Battery failure in a 2AAA Mini-Mag

A week or 2 ago, I found this on top of my parent's dresser while looking for my old camera (found that there as well). It is an old blue 2AAA Mini-Mag.It appears that one of the batteries has ruptured, and left a very visible crack in the casing of the flashlight at the bottom. For this reason, I have not inspected the flashlight very carefully, and all photographs were taken with the flashlight in a plastic bag. Looks like Mag's "patented vented tailcap" isn't actually that great.







So much for strong Maglites! I wonder how a Surefire or Fenix would take an alkaline battery rupture, :naughty: although there aren't any SFs that take alkalines.

That's a shame... Don't think any flashlight made to date can handle being stored with batteries inside for long periods. Which is also a shame really...

It had actually been sitting like that for years, and nobody had ever noticed it. I wonder how bright it was, not very I presume.

I have seen corrosion completely kill lights, as the batteries rot they seen to expand

Pity the non-Flashaholic. They don't know their flashlight won't work until they need it.

We, on the other hand, are constantly replacing batteries anyway, and always have a few (dozen) spare flashlights nearby.

Alteran said:

So much for strong Maglites!

Click to expand...

Somebody leaves batteries in a flashlight for years, and it somehow shows a failure on Mag's part?

Ooooooooooookay.

Cydonia said:

That's a shame... Don't think any flashlight made to date can handle being stored with batteries inside for long periods. Which is also a shame really...

Click to expand...

+1. I've lost a couple of treasured minimags to battery corrosion. I've never seen the battery tube crack like that, but most of the time I've tossed them once it's obvious there's no way of extracting the batteries.

At least minimags are not super expensive, and other than the sentimental value, they're easily replaced.

Its funny how extreme abuse can be blamed on the manufacturer.

The problem is the alkalines leak and eat the aluminum prior to the battery swelling and rupturing. I just cleaned one up that had this issue. There is now a pea sized spot where the threads used to be on the lip of the cap. Fortunately it was a 2D modded to take 3C cells so the battery spoo was only in the tail cap area rather than eating up the whole innards of the light. The saving grace was that I caught it early and the larger Maglites have heavier aluminum walls.

If you find out the battery brand and it is a name brand you might get a new light. Worth a shot.

Vickers said:

Somebody leaves batteries in a flashlight for years, and it somehow shows a failure on Mag's part?

Ooooooooooookay.

Click to expand...

What I mean is, that the general public seems to believe that Maglites are invincible. I know that old, swollen batteries like this could wreck nearly, if not any flashlight.

Alteran said:

I know that old, swollen batteries like this could wreck nearly, if not any flashlight.

Click to expand...

But you decide to single out Mag, based on this one anecdotal (and non-verifiable) incident.

Nice!

Maybe I said the wrong thing, but I do not believe that any flashlight could hold up to this kind of battery failure. The whole point of this thread was to show what can happen if you leve flashlights lying around with batteries in them. Unfortunately, this is it.

People say litium batteries have a 10 year shelf life, but does this literally mean "on a shelf", or in an unused flashlight?