PD30 Low Battery Indicator?

MidwestJPS · May 13, 2009

Hey everyone, I've been lurking these forums for the past week or so researching various LED flashlights. I was amazed at all the detailed information that people posted! I would have never thought that there was such an active forum for flashlight freaks such as I. Thanks guys!

After reading a boatload of information on the lights in my price range, I decided to go with the Fenix PD30 along with some AW RCR123's and charger. I love this flashlight! Very easy to operate and puts out a huge amount of light for its size.

On day two, I decided to run a battery life test on the High mode to see if the rechargeables were able to perform well enough for my liking (it ran for roughly 3 hours on High, but was used quite a bit the first day). I couldn't wait to see the low battery flicker, but it never came. The light just suddenly turned off.

Not that big of a deal, but it would be nice to know whats going on. Has anyone else had a similar problem with any of their Fenix lights that supposedly have a low battery indicator? Maybe it has something to do with the higher voltage of the AW's?

Any help to turn this thing into the perfect torch for me would be awesome!

Thanks again for supporting my new addiction!

Henk_Lu · May 13, 2009

:welcome:

Nice choice for a first light, the PD30! Universal light, quite small for 2 x CR123A, good beam, great output.

There's one thing that sucked on mine : I took the light firmly in my right hand and clapped that hand against the other, as someone wrote here that his low battery warning was triggered by that. Well, mine was also triggered, the light strobed as it was going to die...

Switching the light on and off brought the same results, taking out the cells for a minute didn't help either and I feared I really killed the light. With a new pair of cells it worked normally, the other batteries work normally in my TK10. Weird! :ooo:

I don't know if they perhaps removed the low battery warning because of that. The Olight M20 had its removed because it triggered randomly on some lights, mine seems to work.

So, I'm always glad when a light misses that feature, which seems to cause more problems than doing good! :sick2:

I have no experiences with RCR123, but normally if you run the light on high, it should quit that mode for the less brighter one and so on until it shuts off. Lights behave that way with CR123A or NiMh, while it also can be that only the lowest mode remains accessible or that you see a special moon mode (less than the low setting).

Greets,

Henk

Nake · May 13, 2009

MidwestJPS said:
On day two, I decided to run a battery life test on the High mode to see if the rechargeables were able to perform well enough for my liking (it ran for roughly 3 hours on High, but was used quite a bit the first day). I couldn't wait to see the low battery flicker, but it never came. The light just suddenly turned off.

I believe the low batt warning comes on when the voltage drops below the Vf of the emitter. The AWs protection circuit kicks in about 2.9V. So, with two batteries there was still 5.8V, too much for the low batt warning to come on.

If you want to see the low batt warning function, use a 17670 batt (4.0V) or 2 CR123s (6V).

By high do you mean the turbo level?

Marduke · May 13, 2009

As stated, the cell's protection circuit kicked in before the light low voltage warning did. This is one of the pitfalls of using Li-Ion setups. On most lights, you loose any sort of dimming, warning, or moon mode.

The cell protection circuit kicks in, and the light simply blinks off.

MidwestJPS · May 13, 2009

Nake said:
I believe the low batt warning comes on when the voltage drops below the Vf of the emitter. The AWs protection circuit kicks in about 2.9V. So, with two batteries there was still 5.8V, too much for the low batt warning to come on.

If you want to see the low batt warning function, use a 17670 batt (4.0V) or 2 CR123s (6V).

By high do you mean the turbo level?

No, I meant the highest level of output when the bezel is turned to the right. It actually lasted a lot longer than I thought it would. I've read a few things about people having trouble with rcr123's in some of the Fenix lights. I'm sure the capacity of my AW's will dwindle as time goes on.

So I'm guessing the low batt. warning would work with unprotected cells? I'm a little weary of using those with the inexpensive UltraFire charger, but once I find out how long the batteries take to charge, I can set an outlet timer to shut it off shortly after to prevent my house from burning down.

Thanks for the help guys!

Nake · May 13, 2009

If you use unprotected RCR123s they will each get down to below 2V before the low batt warning comes on, not good for Li-ion cells. That's why protected cells shut off about 2.9V.