Care and feed of rechargable light...

pyton357ru

pyton357ru

Joined
Aug 26, 2002
Messages
362
Somthing I had to ask long ago, but never brought myself to.
What are basic "do's and dont's" with a rechargable flashlight's batteries?
Shall I remove them, when light won's see use in long while?
Shall they be recharged now and then, or I need to wait for comlete "dry out"?
And any other ways to keep them fit longer...
Batteries are made by Pila, if that matters. (Unfortunatly light came with no manual of any sort... :( )
Thanks beforehand!
 
It depends on type of battery used in it alot - but basically none of the rechargables 'like' the recharge-when-not-entirely-empty becaue it results in "memory effect" (diminishing battery capacity). If it's a Lithium ion cell (very unlikely) it will be more resistant to this memory effect but if it's a NiCd (mostlikely, due to high power maximum output of NiCD rechargable cells which exceed Li-ion and also NiMH) you really really don't want to ruin it. NiMH cells are halfway inbetween NiCd and Li-ion ones, with downsides of both so to speak. You definitely don't want to "charge it up just in case" when half-empty and so on; these things (regardless of technology used) only last a couple hundred of recharge cycles tops and then they're done -> trashcan.

Use it wisely. Capacity will diminish no matter what but if you use it reasonably it will only lose ~20-30% before it dies completely. If not it might come down to 15-20% of original capacity long before it dies entirely.
 
Pilas are lithium ion. You can charge them daily-no need to wait for them to kick out(they have a protection circuit that doesn't let them overdischarge).
The downside to that in a regulated LED light is that the light will die without warning when the protection circuit kicks in. In an incandescent light that uses them, there should be some dimming as the voltage drops. I'd recharge as soon as it starts to dim...
I do runtime tests on the flashlights that I use them in so I'll have an idea of when they need charging, but typically charge the one in use after a few days, regardless, rotating between four different batteries.
Also have a couple of the protected rechargeable 123s from batterystation.com for my single cell LED lights. Those are a great buy if you use a 1x123 light a lot. Careful what you use them in, though. The 4.2v/3.6v nominal R123s could feasibly fry an LED with a low forward voltage in a light that doesn't pull enough current to drop the voltage significantly under load, or if not protected by a regulating circuit, or pop an incandescent bulb made to run on 3v. They also make 3v R123s, which I haven't used.
www.candlepowerforums.com has a "batteries included" forum with a lot of discussion about the different kinds of batteries, and their idiosyncrasies.
 
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