Do you charge more, or change lights for flashlight season?

After seeing this thread I started going through my lights that haven’t been in recent rotation, mostly single 18650’s quite a few batteries were at 3.7 or lower. Been using 18650’s for about 8-10 years but usually left them in the light. Am I better off leaving them in storage cases? Most of these have both tail switch and side switch so I don’t think there’s much parasitic drain issue, unless thats a thing in dual switch lights, I’m not sure.

I try to keep the number of “active” lights to a minimum, specifically to avoid going crazy checking on batteries. So now, I have a “rarely”-used Q8 (locked out) not draining but still at the ready in case I need it. Was EDCing a UT20 and now a MH20/-GT. Got a SP32v2 on my bag, Jet-II in my bag Just In Case.

Then there’s my SP10, SF13, and Bobofett-II to burn down AAs at night (nightlight, etc.), depending on the cells’ state-of-discharge. Nice thing about side-clickies is that a wad of Al foil in the tail lets you burn down AAAs as well as AAs. Plus my UW360 for area-illumination.

And floating around at various times would be my DV-S9, TG05, TK18, C8s of all types, etc., to just keep them in use.

So… on me, whether summer or winter, I always have at least 2 lights, preferably 3. In winter, though, I’d even carry my RJ02, ’cause if it were lousy outside and I’d take the bus instead of driving, hey, you never know when you might have to walk instead.

Given the variety, I’d rarely “top them off” unless I knew one/more got a good workout and could use it. Otherwise, I could always just pull a 2nd light and use that instead. I’d typically have at least a full charge in the combination, even if 50/50 or 70/30.

Funny, ’cause just last week I forgot my pocketted MH20, and felt nekkid ’til I remembered my v2 on my bag. :smiley:

I tend to keep my cells in their cases except for “in-use” lights (active or at least in rotation).

I’ll TCLO a light if I want to make sure it’s not draining anything.

We live at 53° 14’ north. In the summer it doesn’t get dark when I’m outside. I keep a Convoy BD6 at work. Everything else gets locked out and put in a drawer until Flashlight season.

Now? I’ve got a S2+ in the car, another S2+ in my gym bag and an Emisar D4S I use all the time. BLF Q8 and Convoy L6 are charged up and ready to go. I’ve needed the Q8 a couple of time around the house already.

I have chargers at home and at work. I charge the lights when they need it.

Wow, that's pretty far north!

We're only at 33.72° N.

I use the same flashlights year round, so it's always flashlight season.

We live just North of Tropic of Capricorn on East Coast of Australia. (23.14 S)
Tropics almost. (Bottom end of Barrier reef) 2 seasons.

Southerners come up North here in their “WINTER”.
we have T Shirt Shorts and sandals 10 months of yr.
with a skivvy thrown on at dawn for a coupla seven weeks.
One season dark by 4.30ish. T’other, around 8.30/9.00 pm.
So we get lotsa times to play with Torches.

PS. I haven’t seen frost or snow since Sep’t, ’73. Beautiful.

8.30pm. Sitting here in jocks, with window open. around 22C deg
Slight sheen of sweat on my skin. Heaven.

If you want to have a look around, paste Llanfairpwllgwyngyll into Google maps. I’m not making this up.

My home town is at precisely 55 degrees North.

It’s the most northerly city in England, but Scotland and the islands extend much further North.

On December 21 sunset will be at 15:39, and daylight will last 7 hours 10 minutes. The sun will barely rise above the horizon.

However, at mid-summer, it is wonderful, and never really gets dark.

A few days per year we get a good display of the Northern Lights.

Scandinavians have even more extreme seasons, I hope to take my campervan to the Nordkapp next summer.

Thanks to the Gulf Stream, or North Atlantic Drift, and where it fetches up on the west coast of Scotland in places they can grow palm trees and create sub-tropical botanic gardens.

E.g. Logan Botanic Garden | Visit | Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

In these few favoured spots on the west coast it never really freezes. I hope to retire there.

Elsewhere it can get bitterly cold, but nothing like Canada, where I have spent a few winters at much lower latitudes.

We also have weather here, not climate, and are rather obsessed with it. Rightly so.

Torches are quite useful at this time of year, not just playthings.

Nope. I just carry an 18650 torch with an AAA backup, one spare battery for each, and when one of them gets dim, I switch batteries and the discharged one becomes the spare. It’s a year round thing, so nothing to it when the days get a little bit shorter. shrug

As funny as it sounds I only use my edc lights during the day (at work)so hours of darkness dont really come into play.
BLF A6 with 18350 battery .I much prefer the small size of the 18350 but of course runtime suffers compared to 18650. In winter I just throw a few spare batteries into my lunch bag.

Newcastle or maybe Sunderland ?? 10 years here and I’m still learning.

For the rest of the Americans, UK city status is granted by the monarch and not by size. London is just confusing.

Ha ha. This.

I also use my lights during the day. And as the days get shorter I use them more.

Whoa. Looks like someone’s cat was “kneading” on a keyboard…

I have several lights with dedicated sets of cells that stay in them whenever they aren’t being charged (BLF Q8 and Fireflies ROT66), but for everything else I maintain a rotating stock of GAs and VTC6s. Lights I use regularly always have cells in them to rotate out, but everything else is stored empty. Why would you want your spare 18650s slowly dying in unused lights?

Same here. Easier to keep track of, too.

they were in use until the past year when I got more about 6 more batteries and lights, didnt have the need to store them separately before this

That’s all?? Bah. I could do that standing on my head. :smiley:

Today I jumped up from a 18350 Armytek Prime to a Convoy M2. It went un-noticed. I am also on day 5 of caring my wallet in my front pocket. No issues with M2 and wallet, they got along fine. I do have large pockets.

Geez I thought my collection was pretty big, there are a lot of AAA AA and 123’s, gotta be between 40-50ish, probably nothing compared to what some BLFers have