into an off-the-shelf incandescent flashlight, however is disappointing due to the lower cell voltage. Using incandescent lights with rechargeables requires some planning and matching of bulbs and voltages. The upside is you can make some amazing lights with rechargeables that will knock the socks off of any alkaline-based light. You can probably consider that an advanced topic for now. If you want to try a simple case, get a 4-AA light (make sure it uses a 4-cell bulb). Use rechargeables instead, and substitute a 3-cell bulb. A very nice combo for this is Princeton-Tech Tec40 light, and KPR139 bulb (which you can get from TopBulb.com). Nicely bright and quite durable combination with approx 2 hours of runtime. I think you would find this superior to your 2-C maglite.

LEDs make it a bit easier; many LED lights will work fine with either type of cells. Probably the cheapest way for you to give it a try is to get an LED "drop-in" for your AA maglite. They work quite well.

If you go with rechargeables, the 2 most important points of care and feeding are -- don't overcharge them, and don't over-discharge them. A good charger will help prevent the first problem. Most devices don't have auto-shutoff so the second point is up to you -- don't run the light all the way down, but recharge when it starts going dim. Treat them right and you'll get hundreds of cycles out of them. The third bugaboo with rechargeables -- self-discharge-- is largely solved with the new types, such as Eneloop. They can sit for a year and still have most of their juice remaining.

 

[mdocod]

a P3D if You want CR123a batts
www.fenix-store.com
... and use this light with rechargeables - Ni-Mh: Eneloope, CR123a: rechargeable CR123a's -Yellow

Spend a little time in the "flashlight electronics - batteries included" section of this forum and you will see that as of lately, the most popular thread, is "what rechargeable to use in my P3D." Then we all have to sadly explain that a 18650 won't fit, a 17670 won't run the light properly(flickers) and a pair of RCR123s will have about 1/3 the runtime compared to primary cells. Imagine the disappointment when their amazing light has no good rechargeable solution on the table... I find it amazing you are actually recommending the P3D with RCR123s, recommending a handicapped configuration is very strange.

[edit in]
In response to the original question. For starters, go ahead and order a Terralux TLE-6EXB from here http://batteryjunction.com/tle-6exb.html for your 2C mag. It'll be at least 4-5x brighter than stock and have a much more "regulated" output. It should remain usably bright on alkaline for many hours. On NIMH it would have a pretty solid 5+ hours of performance. If you decide on rechargeable cells, I highly recommend starting out with a decent charger that supports a wide range of cell sizes so you have room to grow on it in the future. About the most hassle free quality charger at a "reasonable" price I can recommend is the accumanager: http://thomasdistributing.com/shop/...html?SP_id=&osCsid=9vqoamr8glk7b91r5rej1n1rv6 ,,, Then just pick out low-self-discharge cells from here as well: http://thomasdistributing.com/shop/...22_141.html?osCsid=9vqoamr8glk7b91r5rej1n1rv6 I suggest the eneloops for AA, accupower for your Cs (as they are the only ones available)

 

[TorchBoy]

I still qualify as a newb so bare with me.

Man, you say you're just starting out, you ask what batteries would suit you best, and you get told to buy all sorts of new expensive lights and expensive, narrow-application batteries to fit them. Huh.

From what you posted it sounds like some Eneloop rechargeables and an included charger, with something like this converter would suit you quite nicely for starters - you could standardise on AAs and your initial cost would be minimised.

The Terralux drop-in does sound like a good idea, although not quite what you were asking about.

As you figure out more about your particular needs, then you could splash out on a decent charger, with or without the ability to charge C and D, depending on whether you actually wanted to buy any at that stage.

 

[Alan B]

I still qualify as a newb so bare with me. I use my lights several times a week for a variety of purposes both in and outside. I've never used rechargeable batteries, and I'm not really sure I need them. Duracells and Energizers work OK but seem to drain pretty quickly.

Would I be better off by using a more efficient LED light with longer runtime and stay with alkalines? Or, what else do you suggest? I've got a standard 2C cell light and a 2AA minimag. All opinions and suggestions are welcomed. Thanks!

For an easy start, a Terralux drop-in for your Minimag would stretch your batteries a lot farther and put out a lot more whiter lumens. They have 25, 50 and 100 lumen rated drop-ins for the Minimag. The 50 lumen drop-in offers about 10 times the light and six times the runtime (roughly) of the stock Minimag for about $15.

For batteries, the new nickel metal hybrids are hard to beat. Good shelf life, easy to recharge, any NiMH capable charger should work. Sanyo Eneloop, Uniross Hybrio, Rayovac Hybrid, etc.

Try the upgraded Minimag, do some reading, and see if you need more. The new single cell lights are amazingly useful and a lot smaller and more pocketable than the Minimag. A single AAA, AA or CR123 light can put out ten or more times the light of your current Minimag, and a high performance 2 cell light can far exceed the C Maglite in most respects. The Maglite does make a better club, and if you like the mechanics of the Mag you can get a drop-in upgrade, but do some research as there are a lot of choices and many of them have mediocre performance.

- Alan