Surefire 3-Volt LED Bezel with 16650 battery, will it affect LED life?

I recently assembled several surefire LED flashlights:
Vampire 3-Volt Bezel + E2D Body
Aviator 3-Volt Bezeld + E2D Body
E1B MV 3-Volt Bezel + E2D Body
E1D 3-Volt Bezel + E2D Body
M300C 3-Volt Bezel + E2D Body
M600AA 3-Volt Bezel + E2D Body
EDCL1T 3-Volt Bezel + EDCL2T Body
They all use 16650 (Sanyo 2500mAh) batteries, all work well and have a long battery life

However, I would like to know, will the 16650 (Sanyo 2500mAh) battery affect the life of the 3-Volt LED Bezels?
Thanks...

Bearing in mind that the 16650 is 4.2 volts off the charger and your head is rated at 3 volts, you are about 40% overvoltage.
The answer is yes, ythe 16650 will affect your led or driver's life.

P

peter yetman said:

Bearing in mind that the 16650 is 4.2 volts off the charger and your head is rated at 3 volts, you are about 40% overvoltage.
The answer is yes, ythe 16650 will affect your led or driver's life.

P

Click to expand...

A fresh CR123A is about 3.2-volts, 16650's 4.2-volts are about 30% overvoltage.

Can someone explain how overvoltage affects the life of the LED? Especially these 3V LED bezels.
Because these 3V bezels with 16650 perform so well, it's hard for me to give up.:sigh:

All electronic components have a range of Voltage and current that they work within. If you exceed the rated voltage or current thay simply melt.
There are other components inside the head apart from the LED that are vulnerable too.
P

Struecker said:

A fresh CR123A is about 3.2-volts, 16650's 4.2-volts are about 30% overvoltage.

Can someone explain how overvoltage affects the life of the LED? Especially these 3V LED bezels.
Because these 3V bezels with 16650 perform so well, it's hard for me to give up.:sigh:

Click to expand...

It shortens the life, drastically in some cases. They "perform" so well because you're feeding it more than it can handle, heating up the LED emitter to dangerous levels and also potentially damaging other components to the point of failure.

As a comparison, if you have an engine that's rated for a certain pressure and you start increasing the pressure it can seem like the engine performs better, but you're also wearing it out faster and if you increase the pressure too much it goes poof.

It is of course up to you, but if you want to keep doing this then be prepared to get more lamp modules to feed them and don't complain when they grow dimmer/fail/start acting up.

peter yetman said:

All electronic components have a range of Voltage and current that they work within. If you exceed the rated voltage or current thay simply melt.
There are other components inside the head apart from the LED that are vulnerable too.
P

Click to expand...

Thank you for your answer

I sent an e-mail to surefire asking if the 3-volts LED bezel can use 16650 batteries, they responded as follows:


"Should not cause any damage to Flashlights or LED units. Our LED flashlights are able to regulate the increase voltage of the battery."


So I decided to continue using the 16650 batteries.

LRJ88 said:

It shortens the life, drastically in some cases. They "perform" so well because you're feeding it more than it can handle, heating up the LED emitter to dangerous levels and also potentially damaging other components to the point of failure.

As a comparison, if you have an engine that's rated for a certain pressure and you start increasing the pressure it can seem like the engine performs better, but you're also wearing it out faster and if you increase the pressure too much it goes poof.

It is of course up to you, but if you want to keep doing this then be prepared to get more lamp modules to feed them and don't complain when they grow dimmer/fail/start acting up.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your answer

I sent an e-mail to surefire asking if the 3-volts LED bezel can use 16650 batteries, they responded as follows:


"Should not cause any damage to Flashlights or LED units. Our LED flashlights are able to regulate the increase voltage of the battery."


So I decided to continue using the 16650 batteries.