Safety Discussion; It’s NOT “just  a flashlight” anymore!

The more I think about this, the more I think that from this point forward, any light that doesn’t have reverse polarity protection is going to be a FAIL in the “Real World Reviews”.

the tenor of this discussion escalated quickly from flashlight and battery safety into namecalling and psuedopunditry.
shame, really.

Lots of useful info and considerations here for a li-ion n00b like me, especially the link to the “Safety 101” thread. I guess one benefit of the long shipping from Banggood is I have plenty of time to read up on 18650’s, etc… before my Q8 arrives.

If I can have an old man “Get off my Lawn!” moment, I’ve noticed headlights are getting a bit out of control. I’m much more worried about being blinded by other drivers than by a random punk with a turbo-charged flashlight. People with those HID LED headlights are basically just driving around with their brights on all the time.

/rant off

There are several stories of people specifically being injured by lithium battery flashlights. Permanent damage and disability. There are also stories of flashlights exploding where the operators were fortunate enough that no one was injured. Unfortunately, a lot of these stories have been buried over time. Basically, the worst case scenario is that someone dies, you kill someone else (like a family member) or the rest of their life is ruined. Just Google “flashlight explosion”.

The biggest risks are multi-cell devices where the cells are unbalanced (or become unbalanced over time). Also, using a poor cell or low-drain cell in a high-drain application. Lithium primaries also seem to be particularly vulnerable.

Here is one to get you started. This resulted in permanent disability. This is a sticky on CPF.

Flashlight exploded in mouth. Permanent damage.

Battery exploding on charger:
LITHIUM BATTERY EXPLOSION!! | Candle Power Flashlight Forum!!

Explosion in flashlight, doesn’t appear to have any permanent injury:

House fire. 2 stories:

Surefire explosion:
SureFire Kaboom...WTF over!...(PICS FIXED) - AR15.COM?

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There are also lots of stories where vapers blew up their device in their face. Fortunately, those often involve devices which a higher current draw than most flashlights. Just Google “vape explosion”. One more reason not to smoke or vape.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/health/exploding-vaporizer-rip-tongue-trnd/index.html

Lots of people here in my place, especially scooters, with 6-12 led light bars. Enforcement is basically non-existent. Really nasty to encounter on our dark nighttime streets. Flashlight enthusiasts are fighting back. I foresee something bad happening and stupid legislation coming.

We have especially stupid politicians and leo’s like that time a gang used hammers in a mall to smash jewelry display cases to rob a shop. The powers that be decided to ban hammers being sold in malls.

Wow.

That is pretty stooopit, even by politician standards. (I thought the US had a monopoly on that.)

Not like they can, ohhhhh, bring their own? Use wrenches? Use bricks?

Like I said… wow.

:person_facepalming:

Haha yah.

I do worry about the ubiquity of products using bare 18650 cells and (other li-ions). These cells - even when protected - are not suitable for ordinary consumers.

I don’t like to see enthusiasts recommend lights using these cells to ‘ordinary’ folk. If your buddy or family member asks what light to buy…direct them towards an AA-based light. Keep enthusiast stuff for enthusiasts. Enthusiasts tend to have a little more knowledge and care about the products they use.

There was a guy killed late last year in a flashlight related incident. We don’t know exactly what happened. Apparently he was holding a flashlight in his mouth while looking under the hood. It exploded; severely injuring his brain and breaking his neck.

lots of problems, not so many solutions. in industry in this country, someone does something stupid with a product, they include a warning with the packaging or on the product. that’s why when you buy a microwave oven, you get a booklet with thirty pages of warnings and maybe 2-3 pages of actual instruction.

This is precisely why I started this thread.
Since I’m known in my circles as “the light guy” I’ve recently had a serious increase in the number of people who want to buy “strong” flashlights for power outages and so forth. They go search on Amazon and are exposed to 2000+ lumen super-lights, 18650 or 26650 cells and the chargers and have absolutely NO idea what it all means because they just wanted an emergency light but have the usual assumption that “more is better”.

