AA Flashlights - "Cockroach" / "Vampire" / "Drain-me-till-I'm-empty"

Starting Maratac AA titanium Nichia 219B Rev 2 test now. Amaloop 1900mah on Low mode (maratac rates this at 5 lumens for 75 hours).

Thanks :wink:
Let’s see when it ends :wink:

I got some 3AA plastic holders with the 9v type connectors attached from Radio Shack and built some of these to drain my weak batteries:

Motion Sensitive Piss Light

Using amber LEDs, good for not interrupting sleep, and demanding lower voltage I think than white LEDs.

Kills those alkaline cells dead, dead, dead.

Also works fine on depleted 9v cells down to three or four volts.

I always wanted to get something like a cup or ring, use Al foil as the floor for the negative ends, more Al foil with something squishy behind it to make contact with an assload of parallelled alkaleaks, just to get the lowest resistance to fire up a JT circuit right down to a fractional-volt. Maybe a bypass cap to act as a stiffener. Then, let the whole damned pile leak over themselves and each other, and toss the whole bunch after.

That would make a pretty good nightlight. One cell at 0.8V would sag pretty badly under even that miniscule load, but 10-15 cells in parallel? :laughing:

Burn off a whole bunch overnight, lighting up a walkway, a “don’t block the driveway, hoser!” sign, whatever.

Gerber Infinity Ultra is a guaranteed vampire - I have several as proof, and a few still in sealed pkgs.


Features
Ultra-bright white LED has 30-foot range.
Patented circuitry boosts battery time and brightness.
100-hr burn time, 25-hr peak brightness.
5mm LED delivers 100,000-hr operating life.
crush-proof aluminum body with anodized finish.
Water-proof to 30 feet and completely weather resistant.
Rotary tailcap twist switch. Rear lanyard hole in tail cap cone…
Weighs 2.2 ounces with battery. 3.215 inches long.
metal detachable pocket clip.
Lifetime limited warranty from Gerber Legendary Blades.

The type M series are rugged military-grade versions.
M series lights have a military-grade hard-anodize finish.
Double o-rings and sealed circuit board ignore wetness.

I have a Nitecore MT22A. I like it a lot. It gets lots of use. 3 modes, 1 lumen, 45 lumen, and 260 lument, 180 hours on low, 18 hours on mid, and 2 hours and 15 minutes on high. AA only, no 14500 for this light. Gave on to the neighbor kid. He uses it in his pool all the time. Thing just keeps on working. He has had it through the washer and dryer. It’s still working.

16 Aug 2135hrs:

Well just got home from a walk and breakfast at the neighborhood eatery and its dead. Cycling the twisty will get the LED to flash on and fade out immediately. I’m wondering if somehow I grabbed a partially/mostly drained battery! I will recharge and repeat soon!

OK, test two starting. Same cells, AmazonBasics “amaloop” 1900mah Made in Japan. Different individual cell, topped up on a Sony dv/dt smart 1x4 channel charger immediately prior to beginning test. Modes look the same as before. We will see if this lasts any longer.

Hmm this is like my situation too. But like Lightbringer says, discharging them all the way makes them leak, which is not worth the effort / environmental impact to keep cleaning up. So I’m thinking of those exposed plastic trays which are much easier to clean.

I was going to suggest this, but don’t know how low they can discharge to. Mine is the first CMG version.

Dang, almost the same results! As of 0600 this morning light was out when I woke up. Going to reach out to county comm and see if they think it’s a bad light or not.

@buck91, two things. CountyComm is notorious for putting much longer run times than reality in their product descriptions. Second, a non rechargable alkaline battery should last 50% longer or more due to greater capacity at that current level. BTW, are you able to measure the current with a meter?

so, was that 15 hours?
maybe the 75 hour spec was a typo?

move along, this is not the Roach you were looking for :slight_smile:

CountyRoaches are overrated
fwiw the 75 hour claim was “Using A Single Duracell AA battery”

fwiw, the Tool AA claims 7 lumens for 30 hours on eneloop and 36 hours on Alkaleak… iow, 20% longer, not 50%

I suspect a similar driver is in the Maratac AA, but I think county com requested a 12 lumen low…

in any case, Maratacs are nice, if you dont get hung up on runtime and output specs… Ccomm site has a lot of advertising baloney… I just carry a spare battery…

more info, mentions PWM back in 2016…

If you want long run time, you’re probably better off buying a light that has the best efficiency, and not worrying too much about draining the last 1% out of your battery.

