Li-Ion for beginners

That olight has protected batteries!!! Most multi-cell battery flashlights require the use of protected cells, and from what I understand laptops have protection circuits on each cell too. The WildTrail carriage will not accept protected cells, so yes, if the light will be stored for an extended period, remove the cells for greatest safety. If not, and one cell has an internal short it can do bad things even if off. As far as I know…almost every Olight uses protected cells….even most single cell lights they sell are protected.

Personally I don’t think you need to know a lot about batteries to buy just about any light you want. If you aren’t what you need you can post here or on r/flashlight and someone is sure to help you very quickly.

CRC…. Here are a couple of links that should help you understand some basics (& more) about batteries, LiIon especially.
Take your time & read them, if you have questions please ask. Help is available. :white_check_mark:

Honestly… it IS NOT all that complicated. :wink:
…….
Lithium-ion battery safety 101

Read intro here at Battery U.

START HERE on Battery University

We should have made sure that fish was in the boat prior to scaring him off. He might have been a future flashaholic. At least let him have the thrill of shining a light in someones window a mile and a half away first. Then he would be hooked.

We were not that scary were we?

I may be….once for a drivers license photo my contacts were bugging me when they took the picture. I took one look at it and my eyes bugging out and thought…serial killer. Now I am almost a recluse since becoming disabled, and often go weeks, or even months without leaving home. I now have the look and profile of a psychopath. I know I am not one, but did psychopaths want to be a psycho? Did they just totally snap? I sometimes worry about me just suddenly becoming what meets my profile. I think the license photo even got me out of at least 1 ticket. Cop1 says to cop2, he looks like a psycho, should we arrest him? Cop2 says, I agree he does, but if we let him off he has no reason to kill us. The picture was that bad, and everyone I showed it to agreed.

What lights are you interested in?

Are you concerned about the batteries themselves (like safety related) or how the whole electrical system works together? Many responses here are just talking about the batteries, but I think you are taking about the whole system including driver and LEDs, which can be more confusing and complicated.

Here is a starting guide for different driver types.

Yeah I think your right, the 21700 in the Marauder2 are protected although when I opened up my older X7R-Marauder which has inbuilt 4x18650 cells they were pink Samsung 30q’s which U believe are ‘unprotected’. What’s interesting too is a local eBay li-ion seller that just sold high quality cells has been forced by eBay to shut his shop. He was the 1st one here selling li-ion cells through eBay & had been doing it for over 10yrs. So things are changing with regards to how the cells are distributed, not sure if it was a liability issue or not.

Maybe he just needed a pat on the head and reassurance. That is available here, but there is a ‘price’, adult learning required.

At least he had the decency to say good-bye, instead of the one question, never to be heard from again post.

Don't worry ...the more you read the more you'll realize you're not the only idiot on the forum .

take Lightbringer for example :)

I bet Lightbringer will probably see that, though I doubt he'll care.

Hey!

See, we were not scary enough :smiley: :wink:
Welcome to BLF CRC :slight_smile:

Maybe Boaz is dressed up as Dr. House and can therefore get away with calling people an idiot.

A few people on BLF have in my vision earned some privileges over time because they stick to being who they are. Boaz is certainly one of those, and Lightbringer too. :slight_smile:

Even the squirl was close to that, come to think of it, but nah, he was annoying. :laughing:

The raccoon also comes close, but he's uber annoying... and evil!

I want to add, that part of the reason to stress battery safety, is the fact that some people just do not think. It should be common sense, that one should not put a lithium ion battery in their pants pocket with their change, so close to important parts of their anatomy. There has been people who did that, and other equally illogical things with batteries. It is stored energy, and stored energy wants to escape the container it is stored in as quickly as possible. Some vendors might peddle weak containers, ignoring the danger in pursuit of the dollar, so avoid these profiteers. Use good batteries from trusted vendors, use common sense, and use batteries suited for the devices they are used for, and it will be fine. If a vendor puts a label saying 9800mah on a 18650 battery, that is a lie, as no 18650 battery exists with such high capacity. If they lie about the capacity, they might lie about discharge rate as well, so do not trust it. Buy quality batteries with a sufficient discharge rate for the device that you are using, and do not mix older or different batteries when more than 1 battery is used. Don’t use any vendor that peddles batteries with mah ratings that are not possible. A battery is not something to sacrifice safety in favor of saving cash. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it likely is not true. Likewise if a vendor claims their light emmits 5 million lumens of light, avoid that vendor.

Hey CRC! Welcome to BLF :wink:

I just wanted to let you know that…you don’t need to read all the things in the links :wink:
Also, you don’t need to have “extra” knowledge or skills to be into this hobby (I say it by personal experience)! Although your wallet may need to have something inside… :stuck_out_tongue:

Knowing more stuff is good, and knowledge is power, but sometimes asking stuff here gives you direct answers for which you don’t need to search the whole web :wink:

On a post above you said:

Maybe we can help you on this! Let us know what type of lights are them and if you will give them a specific type of use!

Don’t quit on this, unless you really want, of course :wink:

Have fun :partying_face:

There are some dangers involved and you need to be aware of some or most of them. I do believe that everybody should have a multimeter to be able to measure
battery voltage. Even if the light you choose has an onboard charging system I think you should have a way to externally charge the battery and of course spare batteries. At that point you have loose batteries and you need to be aware of the dangers. So that’s why.

I almost forgot the whole Olight angle. Most Olight flashlights use a normal battery that they have modified. So you can sometimes use their batteries in other flashlights without short circuits and you can sometimes use other batteries in their flashlights but they will not charge. That’s a whole other separate class. If you haven’t taken that class do not try to mix and match regular batteries in Olight flashlights or Olight batteries in other flashlights.