Question about CR123 rechargeables

Batteries and Chargers Rechargeable Batteries
1

I bought a set from Manafont, they are also identified as 16340 batteries, they say 3.7v

After charging a couple hours, one would not activate my dropin, I measured it and it was about 3.1v

The other works in the same light just fine, and after 20 minute of running the light in various modes, it still measures 4.01v

Do I have a bad battery or is there a trick (i.e. discharge first then charge) to getting them charged?

This is my first experience with 16340's.

OH, and can you charge them one at a time or do you have to do 2 at the same time?

Thanks

Bill

2

You definitely have a bad battery, dispose of the low voltage battery. Whatever you do do not put two batteries in a flashlight that do not have the same voltage or you will have a serious problem. You can charge them one at a time and you should get 4.2 volts on a fully charged battery. You do not need to discharge these batteries before you charge them. They should have been at 3.7 volts when you received them.

E

3

Which charger do you have?

It's possibley a bad battery, but it's also possible that for some reason it started with a lower level of charge than the other.

4

I don't know what charger it is, it's all in *&^$ing Chinese.

It is the one that has lower contact points that slide to accomodate different sizes of cells.

I just checked the battery again, charging it by itself in the charger didn't do a thing for it, still at 3.1v

The charger looks like this one

5

I try tell you .... u no buy charger on ebay ..why u no lisson.. depends on the charger the answer is simple does it or doesn't it ?? why did you charge them for a couple hours ?? are you making random assumptions that a couple hours works well with your scheduale .? were they done charging or you got tired of waiting ?? they are done at 4.2 ... a bad charger ought to shut down and let batteries sit in it for a period of time ... i'm guessing your charger needs both batteries to charge . run the one down to 3.5 and throw them in the charger and leave it alone unless you test a voltage of higher than 4.250.. I would let them do their thing ad when done test voltage ...also don't pop them in a light like an M&M and chew them up .. let them sit and think about waht their real meaning in life is ..and test them after 10 mins ....30 mins....hour ...They should stablize and give you some indication of their strength .. hopefully they are very close off the charger and remain consistantly alike .

6

Thanks Boaz, I'll do that.

As for why buy charger from ebay or DX, well, this is the budget light forum, remember?

7

Boaz, I took your advice. ran the good cell down to 3v, put them both in the charger for 3 hours, took them out and let them sit for 2 hours.

One cell said 4.2v, the other still said 3.01v.

So I threw it out. I don't want to have to worry about making pipe bombs in my den.

Anyone recommend some good but budget rechargeable cr123's?