Should I get IMR or protected ICR batteries for this (allegedly) 11000Lm flashlight?

I got this flashlight, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0098I9TPM/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_t2_fAayybDVYS8H6 (TrustFire Super Bright 9X CREE XM-L T6 LED 11000Lm LED Flashlight Torch), and I need batteries for it. (I'm not sure this is actually a TrustFire. It may be a knock-off.) It takes three 26650 batteries. I was wondering whether I should get IMR or protected ICR batteries?

My concerns are 1) safety, without having to be super careful about how I use the flashlight/batteries, 2) I want the flashlight to get as much juice as it can use (without ruining it), and 3) I'd like a high mAh value for longer periods of use.

My concern with Protected ICR is that the flashlight is supposedly 11000Lm, which is extremely bright, and I'm afraid it'll take so much power that it'll trip the protection mechanism and hence the batteries won't work with my flashlight. (I doubt the flashlight is really 11000 lumens, but I think one of the reviews said it is pretty bright.) I don't know if this is a valid concern, I don't really know much about batteries or flashlights.

I also read that IMR would be able to power a high-powered flashlight without even breaking a sweat in some situations where ICR wouldn't . But I think I also read (in another post) that IMR has less power output than ICR, so I'm not sure what to think. I'm also not sure which is safer in general between protected ICR and IMR.

Regarding my wanting a high mAh value, I read that ICR batteries tend to have more mAh, but I did find some 5200mAh orbtronic IMR batteries here: http://www.orbtronic.com/26650-5200mAh-IMR-Li-ion-battery-orbtronic. For protected ICR batteries I'm thinking http://www.orbtronic.com/protected-26650-li-ion-battery-5200mah-orbtronic. For the charger I'm thinking http://www.orbtronic.com/xtar-vp4-battery-charger-4-slots-lcd-display-18650-26650-18500-16340-18350-14500-batteries.

Oh, and another concern is 4) I don't want to have to be super careful not to ruin the batteries by not charging/draining them correctly. On some of those Orbtronic product pages the warnings make it sound like you have follow 800 rules in order not to ruin your batteries, including, basically, 1) don't let them sit around charged, and 2) don't let them sit around uncharged. (Dunno what to do about that..), and also a rule about not letting it drain below a certain voltage (how the heck am I supposed to know what voltage the batteries are at while I'm using them?), etc.

Thanks.

Welcome to BLF! The driver is probably a buck driver. Those have regulated output, so the battery output (potential) won’t determine the power going to the LED’s at all. Get the higher mAH cells.

So what's better (especially for safety, but also for not ruining the batteries, etc.?), protected ICR or IMR? Both the protected ICR and IMR I'm considering getting from Orbtronics are 5200mAh. Thanks

This might help……

ICR vs IMR

If you read the comments on that flashlight most people are saying it is probably closer to 1000lumen.
I have a feeling you’re not going to have any issue with overpowering the batteries.

With 9, XM-L T6 LEDs it would seem that it would be fairly bright. But that’s assuming that the LEDs actually produce the lumens they are supposed to.
They may be low grade knock offs. Hard to tell unless you know how to examine the emitters closely.

As far as batteries, I just got some LiitoKala 26650’s that I just tested and have 5330mAh discharge capacity and only cost $6.00 each from GearBest.
They are not protected cells but even in my Convoy L6 (which has a true 3600lm output), I have no fear of over discharging them because I don’t run them too long before recharging them.

Better buy a light with XHP35 XHP70 that delivers real 1800/3500 lumens instead of wasting money in this trustfire light

There are good deals on Convoy, Imalent, Klarus, Thorfire and others in the range of 60-80$

http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/mIEAqJE
40$ With freeme coupon
Is the best value light when it comes to >3000 lumens

If it comes to small lights with 800 lumens try the Utorch UT01 for 17$
It is tiny but is brighter than most bad quality lights with fake cree emitters

Well, he already bought the Trustfire so buying another instead is not an option…

It is an old model Trusfire, probably old stock, and so there’s a fair chance that it contains original Cree XM-L leds which is a good thing. And that the output is a meagre 1000 lumen, what was pretty much at the time but not anymore.

Having seen a few Trustfire drivers, it seems that they are well made but it takes more insight than I have to make that driver deliver more power to the leds. It will take a new driver to do that, and when using the stock ledboard and leds you can get , I reckon, 3000 lumen without problem.

I haven’t seen the light before. But, if it has genuine Cree XM-L emitters, the light is probably even worth the price he paid for it. So not a bad deal, and no reason to replace it. But a driver swap would probably be in order, if he’s up to it.

Wecome to BLF…

I bought two of those light for gifts, it’s not 11000 lumens, it’s not even close… I would say that probably around 6000 lumens, even the ones that come with15 LEDs still won’t give out more than 8000 lumens ( yep, I have that too )
Protected ICR batteries will do just fine… I used king kong ICR batteries for those lights.
Sorry to disappoint you with those exaggerated lumens ( which is very common ), before you buy any light, hang around BLF and ask questions, chances are somebody already bought those lights and can comment about it before you spend you hard earned money just to get disappointed later on.

in response to the above 3 posts or so, I don't really want to buy another flashlight unless it's going to be brighter than the Wicked Lasers Torch that I already have which is supposed to be 4500 lumens. Ideally i'd like the brightest flashlight available, but it doesn't seem to be easy to determine what flashlight htat is (and it might be more than I want to spend anyway).

anyway, still looking for input regarding whether i should get IMR or protected ICR.. =)

thanks

i figured the lumens were exaggerated, but i was hoping it'd be brighter than my Wicked Lasers Torch flashlight (4500 lumens). some people say it's 1000 lumens, you say it's 6000, hope you're right =)

any particular reason to get the protected ICR instead of the IMR?

You always have to look carefully at the numbers and the emitters. The XM-L T6 is a pretty old emitter by current standards. You would be lucky to get 900 lumens out of it, assuming you could dissipate the power.
As an old emitter, it is nowhere near 100 lumens/watts, more like 80 lumens per watts at 900 lumens per emitter. So to get you 11000 lumens you are looking at about 135 watts if it was even possible! That is going to take a pretty hefty battery pack, that won’t last long and will require massive heat sinking on the emitters to prevent them from burning up. The original SunwaymanV60C used 3 x 18650’s and an XM-L T6 to produce 725 lumens, so any claim of 9 T6’s putting out 11,000 lumens with only a handful of batteries is absurd, never mind the literally pounds of mass that would be required to handle the heat produced.

My light has built in protection in it… when the batteries drained, the light will go dim when it hit around 3 V ( IIRC ) to me,so it doesn”t really matter which batteries you use, I used ICR king kong because I have good deals on it :innocent:

You don’t really need 11000 lumnes lights anyway other than showing it off or to fend off an attacker for a sec :smiling_imp:

I also got a flashlight claiming to be 5000 lumens and it turns out it takes 3 triple-A batteries, hehe. =p

(it was only $5 so no big loss.)

If you get 1500 lumens out of the stock light you are lucky, it depends on the driver
Some cheap drivers have a silly small transistor and a bank of resistors to drive the LEDs

This light uses 2 cells in series, so it needs a buck converter, those usually have 3A output to the LEDs
If you are lucky the driver is capable of 5A

If it has 3A you can expext 125 lumens per emitter at Tj=45dC from real Cree XML T6

About 18% losses through glass and reflector you get about 922 OTF lumens

A modern light with a XML2 U4 on DTP star gets at 3A and Tj=70dC
1092 lumens with AR lens you get about 980 OTF lumens