When lights go out.

Tonight I received my Garmin 450 handheld GPS. I am starting a new hobby, something called 'geocaching'. I finished work late, but was eager to go out and try and find my first cache. As it was getting dark i decided to grab 3 lights on my way out. Thought I'd play with them while out. Always has fully charged batteries, you never know;)

As i arrived at the GPS location, the darkness set in. I pulled out my first light from my pocket- an Xtar TZ20. I quickly switched it on, light first time, cycled through the modes then darkness. I checked the Xtar 18650 in it, equivalent to opening the bonnet on a car without a clue, put it in screwed cap on, nothing. I then took out my second light, Klarus XT11, lovely bright light, continued with my search for the cahe, when after 5 mins, lights out. Again I checked the batteries a couple of Eagltac 16340s, nothing again.

So I pulled out my 3rd light a 4sevens Quark 1232 turbo, light on, continued searching then after 5 mins, darkness. By this time I was cursing like a sailor. I switched it on and off, nothing. Then I twisted the head to get a lower output and turned it on, light again. Phew, by this time it was really dark and I was out in the middle of no where. The 4sevens with 2 cytac RcR123s would not stay on high mode for more than 5 minutes before turning off, forcing me to use the lower output. I must admit I never have properly field tested these lights till tonight, I only toyed with them at as objects of beauty, so i was sooooooo disappointed. Luckily I remembered I had a tank e09 in my pocket and guess what, I used that to get me home.

Can anyone offer an explanation of what happened tonight?

lol sorry just messing around..I really don't know why 3-4 lights would all act the same..maybe some sort of high emi? or you have really bad luck..or of course aliens..

And the GPS wasn't affected at all? Maybe the batteries weren't charged as you are running all of those on lion batteries and those self discharge fairly fast... I think. I may have to agree with pounder here. :)

emi? Do you mean emp? If so I doubt it unless his GPS also stopped working.

The GPS worked fine. I still didn't find the cache,as I was crying like a girl in the dark, listening for alien footsteps.

Well then it isn't emp. Do you have a dmm? Measure your batteries, I have a feeling they just self discharged.

well I don't know..those ghost shows are always talking about emi and how it's everywhere and affects their devices and stuff..an emp would be a lot harder to find and you would probably notice it going off lol

Luckily I didn't lose 3 hours of time and my butt doesn't hurt.

It doesn't matter where you're from..that's always a good thing..

Just looked it up. That is radio interference it would mess with radios and possibly the gps. (Not quite sure) You wouldn't necessarily feel an emp because there are solar storms everyday and there may have been a strong one that day.

I'm guessing the cells had self-discharged without you knowing it.

How are the lights working (or not) now? Did the issue resolve with a change of batteries?

Now we need tinfoil hats for our flashlights. :)

Am I the only one who read a18ttcs post as irony? :D

My guess is: thats part of this particular geocache-challenge. Get along without light.

Just checked the lights with new batteries and they all work fine. Popped all the other batteries int he charger (sysmax I4 V2) and they all are charging and showing 1 bar out of 3. Piecing it all together, no lost time, butt not hurting, protection circuit kicking in, must be self discharged batteries and not aliens. The 4sevens acted as if it was too hot, but it was the only that switched back on from going off on its own.

I guess the lesson here is beware of self discharged batteries. They were charged no longer than 10 days ago, do they really discharge that quick?

your charger is the culprit. Shows green but didn't charge, or so.

On the other hand I'm quite happy not to own either one of these (crappy ) lights you were talking about.

I have the i4 v2 to and what I discovered is when it says full (all three lights) it is not done yet. I measured one and it was at 4.02 when it said full. It continued charging but it can confuse you.

Thanks guys, that may explain it all. Batteries not charged fully!

Hard to say for sure without some firm data to go on. You need a multi-meter to really decipher whats going on. A DMM will be able to tell you if your charger is under-charging them, and if the cells really are discharged after a dormant ~10 days. 10 days does sound REALLY short though. I have laptop harvest Sanyo and Panasonics that will last for at least 2-3 months (thats the longest I have cared to LSD test them) at or above 4.15V.