Noticed something weird with Mag AA LED upgrade

I've had this 2AA Maglite with the Nite Eyez LED upgrade for about six months. The day I put the upgrade in, I dropped in some Energizer e2 Lithium batteries that were too drained to use in my digital camera. It worked fine and has worked well ever since. I haven't had to change the batteries, and the light is still plenty bright.

Last night I got bored and tried to put the LED bulb assembly in my Smith and Wesson 2AA flashlight. I only switched the bulb and nothing else. When I turned it on, the bulbs glowed a dim green color and didn't project much light at all. I was using duracell ultras with 3/4 charge (according to the tester on the side of the battery. That struck me as weird, so I wanted to find out why. I put the lithium batteries in the S&W and it worked fine. It was as bright as the maglite.
Then I switched the batteries to a fresh, fully charged pair of rechargeables (Digital Concepts 2200mAh) that I bought a few days ago. The result was the green dim glow.
I tried some other combos, but the end result was the lithium batteries were the only ones able to produce the bright light.
Today I bought some fresh rayovac alkalines and they work fine.

I'm wondering why the duracell ultras and the rechargeables didn't produce the power (amps, volts, or whatever) to work. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
stdlrf11

That's very strange. I've used mine with both alkalines and rechargeables and never experienced this. I haven't used lithium AA's, but I know plenty of people have.

I think the NightIze is recommended for use only with alkalines though, as per the manufacturer. Not sure about that though.

I have used alkies, Nimh's, and Lithium's in my NIte Ize stuff and all work well.

I don't have a clue why your's works differently, unless it has something to do with the smith and wesson light itself.

I would try the differnt battteries in the maglite and see if you still have this problem.

I bought a nite eyez LED bulb only kit (no clickie tailcap) from Academy and just put it in the S&W. It works fine with all three. The maglite LED only works with lithiums.
My only guess would be that maybe the connections were bad with the older LED bulb. I think I read something about lithiums putting out 1.8 volts instead of 1.5v. Maybe they fried the circuits a little. These are only guesses as I know nothing about electronics.

stdlrf11

The fresh Lithiums I have produce 1.79V or 1.8V according to Craftsman multimeter.

I haven't tried them in Nite-Ize. It works fine with NiMH but when I was installing the module, I had this feeling that it's a cheap disposable piece of cr@p. It does work however pretty well. No complaints.