Castaway....

About, oh, a month ago (or more?!), I watched the movie "Castaway" for the first time. I watched as his battery died in his flashlight (Scorpion?). I thought they must have done some trick with the flashlight to make it die so fast, since I had never seen a flashlight die out that quickly! And guess what? That very night, I was out in the hills above HollyWood (after a friends concert I went to), I pulled out my E2 (I have an E1 also, which are the only flashlights I have that take x123 batteries, and I had never used one of those batteries up before), when I pushed the button for the E2, the light came on, then immediatly faded, just like in the movie! I couldn't believe it! I had NOO idea that is (appears to be) the normal way theses lights go out. Someone, please confirm this for me.... this would mean that x123 based lights are undesirable for survival situations ... as I rather have my Turtle 2 light (with lithium batteries of course )! Comments? Thoughts? Why do the batteries die out so fast? Thanks!

Doug

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Doug:
I pulled out my E2, when I pushed the button for the E2, the light came on, then immediatly faded, just like in the movie! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This happens especially with cells which have been drained to zero and then got some rest. When you switch them on again you will get a few seconds of light and then it fades away in a few seconds.

My personal opinion, but my SureFires will never do this because I swap to fresh batteries long before the light gets so dim it dies.

I have run numerous constant-on runtime comparisons, and the light output/quality does decrease, with the yellowing becoming ever more noticable.

Al

Al, do you got the time to post some details of the discharge curves ?
Or some kind of quantified data.
Personally, I'm particularly interested in the E2, and the 8#X

lightlover