So... I bought me an Elephant II

.... now what?

I knew I wanted one but I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. I want a crazy bright flashlight but I really don't have any other parts that will work with it.

Will Emoli cells from the Milwaulkee packs fit in this thing?

Are there any other cells that will survive at 10+Amp load? Any where do you buy them? I can't find them.

I just bought one also (thanks fivemega) precisely because it holds 4 18650 batteries. I have a 5 Cree Q5 1D torch that I love, but with 4 14500 batteries I only get ~750 maH. The elephant is about the size of the 1D m@g, but with 4 18650's it carries ~2200 maH. Same voltage but almost 3 times the runtime. So the elephant will be the new host for my 5 cree setup. It will also occasionally host fivemega's FM3V-2 head and Osrams 64447 bulb. Not much runtime but 3500 lumens of wow.

I don't know if an emoli will fit in an elephant but it seems like an overly expensive solution for delivering 4 volts. An emoli will fit into a regular 1D modded m@g nicely. Great for driving a P4 or P7.

Drive a P7 with a Triflupic on a big head for good throw and long runtime, put the 4 18650 in parallel and you get 10.4 ah at 4.2v that would be about 3.5 hours on max brightness and even longer with lower brightness.

AlexGT

I should probably clarify that I'm going for a high lumens incandescent. And I bought the long version with room for 12 batteries. Runtime isn't important this is just for a crazy bright fun light.

Look at what LuxLuther is up to in Incand. Lights
Theres 18650 Emoli's and he can make battery packs for you.
These are good threads of his for starters

Brightest Maglites

Destructive Bulb Testing

3s4p 18650 pack

Here is my current plan (I think this may be similar to Lux's Vaporizer, if so credit goes to him):
8x 18650 Emolis sourced from 2 Makita 18V Lion packs
My custom frankenswitch module. (And by custom I mean random stuff I've pieced together that seems to work)
1x Osram 64657
FM2.5 Throwmaster to top everything off

This should give me a good 10-15 minutes run time at 14K+ lumens I think. That's enough for me.

I eventually plan on making a practical build too... I just want something to scare people with for now.:naughty:

Now the questions...
What sort of prep work will I need to do with the batteries after I remove them from the pack? Will I need to attach button tops to them or anything like that?

What would you all recommend to charge this monstrosity. It doesn't look like there is a hyperion option that would allow me to balance charge the whole pack. I may have to split the pack in half or charge the cells individually. I'm not opposed to breaking up the pack to charge it but I would like to be able to charge the whole thing at once. Any suggestions?

The nice thing about the safe chemistry (no exploding/flaming) cell types in the thread that nein166 mentioned, namely 18650 sizes of A123 (3.0V Nano Lithium Iron Phosphate), Emoli/Konion (3.7V Lithium Manganese) is that you can abuse them more than you would imagine. That is not the case with the older and more typical Lithium Cobalt Ion cells (AW, Wolfeye, Pila, Tenergy, Sanyo, etc.)

After taking out of a pack (be VERY careful to not short while clipping leads, then peel them back over battery weld points to remove), lightly dremel sand off weld contact points, so ends are flush. Then just use in FiveMega's battery holder.

These cells can be bulk charged a number of times before checking voltages and seeing them get out of balance. If you want to see how bulk charging affects the cells, number them with a sharpie, and take apart after charging to check voltages. Then put back in same location and follow progress.

The primary scenario where balance taps would need to be permanently installed is if you were making them into a fixed pack, welded together. This will be a larger light than most people are used to holding, so you have to decide how you want to use it. Certainly, it could be setup with parallel battery configurations and give very long run times to a lower current/voltage demanding light.

To be honest, I was kind of waiting for AW to finish his higher watt, regulated voltage D driver before using this the way I planned.