Just wondering if I could use a 14500 battery VS the AA in my HL23 OR would it burn the light up?
It's been "banned" according to the product page table listing battery types. You'd have to ask a genius here as to why exactly.
Genius reporting in . Well, the alkaline/NiMh batteries, voltage wise, are far below the forward voltage drop of the LED which is around 3.0 volts. Thus the driver is a boost circuit type. A 14500 battery is above the Vfwd and would require a different circuit driver. The HL23 simply isn't designed for the higher voltage. Some flashlights that accommodate both 1.5v and lithium ion then have buck-boost or boost/pwm type of drivers. There are some lights that accommodate 1.5v/14500 that I don't care for because of the switch to pwm (ie: Nitecore MT10A). Even though I have not seen pwm on the Fenix lights, I have found that their CR123A/16340 lights perform better than their AA/14500 lights, even though the 14500 has 100mAh more capacity than the 16340. Thus I am happy with the HL23 as it is, though I wish it had memory or at least started out in low.It's been "banned" according to the product page table listing battery types. You'd have to ask a genius here as to why exactly.