Boy was I stupid! I put my fairly new Nitecore TM26 into a loosely packed overnight bag with some clothes. It got put in the back of a pickup for a 90 min drive in near 100 degree south TX late afternoon heat. At destination, bag stays in back of truck till about 9pm. Getting out the bag to show my brother-in-law my cool flashlight, upzipping the bag the light was ON, and in HIGH (4000 lumen) mode!!!! The surrounding clothes were very hot, but nothing melted/smoking. The body of the light was too hot to handle. I turned it off and it remained too hot to handle for over an hour. Next morning quick function test showed batteries almost dead, but it cycled thru all the lumen settings, including 4000. All 4 of the expensive Nitecore brand 3400mah protected batteries' outer yellow wrapping had split down the middle, revealing a green wrapper underneath, NCR18650B being visible on one of them in the "wrapper gap" that is uniformly about 1/4" wide. The yellow Nitecore wrapper is still tightly adhering to the batteries, and the split seems to be opposite of the side of the battery where the strip connects the circuit boards on each end of the battery. I also noticed that yellow Nitecore wrapper says "made in China": I assume that refers to them taking Jap Panasonic unprotected flattops and turning them into the current config by adding the protection, the connecting strip, and wrapping them in the Nitecore wrapper. The cells are charging on my Nitecore i4 charger and seem to be charging normally, all being up to 2 flashing lights after about 2 hrs charging; I **assume they will go to full charge at 3 steady lights with more time.
Questions:
1) Why didn't the protection circuitry of the light itself or the batteries shut off operation after a time at such high heat?
2) There is no visible damage to the light. Any LIKELHOOD this caused some kind of damage that will manifest later?
3) Any LIKELHOOD this caused some kind of damage to the batteries, assuming they complete their charge?
I can envision a lot of scenarios where this could have ended VERY badly; learn from my stupidity. I will never again put this TM26 in any container without first employing the lockout feature AND backing off the threads a few turns to prevent contact for the cells.
Thanks in advance for any advice/commentary.
Questions:
1) Why didn't the protection circuitry of the light itself or the batteries shut off operation after a time at such high heat?
2) There is no visible damage to the light. Any LIKELHOOD this caused some kind of damage that will manifest later?
3) Any LIKELHOOD this caused some kind of damage to the batteries, assuming they complete their charge?
I can envision a lot of scenarios where this could have ended VERY badly; learn from my stupidity. I will never again put this TM26 in any container without first employing the lockout feature AND backing off the threads a few turns to prevent contact for the cells.
Thanks in advance for any advice/commentary.