ARC AAA-P rev.4 cooking with battery inside

Hello,

I maybe throbbing an old horse here...but...

I keep a ARC AAA-P in a pouch with a leatherman, small monocular, lighter, spare cash, spare car key, small change, pen/pencil, stuff like that...little things that can make a difference...(had to use that stuff once in a near, well...)

The ARC is having a problem with "cooking", I'm not sure if it happens to be battery related or whatever, but (it's not exactly stored in direct sunlight, it might get 100F inside the car where it's occasionally left, but it's not in direct light) everytime open it up to change the battery there's a small release in pressure...I bet it's hydrogen gas. Today I opened it up and was greeted by a generous helping of black corrosion on the inside. I am wondering if this is a problem with ARCs in the heat or is it the batteries?

Right now it's soaking in 99% alchohol to hopefully make easier to get the corrosion out. Perhaps, Peter could give some insight into all this?

icecube,

As an experiment, you can try storing the Arc-AAA without the battery the same way and see if you get any more events.

I suspect the battery is not happy with how it is being stored. It could be the heat is higher than you suspect. It is not usual for temps within a car for example to be 30-40F more than the outside, even on a mild day. If this is the case, I would also be concerned about the lighter included in your pak.

Standford study on how hot a car can get on a mild day:
http://mednews.stanford.edu/releases/2005/july/hot-cars.htm

Safety bulletin, lighters left in hot cars:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/iyh-vsv/prod/lighter-briquet_e.html


If the temp where the pouch is being stored never gets above 100F and the battery is still acting badly, the brand or handling may be suspect. What brand of battery are you using and where did you buy it? I ask where you bought it because there are cheap chinease counterfeits of name brands on the internet.

Also, if you were to really crank down on the Arc-AAA head and crush the battery, you could conceivably rupture the cell and cause it to leak. Another thing, the Arc-AAA can produce light even from a "dead" cell. This is more of an emergency feature. I recommend you change the cell when it is dead (or at least every 6 months) because dead cells are more likely to leak. It is not worth damaging the light when you have a new cell handy. Like I said, this ability to really suck a dead battery even lower is more of an emergency feature. Battery mfgs consider an alkaline dead at 0.9v. The Arc-AAA can continue to produce light down to about 0.1v!

Btw, 1.7v lithium AAA are less likely to leak in my experience.

Questions:
1. where is it being stored
2. how hot does it get
3. brand of battery
4. where did you buy the battery
5. how do you use the flashlight

Also, if are unable to clean the pack to enough to get the light working 100%, send the entire light to us and we will repair it for no charge.

Peter

Gransee said:

<snip>

Click to expand...

Very good information sir. First the questions...

1. In the pouch, 80-85 is max temp I believe. I know that cars without sunblinds facing the sun can sure get baking hot—I found that out real quick when I went to pick my E30 after AC recharge. Must've been 110 in there and...going off topic.
2. Maybe 100 max inside the car.
3. Duracell, the original battery that came with the (or the same type at least) Arc.
4. Either it came with it or I bought it at a Rite-Aid.
5. Rarely. I use my keychain one for work. I don't think I've changed the battery in it. Whereas the other one on my keychain has been changed at least twice already.

The light works fine, but the whole ChemKote is generously coated with black corrosion. I left it soaking in the alchohol for a day now and it's just laughing at me. At least the ruined buffer came out.

I don't know where you live but I had a digital camera in a bag that got destroyed. The bag has a part that is insulated to keep your lunch. The digital camera was in there inside my truck for 8 hours while the temperature was 104 degrees outside. It totally destroyed the LCD of the camera. I would leave anything important in the truck in a insulated bag or any other again.

I would think an LCD would sustain at least 130F.

Or, maybe, it got 130 in there...who knows...the insulation would have kept it cool for a little time, then when it got really warm it prevented cooling...

