Question concerning Maglite 2AA

[leon2245]

Well, I did hedge a little bit when I said "should!" :laughing:

lol I know, sometimes I feel like everyone "should" agree with me, yet they insist on maintaining their own opinions & experiences (the nerve)!

:whoopin:

Sooo frustrating!

 

[xxo]

I emailed Maglite Customer Service to ask that question and their response was that all rechargeables will shorten the life of Mag leds. Their rationale is that rechargeables maintain a constant voltage while the alkalines (which their lights are designed to use) do not. Does this make sense to anyone out there and if so, would it apply to other lights that warn against using rechargeables (like Inova)?

I think that advice is a hold over from the incandescent and early direct drive LEDs. Maglite's newer LEDs are fully regulated and work fine with NiMH's. I have never used anything other than Eneloops in my Mini Mag Pro and they work great.

The ML125 uses the same LED as the Pro/Pro+ Mini Mags and it is intended to run on both its own 6 V NiMH battery pack or alkaline C cells. The Magcharger LED uses the same LED as the ML300 and runs on a NiHM battery. If there is any reduction in the life of the LED, I'm sure it is minimal and not something I would worry about. I'm guessing NiMH's in LED Mags are less harmful to LED's than many of the overdriven lights that are popular here.

 

[Minimoog]

I have one of the early AA LED lights - with SOS and STROBE modes and another slightly later one without the SOS, but was wondering if it is possible to use NiZn in these or will it overdrive the LED?

 

[bykfixer]

I think that advice is a hold over from the incandescent and early direct drive LEDs. Maglite's newer LEDs are fully regulated and work fine with NiMH's. I have never used anything other than Eneloops in my Mini Mag Pro and they work great.

The ML125 uses the same LED as the Pro/Pro+ Mini Mags and it is intended to run on both its own 6 V NiMH battery pack or alkaline C cells. The Magcharger LED uses the same LED as the ML300 and runs on a NiHM battery. If there is any reduction in the life of the LED, I'm sure it is minimal and not something I would worry about. I'm guessing NiMH's in LED Mags are less harmful to LED's than many of the overdriven lights that are popular here.

I just did some reading at the Mag site and yeah it looks like hold over advice. Maybe due to the potential dangers of certain chemistries being used by the same folks who sue a fast food joint for serving hot coffee after burning them selves, or sued a bicycle maker when their kid dressed in all black got hit by a car after dark...

Or perhaps the big 3 battery companies pay Mag to place their batteries in the blister packs?

I've been using eneloops with zero issues in mini mag incans, LEDs and Nite-Ize'd.

 

[MikeSalt]

For me, there's only two possible reasons:

1) Not wanting to cannabilise sales from the Magcharger
2) Tie-in deals with major battery manufacturers. Heck, I could see Duracell giving them the cells for the blister packs for free to carry the 'Do not use rechargeable batteries' notice on them.

 

[KeepingItLight]

I had some fun with this in a post I wrote last year entitled Why does Maglite say, "Alkaline only?"

Here is what I wrote:

Why do you suppose Maglite says to use alkaline batteries only in some of its flashlights?

(This could be a poll.)

1. Do you think there is a conspiracy? Maglite engineers have designed a flashlight that works fine on NiMH rechargeables and lithium primaries, but the company does not want you to know about this?

2. Maglite engineers have recommended alkaline only.

There is a precedent for the latter. Some flashlight designs rely on the high internal resistance of alkaline batteries to limit current. When you use a battery that has lower internal resistance, such as NiMH or lithium, those designs will pull more current than they are intended for. Most flashlight experts agree that these are inferior designs.

Designs which use a direct-drive-like regulation would fall into this category more often than those with other types of regulation. Judging by the runtime charts posted above, Maglite certainly qualifies in that regard. Those charts exhibit direct-drive-like behavior.

I am not much for conspiracy theories. When Maglite requires alkaline only, I am inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. My guess is that there is no conspiracy. Maglite engineers told the company, "Alkaline only."

The thread I linked above contains several interesting responses.

 

[CelticCross74]

I have a dozen mini mags. Throughout trial and error, switching this bulb for that etc I finally discovered Energizer Ultimate Lithiums. These Energizer crank all my mini mags to the max and they last forever. I have yet to blow a LED or bulb. Somehow I ended up with the latest mini Pro pluses. True, the variable focus feature on these lights are useless but damn do they crank with the Energizers more so than any other cell Ive tried in them. Ive got so many different LED upgrades in them all I cannot remember what they are but all of them are MUCH brighter on the Energizers.

 

[junkman]

Sorry to bump an old thread but this is a good thread.

I have a newish 332lumen Mini maglite pro 2AA light. SP2p01H with a build date of 4/17. The reason I got it was to replace my trusty old incon minimag that the batteries leaked in and ruined. I keep this in my jeep and try to keep them fresh but I think its the temp changes that cause problems. Here in new england we get temps from 0F (-17c) to 95F.
I have been reading here that lithiums are safer when it comes to leaks but I worry about damaging my LED maglite. I found some threads that say the early LED mags where not current controlled so they needed alkaline to limit the current. I can't find much about using lithiums in the newer LED lamps. My plan was to use energizer ultimate lithiums and replace every year regardless of charge to avoid leaks.

Thanks.

 

[bykfixer]

Good bump.

Ultimate lithiums are fine to use. Same voltage as an alkaline starting out, they just don't sag as much as alkalines while in use.

Welcome to the site by the way. (Sandford&Son theme song plays in background)

 

[junkman]

Thank you for the welcome.

So I picked up a set of the enegizer lithiums and they are nice and fresh made in 8/19. They sit at a no load voltage of 1.8volts.
It didn't blow up but am a little concerned about the current.
With the alkalines the flashlites spikes to 500ma then drops down to 200-250ma.
With the lithiums it spikes to something something over 1amp then settles down to a steady 500ma.
The torch also seems to get warm kinda quick but doesn't seem to be running away. It stays steady.
:thinking:

 

[xxo]

No worries with ultimate lithiums in Mini Mag's, as soon as they are under load Voltage drops to below 1.5 Volts. Ultimate lithiums, Eneleloops/rebranded Eneloops and Tenavolts are all I use in my LED Mini Mags and they all work great. Take a look at Robin Wang's Maglite reviews over at led-resource.com, he tested the Mini Mag LEDs with ultimate lithiums and eneloops.

 

[junkman]

Great link. Mr Wang's site VERY informative.
With your and bykfixers reassurance I am going to stick with the lithiums and not worry about it.
Thanks.