What kind of sorcery is this?

You nailed it!! Acid from alkaline battery that came with it and leaked inside. :+1:

You posted before I could get my edited post saved. So this light has the cell reversed with + in the back like the S1?

Wow. Impressive how solution was found. Kudos.

I have my moments…
But it had to be either that or indeed sorcery. :smiley:
Pretty amazing though that it adds a measurable 1.3 Volts.

hehe…
Took me several attempts to get this as I have no one here to help me take this photo but here it is.

incredible

Obviously it’s not sorcery; it’s all accountable with science.

(picture taken with floating camera)

LOL :smiley:

Captured with drone :smiley:

With voice or gesture command function.

Jerommel, do you think this magic can power the LED on this flashlight (i3s) if connected without the battery (of course I have to use some sort of dummy AAA)?

Asking this because the flashlight wont turn on with this 2V+ but when I use different i3s battery tube, the head is fine.

OMG Manker started producing batteries? Wonder though……what would be their 18650….prolly 10.5 volts or somthing

Probably not. Capacity is extremely limited. When you connect to head and try to switch on, you will get extreme voltage sag; it is not able to deliver power.
The driver does however recognise this voltage bump, so therefore it’s not working.

Amazing finding Jerommel! I’ve never thought of this before. Reminds me of Lemon battery back in my elementary grade

I think it’s probably because the impaired spring and tail connection won’t allow the needed current to pass through, there are salts between them (due to acid and metal chemical reaction).
You will probably measure very very low voltage when you put a load on it.
An analogue VU multimeter would probably read much less than 2.6 Volts due to that.

You’ll have to take out the spring and clean everything with soap and scrape off the mess and then re-assemble.

All modern volt meters, cheap or otherwise, have a very high input impedance. They can “see” a voltage thru very high resistances. As others have stated, and then reversed themselves, this volt meter is reading the boost voltage from the driver, even though there is no “connection”.
But actually there is, thru the voltmeter.

EDIT:
I base my assumptions on that it looks to me like the voltage reading is taken at the LED side of the light. The shirt clip is pointing down.
Even if that is the tail cap, I think the meter would still see the voltage thru the LED even though it is not on.

As Jerommel stated before, it is just a tube with a tailcap and Spring.
To identify by zooming the picture.
There is No led
Voltage reading is affected by acid from leakage.

I’m kind of curious as to how much current this accidental battery tube cell can produce. We’re probably talking microamps but it could potentially power a small joule thief, which would be kind of pointless but for some reason that’s still cool to me. Not sure which metals are somehow creating this reaction but over 1v seems pretty good, I mean I can’t think of any differing metal parts in there that would actually be aligned properly enough to create that much voltage. It has to be the spring and the aluminum right?

Have you checked the accuracy of your meter? How old are ITS batteries? I have found faulty meter probes to wreck all kinds of havoc on my readings, with both my Fluke and my cheaper Sears re-branded meter.

You’ve just discovered a use for lights damaged by alka-leaks; kudos!

And you’ve just infringed my patent for making free energy so be prepared to deal with my lawyers: Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe :stuck_out_tongue:

I’d have never thought about the alkaline voltage reaction still occurring here. I’m certain that there’s so little of it that it couldn’t power anything but a DMM checking voltage or an o’scope. Try it with an analog meter and it will probably read zero as those need more current to get a reading :wink:

Phil