With an unregulated light like this, depending on the battery, it will pull 3.8a-4.7a on high and heat up like a flame thrower after a few minutes.
I plan on using this light on medium 90% of the time though.
But for that 10% of time I put this light on high for some fun, I am worried about discharging these used, but in good condition laptop 18650s too quickly and suffering some of the consequences listed in this thread with unprotected batteries:
Are other folks pulling that many amps w/ laptop batteries or just using protected cells? Or do they only just leave the lights on for a minute or two pulling 3.8-4.7a to minimize risk? Is this a concern for other newbies to the hobby?
My UF HD2010 doesn’t seem to run direct drive, but still hits close to 4A on high with a TrustFire Flame protected 26650.
But I imagine it could be a possible issue if you have direct drive using an unregulated/unprotected cell. I think the HD are designed to disperse heat well, and have not heard of them getting too warm at 5A or so. Not sure I’d worry about heat as much as stressing those cells too much.
As a relative noob, I don’t mess with unprotected cells for now, and haven’t had a reason to, really. But from the way I understand it, there’s a certain risk to using any li-ion cell in a powerful flashlight - more if it’s an unprotected cell. But, the odds are slim of anything happening regardless. So common sense and basic safety protocols are good to follow, as with anything else we like to do that involves some risk. If any of my torches ever start to hiss at me, I plan to immediately take it outside and remove the tailcap, if not toss it out the window like a hot potato.
That being said, I’m looking forward to more educated responses to you post. Thanks for this, Bster13.
Be interesting to see if your HD2011 comes in direct drive, and if indeed they are still sold direct drive. I have the ultrafire version which is regulated at 2.5A which I purchased back in June.
As always, we’ll see what I end up with when it arrives. I still want to know if people run unprotected cells @ 3.8-4.7a and how that has worked out for them for small amounts of time.
Yeah, I’ve been suspecting my leads, but the one’s I’m using now are much thicker than the stock leads that came with my DMM. Plus, other HD2010 owners reported similar lower currents through theirs, while others still, using cheap DMMs, were getting the much higher currents on similar cells. I guess I won’t know for sure until I get some unprotected King Kongs or a $100 DMM. Won’t be happening soon.
Sorry, Bster13. I don’t yet have the HD2011, but I’m watching this thread to lean more about it. Looks like a great little torch. And unprotected cells + direct drive.
I have tested (to the best of my limited ability) and used the best of my UNprotected laptop-salvage cells with my UltraFire/MF 3-mode XM-L dropin and my XM-L C8 and I still have all my fingers… I pull and recharge them frequently, well before they have time to drop to unsafe voltage levels, and am always looking out for signs of problems.
When I salvage laptop cells I try to bin them by age and potential current (As tested on one of the direct-drive lights with XM-L). Very old, poor-quality, or completely-discharged cells get tossed, The best performers get marked as such, and allocated for use in my higher-power single-cell lights. The remaining cells get to go in my low-current XR-E/XP-G lights.
Good deal. That’s exactly what I’ve started. If it won’t hold a charge over 4v after resting for >30min it gets recycled. I also don’t run them below 3.6v.
All of my batteries except for 3 3100 mah unprotecteds are salvaged from battery packs. It runs fine as long as you keep an eye on the voltage and only use them in single cell lights.