I did some run-time tests on the Zebralight SC52 and SC52w a few years ago. They’re 1xAA lights. On a standard Eneloop (1900mAh), using the brightest moonlight mode (0.3 lumens?), they lasted almost 2 weeks. An alkaline should get about 3 weeks on that, regulated at 0.3 lumens. On the lower moonlight modes, that should be about 3 months.

It stops when then battery is at about 0.8 volts. But, so what? Your battery is 99% empty. Why worry about the last 1, if the light you’re using isn’t as efficient? Even if your light is 90 as efficient, your run time will be ( (0.9 x 0.99) + 0.01 ) = 0.901 times as long.

So the Maratac is a huge let down. County Comm is blaming the enelope/amalope as the reason staying longer runtime off alkaline. But of course when I’m getting less than 30% advertised runtimes with new, charges, quality cells I find it hard to believe an alkaleak will show that much improvement. Combined with the higher output on low and lower output on high than advertised and I will be looking elsewhere for a aa roach! Too bad… light is fantastic if the driver was better. Maybe a good candidate for a mod but single AA drivers are few and far between.

AA Alkaline batteries have 3000mAhr compared to the 1900mAhr cells you tried. Also, they start at a much higher voltage, which MAY result in less current demand, if the low mode is regulated. Even so, I imagine you will not get the advertised run time, even with an alkaline cell.

Would using Energizer Ultimate lithium cells make for a truer test down to a dead cell?

I understand the Maratac AA is no CockRoach
but I hope you dont throw out the baby with the bathwater

different lights have different pros and cons
your maratac has a lot of other things going for it, that cockroaches dont have

I think trying to reconcile specs and real runtimes, is the road to dissapointment, and you have not yet tried an alkaleak or lithium primary, the latter might cheer you up a bit :slight_smile:

as far as drivers… a Reylight might interest you

apology for the non cockroach hijack

now back to your regularly scheduled, single mode, super dim, practically useless amount of light, unless youre trying to live in a cave after a nuclear holocaust, cockroach thread… :stuck_out_tongue:

Well it’s really a combination of the rather bright low mode along with the rather dim high mode. I purchased a light rated at 75hrs low and 235 lumens high and received neither. Pretty disappointed. Compared to my reylight from mass drop or my lumintops from AE which appear at least close to spec.

Ahah, I get it :smiley: And now that I saw this, I remember reading that in a thread some time ago ! Hence recalling that info :wink:

Hum, this would be a nice solution! 100hr brightness would be amazing for this type of light!
If I understand correctly, they are not sold anymore, are they? The robustness and draining capacity would certainly be the more important things to have on it!

Is this a “robust” light? Meaning , with the plastic body, is it capable of taking “some beats”? Seems a good option, although different from a “vampire” light!!

Funny thing you mentioned this! I was thinking about that too! Recently I received the Skilhunt M150 that supposedly lasts 55 days on the lowest setting with a 2450 mAh Ni-MH battery! So I guess that fits the “regulated” and runtime, but this is not the same type of light as that Gerber or a Sofin C01. Meaning, it is not a cheap robust light that you will be able to use with single mode and also when you don’t have a charger, relying then only on Alkalines.

But your input matches my latest thinking when buck91 started the test on the Maratac!

Thanks for testing it! And I’m sorry they “let you down” with those specs. I guess this last sentence may resume it all :zipper_mouth_face:

These are not rechargeable, are they? Says 20years shelf life :o And leak proof :smiley:

Ahah, jon, that sense of humour :smiley: When were going to the boundaries on the top edge of illumination (100000 lumens) why not dig the lowest edge too? :wink:

BTW, if that cockroach has +90CRI, wouldn’t you like it too? :stuck_out_tongue: