Yuntong pre-mature death and possible fire-hazard

[Billson]

I was at a beach resort the past week and brought along my Arc LS TWOK 667ma mod by Litfuse and the XM2 by Elektrolumens. I was using the LS on momentary when it suddenly wouldn't turn on anymore. No light whatsoever. The Yuntong in it had been used no more than 10-15 minutes at most. Thinking that maybe the kroll was acting up or something I opened up the light, took out the cell and re-installed it to see if it would work. Still no light. So I opened it up to replace it with a new cell. I noticed that the Yuntong was pretty warm. Odd since it hasn't been on more than a few seconds before it died. Then I suddenly realized that it was actually getting hotter while I was holding it in my hand. Obviously I didn't try to find out what would eventually happen if I left it as it is. I went to a secluded spot on the beach, dug as deep a hole as I could and just buried the cell in it. I don't know how eco-friendly lithium batteries are but I wasn't willing to risk life and limb to try saving the environment when I could be holding a potential bomb or incendiary device.

Anybody care to theorize what happened to the cell to cause the chain reaction that heated up the battery in this manner.

 

[kenny]

the only thing I can think of is a short -- weird -- any errie music playing in the background?

 

[flashlight]

Any green glowing flying saucers buzzing overhead?

 

[NewBie]

Interesting Billson.

 

[Ray_of_Light]

I have a small batch of BS123 that are showing, consistently, the same behavior in a Fenix P1.

Those 123s are three yrs old.

They never heated up, at end-of-life, in a KL1.

The P1 drains 123s to 0.8 Volt, the KL1 to 2.0 Volt.

It is evident that some stray chemical reactions are started - when the cell is overdrained.

I'll post when (and if) I found the reason for this.

Anthony

 

[cy]

most unusual... a single cell failure report...

 

[wptski]

I have a small batch of BS123 that are showing, consistently, the same behavior in a Fenix P1.

Those 123s are three yrs old.

They never heated up, at end-of-life, in a KL1.

The P1 drains 123s to 0.8 Volt, the KL1 to 2.0 Volt.

It is evident that some stray chemical reactions are started - when the cell is overdrained.

I'll post when (and if) I found the reason for this.

Anthony

I think that .8V for a CR123A is way too low. I thought that something around 2.3V was considered to be dead but I might be wrong. I know a CR123A with around 2.3V won't even register on a ZTS MBT-1.

 

[Billson]

Newbie,

I still have a couple of the Yuntong cells from the same batch. It's probably not enough to gather any reliable information but you could probably dissect it to find out more about its construction. Could you pm or email me your address so I could send them to you if you want to play around with it? Both are in my profile.

Thanks for all your work.

 

[Geologist]

Weird - never used this brand of batteries - what is origin of manfufacture?

 

[Billson]

Yuntong was the old Arc's version of cheap CR123's. Back then around 2003, I think only Surefire and Battery Station had $1 CR123's.