welcome to adventure sport todays episode
flashlight batteries
101 today we'll go over the basic
battery types cell chemistry's charging
and discharging safety i'll explain what
the numbers on the batteries mean and
i'll also give you my brand
recommendations most common types of
batteries used in flashlights are
lithium ion and nickel metal hydride
nickel-metal hydride batteries typically
come in sizes that are a direct
replacement for alcohol in cells such as
aa C&D they run about 1.2 volts per
cell and they're a great replacement for
alkaline batteries and most devices
lithium-ion is a term that encompasses
several battery chemistry's but in the
case for flashlights most of those will
be three point seven volts talk about
what the numbers on these batteries mean
on each of these we have some common
sets of numbers that you've probably
heard this one says 18650 and this
other says 26650 the first set of
numbers in that series is the diameter
and the second pair is the length you can
also get lithium-ion batteries to
replace common size sells like AA or
cr123 batteries a 14500 cell is equal in
size to an AA 16340 is equal to a
3-volt cr123 just be aware that the
lithium-ion cells are higher and voltage
than both of these and not every
flashlight can take that extra voltage
fully charged lithium-ion cells are 4.2
volts of peace the next set of numbers
we see here is the capacity of the cell
this keep our cell has a capacity of
5200 milliamp hours which basically just
means if we were to discharge this
battery at 5200 milliamps it would run
for one hour moving on to the letters
some of the common lettering you'll see
in flashlight batteries IMR INR ICR
it's not really important that you know
exactly what those chemistry's mean what
is important is that you know how to
treat them Imr and inr are what's known
as safe chemistry cells and they're more
forgiving than others you can discharge
them at a higher rate the icr are not a
safe chemistry that c means cobalt or be
careful you can't just try stuff with
these if you do and you try the wrong
stuff they can vent toxic fumes or even
catch fire
the best way to know how hard you can
discharge his cell is to look at the
manufacturer's specs looking here at the
keeppoewr 26650 we can see we have a
maximum discharge current of 9.5 amps
sometimes you'll see a rating that says
2c or 5c and that just means 2 times
the capacity of the cell looking rlg 18
650 we also see a 10 amp maximum
discharge or about 3c another
important thing to note is the maximum
charging current for this so we can see
that it's 3.1 amp 4or 1c, 1c is typically
the maximum foremost lithium-ion cells
using flashlights one other variation
you've probably heard of and lithium-ion
cells is protected and unprotected
basically what this means is that
there's a circuit that's been added to
the end of the battery that will keep it
from being able to be discharged to too
low of a voltage doing that will
definitely damage your batteries and in
this case of 2.8 volts is about the
minimum you want protection circuits
also protect the battery from being
overcharged and some of them will even
protect it from being discharged at too
high of a rate looking at these two
cells even though they both say that
they're 65 millimeter and length you can
see that one is obviously longer than
the other one the keeppower cell is longer
because it has the protection circuit
added as well as having a button top
raised on the pot battery positive end
you guys with me so far
ok pretty simple hopefully it gets even
simpler
blur as we move into nickel-metal
hydride a quality set of these cells can
be charged and discharged at a pretty
high rate much like the safe chemistry
lithium-ion cells and they don't carry
the risk of venting toxic fumes
performance will vary greatly from brand
brand but as a rule of thumb i prefer
the low self-discharge type nickel-metal
hydride cells have a fairly high rate of
self-discharge meaning if you charge
them up and then leave them and come
back later
chances are they're either going to be
low charge or maybe even dead the LSD
type cells can be stored for long
periods of time and still maintain most
of their charge on the charging and
brand recommendations when charging any
type of battery is preferable to get
quality charger for safety reasons i
would say one of the most important
things to look for when choosing a
charger is that it has independent
charging channels most lithium-ion
Chargers have these but a lot of the
nickel metal hydride ones you find don't
I use the night core brand chargers
because they can charge both lithium-ion
and nickel metal hydride cells
this is people d to digital charger is
one of my favorites because it can
charge a pair of 26650s side-by-side it
even works with the longer protected
cells
something else you really want watch
closely is this all of these batteries
look similar but fundamentally a few of
them are very different some flashlights
you buy an outcome with batteries
already in them some of these are
rechargeable lithium cells and some of
them are what's known as lithium primary
cells 1.5 volt lithium cells like
Energizer's or the three volts cr123
cells that you get in a lot of
flashlights are not rechargeable for
brand recommendations I like keeppower
cells a lot they mark their batteries
with realistic capacities they're good
quality and they offer a lot of
protected cells i also like the Efest
brad cells that I've tried probably the
best resource i've ever seen for helping
you pick what the battery is best for
you is the webpage that hkj puts up you
can just google battery comparator and
find his site and on there you'll see
that you can find comparisons for almost
any popular cell and it's good quality
information he does independent tests
that show what the discharge curves are
for each battery and how high you can
discharge them at and just pretty much
anything that you would need to know the
nickel metal hydride cells a lot of
people stand by eneloops because of
their reputation for quality another
cheaper alternative would be the dura
loops as they're called which is
basically the duracell pre-charged
battery that has the white ring around
the top and they're made in Japan not
the blacktop ones that are made in China
recently I found what I think is a good
third option it's the powerex imedion
they are 2500 milliamp capacity sell
their low self discharge and there are a
whole lot cheaper than eneloops
they also performed pretty well under
load in some of the tests that i found
on the internet for larger cells like
C&D i recommend tenergy centura
are basically all the same reasons the
other batteries one last thing we need
to talk about his battery source or
suppliers
the internet is just absolutely flooded
with trash when it comes to these
batteries it's so easy to buy just just
junk or fake things like that so make
sure you buy from a reputable dealer you
want to avoid sites like Alibaba or
aliexpress whenever you find really
cheap batteries
there's a reason for it if you have any
questions or comments feel free to leave
them in the comments section below if
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