What happened here was the cell got below 2.5v and started forming crystals inside. At this point the chemistry is ruined and the battery should be discarded.
You can’t just call a battery a “crap” cell. There are many different kinds. There are cheap batteries which are no name brand and low capacity, but work and charge just fine. Then there are cells, high quality and low quality alike, that have been overly discharged and the chemistry ruined making them a “crap” cell.
In your situation, if the flashlight did not have low voltage protection built-in, what you should have done was used a protected battery. That way if the light gets left on, the protection circuitry in the battery will automatically turn off power and prevent the battery from being ruined.
Some protected fit, some don’t. It depends on the length.
You also don’t have to screw the cap in all the way for the lantern to work. I’m not sure if that would cause a water leak around the seal, though.
If the tail cap spring is binding up and preventing the cap from screwing down all the way, you could probably cut the spring length in half so that it could screw down all the way.
For instance, all vehicles owners manuals tell you exactly what type of fuel to use. “92 octane unleaded or higher”. If you put 87 in and the engine knocks, it’s not the manufacturers fault because they specified this. It’s the owners fault for not following the directions.
I don’t recall the T1 owner manual saying not to use a xxx brand 18650 as it may lead to fire. Was that in there? I don’t remember seeing it.
So as far as the user goes, they are able to use any type of 18650 battery that they want.
So Zanflare can either tell us specifically what batteries we should not use OR they can modify/change the lantern to make it safe to operate with any 18650 cell. I prefer the latter.
That would NOT be fair. It should be tested with a wide variety of cells. Edit: New and old. Whatever the typical person may have.
It is either safe with all 18650 (like all devices using that size battery on the market) or its not. Edit: It’s quite possible no device is 100% safe if you use a damaged or faulty battery that was over discharged or dropped, etc…
For the T1, it does NOT seem to be safe with ALL 18650. 99% of 18650 are probably not going to cause a problem, but that 1% sure can. Edit: This might be typical of all devices, the T1 might stand out due to it heating the batteries close to their upper operating temperature range.
DBSAR, have you contacted Gearbest or Zanflare and asked them about their temperature tests?
I wonder if the corroded tail cap spring is partially to blame for high temps? It adds resistance, but it probably doest effect the temperature inside of the tube, does it?
I am in contact with GearBest for this issue now. I personally would like propose for Version 2, but i heard the product life cycle is rather on its early stage.
Report the Emisar D4 while your at it. It heats up to 215ºF (101C), if you accidentally put the flat top battery in backwards. Nobody seems to care about that… lol
I think that is more of a clever marketing phrase and not a real “feature”. Unless what they meant to say was that in very cold climates the battery tube getting warm will heat up the battery so it performs at its best. (It’s known that lithium-ion battery’s perform very poorly at cold temperatures)
It is using the same basic design as the T1. I assume the CL25R would have the same battery heating (or over heating) issue as the T1 were it not for their thermal protection circuit that reduces output if it gets too hot.
Isn’t that what i said then?
Testing with the old cell, with the cell it came with, and with a Japan made cell.
I have some old laptop pulls i don’t use anymore, and although they keep their charge and have a decent capacity, they can get quite hot under load.
Although this light probably draws only some 1.3 Amperes max, an old low drain cell may heat itself up a little, additional to the poor thermal path of the light itself…
Anyway, meanwhile DBSAR did test it with an ‘old cell’, the stock cell (or not?) and a Japan made cell, and it still gets quite hot.
I’m thinking about the spring now, in the tailcap.
I’ve read reports of crappy springs, probably iron, with the chrome / nickel flaking off.
Dunno if those may get hot while conducting 1.3 Amperes.
Calm down, there is no conspiracy here. DBSAR and JasonWW are well-known users with thousands of posts. For sure they don’t have a secret agenda to trash or promote Gearbest/Zanflare or some other company.
There is clearly a serious issue in some units that needs to be fixed, but not all units are affected. OTOH a Convoy S2+, with a 8x7135 driver on high, heats as fast or even faster (edit: source) and we don’t hear about batteries flaming inside them, so the cell likely had some defect to start with (i.e. the issue only becomes critical if the lantern has this overheating problem and the cell is weak). However, since people are likely to put any 18650 cell on the lantern, including fake no-name 9800mah cells that belong to the trash, this issue that affects some units needs to be addressed.
There has been a lot of these sold. What we need is some accurate readings from other users. Im guessing the temps will be acceptable unless it is a defective unit or a defective battery is used and if that is the case, it would be on the User. Improvements could be made and a disclaimer should be included.
Just tested the Fenix CL25R (NCR-GA battery). After 20 minutes, the cap heats up to 91ºF (32C). So yeah, I think it is a feature for cold weather. Even in warm weather, it’s still 140ºF+ away from any thermal runaway potential.
Hi, as the administrator of this forum I can assure you that there are indeed both manufacturersandaffiliates here in this forum. We make no attempts to hide that fact. Whether that affects any particular user’s judgment and/or opinions is up to each individual:
So please drop the “deep forum” conspiracy theories. And please stop arguing:
……… Anyone else have temps?