I recently bought a Skilhunt M150, nice little light. I set it to “Lock-Out” mode which flashes the red LED (1Hz) for locating in the dark, and put the flashlight on my nightstand, battery fully charged (800mAh). After several nights I noticed the LED had stopped flashing and the 14650 battery was discharged to 3.0v.
So it appears the current draw during Lock-Out is too high to use this mode for an extended time.
Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this or is able to measure current during Lock-Out?
This is a lamp malfunction, contact the manufacturer for repair. I have an M200, and it can be in this mode for a very long time. Even with the fact that the battery in the M150 is less capacious, this still should not be the case.
I am testing mine.
It is charged up to 3.68V, locked and with the beacon blinking.
I will check it tomorrow.
And then I will make the same without the lock up (blinking or not) activated. I have a feeling that this light, as my On The Road M3 Pro have a very high parasitic drain.
Some raw data: after all these hours with the flashlight locked but without blinking, I opened it and took the battery out and the voltage is still on 3.65V.
So… the blinking led has some draw at least in mine. Maybe yours behave the same way…
I normally don’t use the indicator led, but from now on I will be even more strict about that.
I have some measured data now on current draw in Lock-Out mode, approximately 19mA.
I took a known good, fully charged Eneloop AA 2000mAh cell and ran it to depletion in Lock-Out mode. At approximately 108 hours the red LED stopped flashing and the cell read 1.09v when removed from the light.
I then fully charged it on an MC3000 charger to 1.45v and 2042mAh capacity. So 2042mAh/108h ≅ 19mA.
I didn’t test with a 14500 but the run time was about the same as the Eneloop.
Looks like Lock-Out mode is only useful for a day or two, not good for leaving the light locked out on a night stand.