I’ve had to do a lot of educating, and in several cases have had to make the decision to steer them towards something a bit less, um, aggressive in terms of lumens and power source(s).

Found the link to the story about the man being killed by a flashlight explosion:

http://www.daily-journal.com/news/local/man-injured-when-flashlight-explodes/article_ec3d1f47-53be-56e7-9b93-030a37072225.html

That’s why to this day I refuse to let mum have a light with a Li cell of any kind. She was buying those crappy multi-LED 3×AAA lights, and they all fizzle, blink, don’t turn on, etc. “Because you keep on buying crap, that’s why!”

She wanted me to get her a light, but she leaves them on, face-down, then wonders why all her lights are dead, why the alkaleaks went poopy inside and ruined the carriers, etc., etc.

Those big yellow lights with the 3 1W LEDs, that take the “brick” 6V batteries… same thing. Leaves ’em on, they end up dead.

So, ya really think I’m going to get her a light that even with a protected cell, would be left to run down overnight? Yuh-huh, that’ll happen…

So I donated my crappy AT01s to her. Bypassed the drivers so they’re DD with the included 3×AAA carriers. Still, the POS switch goes mental and flickers nonstop, and it’s got one of those weirdo tailcaps with the dinky little ballpoint-pen spring sticking out.

And then she goes and on her own buys a Tac-Light… :person_facepalming:

I do have to admit, the superficial quality seems nice. Well-lubed threads, nice action on the head zooming in/out, just the right amount of resistance, and an emitter that looks at least like an XM-L2, even if a LB clone.

Beware, though, it’s an always-on light with a momentary-break e-switch in the tail. No half-pressing anything, just click-click-click to cycle through all the modes, including blinkies. Ugh.

But hey, to someone who never had a decent light, it’s Something Else.

I should show her a ceiling-bounce test with the TL vs, was going to say a Q8 but even a C8A/C8F would light up the room like daylight.

Interesting, but based on that story, it doesn’t sound like it was a problem with his flashlight. It sounds like he touched the car’s battery with a metal light (or perhaps something else) and… well, that would do it.

IMO, 12v car batteries are more dangerous than 4.2v lithium-ion batteries.

It’s all about the amp-hours man :slight_smile:

I don’t know if that is the correct conclusion. The original story says that the flashlight was in his mouth.

This is not the first time that a lithium flashlight has exploded in someone’s mouth at any rate.

Oh lordy

I’m wondering how much time do you actually have, if a battery decides to quit his job. Like do you feel heat building up, do you hear the battery venting,…etc? I have some lights that demand unprotected cells in a 4 battery carrier. This actually makes me think sometimes.

Well, I have some experience with that. Check post #23 in this thread: Mod: My SupFire M6 "BMF" edition (new beamshots in OP).
I dared open the light up because I trusted the Samsung cells, but I can’t say I was totally cool though… I had opened the window and was ready to chuck it if it started hissing too much.

You can Google the thermal runaway temps for lithium-cobalt (rarer these days), lithium-manganese (common) and lithium-iron phosphate (more common in RC hobbies) and see that li-co start running away at ~265*F, li-mn is a bit higher than that and li-fe is in the 300s, IIRC.

You’ll know it when you feel it.

I was once walking around a CVS drugstore with my new Sunwayman M10R (IMR 16340) clipped inside my shorts’ pocket and I feel this burning on my thigh. I keep walking and it gets hotter and hotter and when I stop and pull out the light, it’s on high.

A runaway cell will get a lot hotter and the li-co chemistry will actually start venting with flame, where as the other chemistries don’t have that much in oxidizers, so the ‘flame’ part isn’t as definite.

Chris

I shortened an IMR cell once accidentally for a few seconds and it was already almost too hot to touch. Immediately threw it out off the window. :open_mouth: