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

Good question!

I don't know the real answer, but I would guess that alkaleaks will gladly leak in anything you put them in.

Just a guess, though.

They’re hateful little things. They’ll leak just for spite.

Build my AA vampire light from plumbing parts a year ago. All fit in nicely althought it’s heavy due to brass.

It glow around 5 lumens and run about a month with full AA battery until they battery is completely dead.

Would love to find lighter version for EDC.

Tail stand

forward clicky switch

head stand

I like it!

It kinda has a steampunk vibe.

PP fees included that is a fraction under €26 at AMZ CA…
Which is a lot better than the amount I was contemplating the time that Gerber was on AMZ DE .

and a alkaleak will just improve the patina.
verdigris by duraleak!

Thanks for the links timbo114 :wink:
Some of them have quite expensive shipping fees (half the price of the light…) but I will see if them!

Interesting data sbslider! If I may ask, you just left it to run during those days without stopping the test to take some voltage measurements?

I wanna do a test with some of my AA lights, with alkaline batteries inside to see how long they last. The AAA lights I will probably test are Skilhunt M150, Tool AA V2.0, Sofirn SP10A, Manker E11, Wuben E05, and the AAA Sofirn C01.

The C01 in warmer tint is probably my favourite High-CRI light I have! Despite I like the 5600K too!
Having a AA light like that would be the best solution for me in what concerns this quest (durable in host and runtime, single mode, …put it in somewhere and it will last… :stuck_out_tongue: )
I am comfortable when using a light below 0.5 lumens (I have no way to measure how low in lumens I can go, sorry), so to light something nearby it would not raise many questions. In a night scenario, the RRT01 in its loooow modes is enough for me.

I will have to let the C01 almost drain the battery it has inside for months to see how low I can go before it is not useful anymmore!
I just want a light that could eat the almost depleted batteries and still give some useful amount of light :wink:

This :slight_smile:

But this :frowning:

Good questions! Also, how low in voltage can an alkaline go before stopping the light from functioning? 0V? Higher?

I took the battery out twice a day and measured the battery voltage unloaded, and the current into the light via a tailcap measurement.

Thank you very much for the details! Didn’t have the tailcap measurement in my mind!
I will put the data in an Excel sheet and note down all the aspects I can remember, including these!
Thanks again!

I’m glad someone finds my methods useful. :+1:

I’ve been using my Enogear AA (Stainless Steel) to drain spent alkaleaks (with <1.2 volts) cells from my home electronics (home security alarm panel) and from workplace battery recycle tub.

With a white thread tube the Enogear AA is used as nightstand/night light for my toddler boys. Occasionally I would use the Thrunite T10 Aluminum as a battery vampire (joule thief) also.

With the Enogear on lowest mode, the light will cut out when alkaline AA is about 0.7-0.8 volts (per my Nitecore D4 charger).

Likely the voltage it cuts out as is even lower. I’ve seen that the voltage out of the cell will go up, sometimes a fair amount at voltages that low, when the load is removed. Would not surprise me if the lights cut out around 0.5V, and by the time the cell is measured its up in the range mentioned.

Yeh, I got a weird AAA alkaleak in an UltraTac. It’ll light up okay, in a few minutes dim and dim and dim some more ’til it just cuts out. Turn it off and let it “rest” a while, and it’ll come back on later and repeat the sequence.

Normally, just switch it on a few seconds, and “blink” it off via the switch, and it won’t have enough oomf to start up again.

i have a nebo 1aa similar to to the csi edge.
a 5mm .5w with no heatsinking.
was a piece of dim blue junk till i installed a nichia 219c.just the led on a cheap mcpcb.
it does not even get warm on a li primary.
hey its not a waste when you have a full reel of them.
anyway i tested some alkaleaks in the c9000 and afterward i wanted to know how much usable energy they had esp after a low rate test.
well cells that were run out at 100 ma ran this for about 6 hours of useful light.
useful as in visible on the bench it was laying on under a bunch of double driven fluorescents.
i let it go overnight and shut it down.
the cell recovered to about .9v and the thing lit and ran 2 more hours till it went to a dim glow.
i have seen several nonames with the guts in a plastic slug like this one.
1 is a “police” from autozone.
its getting a 219c soon as it also seems to be a good battery vampire.

People have had success with LED swaps in the infinity ultra? I’ll have to see if there are any pics or write ups. With all the warm/neutral and higher cri 5mm options out there that would be pretty sweet!

Which I’m NOT going to do. Can’t stand the thought I make this one go poof.
It was a gift from my youngest brother, and even Canadian dollars don’t grow on trees.

I use that that Archer for my kids’ night light. I figure it has at least 7,000 hours run time so far. I actually gave it to my son for his birthday 2 years ago and it’s held up to all the drops and bangs. Impressive.

I also have the TH20 and didn’t realize it will over-discharge batteries. I also love that light. Thrunite hits a certain price/quality sweet spot with the right implementation.

Wow, that’s a lot of hours. Only 43,000 left until the LED dies.

The 50,000 hour rating isn’t a failure rating. I think it’s rated down to 70% brightness. Someone correct me on the percentage if I’m wrong.

There’s a write up on swapping leds over at the other forum. Just look up ” Gerber Infinity mod step-by-step”. Its been several years since I modded mine, The head was really tough to get unscrewed but I didn’t add any heat to try to help loosen the loctite. If you get the head off the mod is really easy. Polishing the reflector hole helps too, while you have it apart.
These would make a pretty sweat swap in a infinity [1900k edition is in!] WTS: 1900k-5800k 5mm LED 95+ CRI