18650 or CR123

Stol3n said:

the best 18650 rechargeable batteries & charger that I can for the light.

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The question of using the new higher capacity flat-top 18650s (i.e. protected 2600mAh) has been surfacing a lot lately.

Like a number of recently released 18650-class lights, the T20C2 features physical reverse polarity protection in the head (i.e. requires the use of button-top cells). As such, some of the newer flat-top 18650s may not work in this light without modification.

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If you look at the graphs, you will see what I mean - compare the 18650 Max run to the max runs on other batteries. The other batteries are flat light output (i.e. circuit regulated) until nearly exhausted. The 18650 slowly decays until it eventually "falls off the ski slope" and rapidly depletes.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this pattern - it is in fact more efficient to simply rely on the internal resistance of the 18650. But many users like the idea of constant light output provided by circuity. The problem is that for various electrical reasons, it is very difficult to design a circuit that can be fully regulated at max output across the voltages ranges of all battery types. The lights that typically manage this feat do so by reducing max output on 1x18650.

Personally, I consider this pattern to be a more than acceptable trade-off. As for batteries. I typically recommend single-sources whenever possible, such as 1x18650 (i.e. removes the risk of potentially mismatched dual-cells). It also has the greatest overall storage capacity this way. AW protected batteries are by far the most popular here, and what I use.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by litetube
So, when you mention AW RCR123 Protected you mean 3.7V yes? I want to try them out but havnt seen anywhere that states it is safe to do so. I dont want to blow thelight up and figure out the hard way that you meant 3.0volts AW or something.

Yes, I used AW protected 3.7V RCR (~4.2V fully charged), without a problem. Although the EagleTac literature makes no mention of these, I (and others) have tested them without incident so far.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by crazigee
So would I be better off going with a rechargeable RCR123 than with and 18650?


As for RCR - well, only if you want a quarter the runtime for a frankly neglible increase in output. It's a much better idea all around to stick with 1x18650.

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Sgt. LED said:

AW's button top 18650 or Eagletac's own 18650 cells.

Pila's IBC charger.

That's it, you can spend more or less and you can get the same performance or worse. Not getting much better than these.

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