I think the battery just leaked or something. Perhaps I could conduct more testing on this issue...in a heated pan of water should be enough.

yeah unless your item is in a cooler with ice, it's going to fry in your car in the hot sun. Alkalines like to leak with heat like this, or at least loose their capacity and croak. I store a light in my car but it uses AA NiMH and they seem to do just fine, I just charge them ever so often because I do use the light a lot.

If I were you I'd store the battery seperately, and sealed away from other goods so if it does leak you're not damaging anything. Then if it's still good you just put it in the Arc and go. Lithium may be another option. NiMH isn't that great of an idea since it sounds like a survival kit and not a frequent use thing and would self discharge.

Or keep the Arc on your car keys and it's always with you. I never worry about not having a flashlight with me or an EDC since it's on my key chain. People wonder what if it went dark in here, we'd be screwed and a lighter would be our only light and I don't even think of things like that anymore since I always have light!

Just opened up the one on my keychain.

It has corrosion also. Unlike the pouch-stored one this one didn't have the battery leak nor H2 gas spurt out when opened.

...Is this normal Peter?

Edit: The one stored in the pouch now has spotty operation. It doesn't turn on reliably: rivet end is corroded.

No, it's not normal for 2 batteries to leak that close to together. Otherwise we would see posts to this forum with this as a common occurence.

Just wondering, is there any way the cells could have been crushed? The odds of 2 cells leaking that close together in time is unusual.

Both cells should be removed and the interior of the lights cleaned of leaked chemicals. New batteries should be inserted and the lights tested. If the operation is intermittant or dim, the contacts are still covered with junk. Try cleaning them again. If you can't get them clean, send it to us and we will take care of it for you.

Peter

Perhaps a pencil eraser to clean the corrosion off the back contact would work? I've done that before to ligths, not sure if it would fit down the tube though..

It does fit down the tube, but as we can observe there is no real way to refurbish the rivet correctly, unless we use like a reamer on a drill press or something. Even then I figure the ChemKote is ruined, so the solution would be to order a two new bodies. And foam inserts, because corrosion made mush-mash of them.

makes me wonder if those keep the things hot of cold bags with the reflective surface outside, will work to keep heat away in cars?

icecube, try a pencil eraser down there with some fine grit sandpaper on the end of it. The rubber eraser will keep the sandpaper from moving, and the sandpaper should be strong enough to rough up the stainless steel rivet. Then clean the threads with something less abrisive if needed, perhaps a scotch brite pad.

chester: I doubt it, as it would eventually heat soak as the air/everything in the car would eventually conduct heat. You can't reflect away ambient temperature for long..

I've switched to lithium cells for my better lights that use primary AA & AAA size. Alkies will leak or fail for no reason - other than bad manufacturing. All too often one out of 3 or 4 new alks will render a light useless due to death during non use. Too often I've had new alks leak in only 70F temperatures. This has happened with Duracell & Energizers most often.

Sounds good folks.

I'll source a pair of replacement bodies sometime so the inside is all good and switch to lithiums or something. Where do y'all get your lithiums? I hear they have better output than a alkaline battery.

icecube said:

I'll source a pair of replacement bodies sometime so the inside is all good and switch to lithiums or something. Where do y'all get your lithiums? I hear they have better output than a alkaline battery.

Click to expand...

I just get mine at Walgreens, might be a little more expensive but for me easy to get to and find what I want. I am not a good shopper.

Energizer?

Hear those are good...

icecube said:

Energizer?

Hear those are good...

Click to expand...

Yep, work good, lighweight, not really all that much more expensive for the amount of use you get out of them. If you spend $40 for a flashlight, might as well spring for good batteries.

I have an Energizer lithium in mine and it is exposed to high heat in my truck,never had any trouble with it.

Icecube, have you seen these irreversible temperature indicator labels ?
Store them along with your light and you could be surprised.
Alternative mfg.

As soon as I got my Arc AAA-P, I went down to Walgreens and picked up a 4-pack of Energizer lithium AAA's. I'm mostly concerned about leakage, but the better runtime doesn't hurt either.