Wingerr
Flashlight Enthusiast
Got it two years ago from Countycomm, and it went inoperative, not taking a charge any more.
Sent it back to the company to have it checked out, and they replaced it with a newer model, and I was pleasantly surprised that they even returned the old one to me-
Decided to try to see if I could at least get some more use out of it, so I extracted the rechargeable cell with some surgery and tried to see if it could be charged back up, but it just wouldn't put out enough current any more- it's dead, Jim.
Made some measurements on the light using a power supply set to 3.0V, and the highest level actually drew 102mA at 3V (probably much less in real operation, since the cell won't maintain 3V at that level). Probably still pretty high at lower voltages though.
Level mA
_____________
1 .....23.5
2 .....37.6
3 .....52.1
4 .....67.9
5 .....84.5
6 .....102.7
The finder mode continuously pulled about 0.7mA even when not flashing; that was why it drained the battery faster than I expected.
Open circuit charge voltage is well regulated to 3.31V.
3.40V +/- 0.15V is the specified constant voltage charge rate on the datasheet for the VL2330 Vanadium Pentoxide lithium rechargeable battery, so it's right in the range.
Short circuit current output measured at 5mA with sunlight, filtered through a window.
It only showed 0.8mA when placed under a CFL, which explains why that kind of charging didn't seem to do much. I'll be charging the new one using sunlight, to keep the 50mAh VL2330 cell up to snuff.
The 50mAh rating is based on a 0.1mA current draw though, so it is normally running at a much higher discharge rate, which brings down the actual capacity.
I would guess what happened to the old one was that the temperature limit was exceeded when I made the mistake of leaving it to charge on the dashboard of a car; the cell is supposed to be kept under 60 deg. C to prevent deterioration, according to the spec. It definitely went well over that, which is probably what cooked it.
Main thing to watch for with these is to keep them cool, so that's what I'll be doing with the replacement. It should fare much better than the old one did.
I wired up a AAA dual cell pack to the old, so now I've got a large capacity solar light, albeit clunky. I like it because of the auto timer off function, which the new model doesn't have any more; opting for simplicity and probably higher reliability, which was the weakness of the old one-
Sent it back to the company to have it checked out, and they replaced it with a newer model, and I was pleasantly surprised that they even returned the old one to me-
Decided to try to see if I could at least get some more use out of it, so I extracted the rechargeable cell with some surgery and tried to see if it could be charged back up, but it just wouldn't put out enough current any more- it's dead, Jim.
Made some measurements on the light using a power supply set to 3.0V, and the highest level actually drew 102mA at 3V (probably much less in real operation, since the cell won't maintain 3V at that level). Probably still pretty high at lower voltages though.
Level mA
_____________
1 .....23.5
2 .....37.6
3 .....52.1
4 .....67.9
5 .....84.5
6 .....102.7
The finder mode continuously pulled about 0.7mA even when not flashing; that was why it drained the battery faster than I expected.
Open circuit charge voltage is well regulated to 3.31V.
3.40V +/- 0.15V is the specified constant voltage charge rate on the datasheet for the VL2330 Vanadium Pentoxide lithium rechargeable battery, so it's right in the range.
Short circuit current output measured at 5mA with sunlight, filtered through a window.
It only showed 0.8mA when placed under a CFL, which explains why that kind of charging didn't seem to do much. I'll be charging the new one using sunlight, to keep the 50mAh VL2330 cell up to snuff.
The 50mAh rating is based on a 0.1mA current draw though, so it is normally running at a much higher discharge rate, which brings down the actual capacity.
I would guess what happened to the old one was that the temperature limit was exceeded when I made the mistake of leaving it to charge on the dashboard of a car; the cell is supposed to be kept under 60 deg. C to prevent deterioration, according to the spec. It definitely went well over that, which is probably what cooked it.
Main thing to watch for with these is to keep them cool, so that's what I'll be doing with the replacement. It should fare much better than the old one did.
I wired up a AAA dual cell pack to the old, so now I've got a large capacity solar light, albeit clunky. I like it because of the auto timer off function, which the new model doesn't have any more; opting for simplicity and probably higher reliability, which was the weakness of the old one-
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