moldyoldy
Flashlight Enthusiast
Last night, one of my old-acquaintance fix-it guys handed me a very obviously dead P1D which I had originally provided.
A couple nights ago in his garage, he turned it on to the "first" (medium) level, laid it on a bench pointing to where he wanted and walked across the garage. He heard a loud BANG which really scared him, about like a .22 LR going off. The air in the garage stunk so badly he opened the main door. After it cooled off, he picked it up with a pair of needlenose pliers and started looking to see what happened.
Without extracting the RCR123 cell and thereby destroying some of the evidence, it was obvious what happened. The single cell AW RCR123 explosively vented. The gas vented thru the lens and blackened the LED and reflector. There was no evidence remaining of the lens except small pieces of a glass-like substance on the garage floor.
The AW cell (black) was several months old, but less than a year. It was not "old" in the sense of use. He had AW 4 cells that he rotated. The last charge was several days ago.
Considering that this is a single cell light, which is supposed to "minimize" these explosive events, I am surprised. How many other single RCR123 explosive events have occurred?
The light was purchased from 4Sevens. I do not recall where I purchased the AW batteries. So is this a case of recycle, or is someone interested in the pathology of the event? Meaning should I send this light/cell to anyone?
Of course, any Lithium-something cell has a lot of energy and can "rapidly disassemble". That is the point of this forum which serves as a warning to any RCR cell user. If he had been holding that flashlight, I fully expect that I would have had a subsequent call from an ER.
Moldoldy
A couple nights ago in his garage, he turned it on to the "first" (medium) level, laid it on a bench pointing to where he wanted and walked across the garage. He heard a loud BANG which really scared him, about like a .22 LR going off. The air in the garage stunk so badly he opened the main door. After it cooled off, he picked it up with a pair of needlenose pliers and started looking to see what happened.
Without extracting the RCR123 cell and thereby destroying some of the evidence, it was obvious what happened. The single cell AW RCR123 explosively vented. The gas vented thru the lens and blackened the LED and reflector. There was no evidence remaining of the lens except small pieces of a glass-like substance on the garage floor.
The AW cell (black) was several months old, but less than a year. It was not "old" in the sense of use. He had AW 4 cells that he rotated. The last charge was several days ago.
Considering that this is a single cell light, which is supposed to "minimize" these explosive events, I am surprised. How many other single RCR123 explosive events have occurred?
The light was purchased from 4Sevens. I do not recall where I purchased the AW batteries. So is this a case of recycle, or is someone interested in the pathology of the event? Meaning should I send this light/cell to anyone?
Of course, any Lithium-something cell has a lot of energy and can "rapidly disassemble". That is the point of this forum which serves as a warning to any RCR cell user. If he had been holding that flashlight, I fully expect that I would have had a subsequent call from an ER.
Moldoldy
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(at least to me) unheard of PROTECTED AW cell incident in SINGLE CELL usage. I was on the fence before I decided to try Li-Ion- now I will only be keeping my 2 AW 18650 IMR's for single cell usage. I don't think all that stored energy is worth the risk to me even if I have used them carefully in the past without incident.
