Yeah, you don't have to "worry about batteries" until you have to replace them for an arm and a leg.
This is budgetlightforum where you are defending proprietary batteries--not your online business.
Do you still not see the paradox?
but it requires you to have the skills. Same is true for the pack. Its more involved than swapping a cellphone battery, but it is as doable if you got the skills and tools.
The common muggle will neither replace his cellphone battery nor the cells in a pack like this one.
Replacing the battery in my cell phone was super easy and required no special skills.
There are cell phones out there with inexpensive batteries that are super easy to replace.
And there are tons of flashlights that have super easy to replace batteries that are inexpensive as well.
I would bet that most people on BLF avoid proprietary battery packs like the Covid.
Not many informed consumers want to pay an arm and a leg when their proprietary battery pack fails.
At Raccoon city…a Present from my morning hike the other day.
There were four of them. You can see all four of them in the last photo.
Two of them with their back towards me.
No propriety battery pack lights for me
I’m not buying any light with a battery pack. The battery pack is the first thing that breaks and wears out. Also I use the same set of batteries in multiple lights, why buy new batteries with every light?
That’s all fine and dandy. Raccoon missed my point.
I wasn’t basing my thoughts on users on the forum, but more as a whole for anyone. It’s a forum after all, to discuss and share different things.
If I had the option I would go for user replaceable cells for sure, but if I really wanted X model and there wasn’t another option, I would still buy it.
Guys guys, I don’t think the battery pack will cost 150-200$ to replace lmao.
At most, it’ll cost like 50-80$.
The battery pack for the x50 is $150 to replace. And this one has more cells.
Acebeam, if you're going to make lights with proprietary pack, could you at least consider using enough cells to offer some kind of performance? With only 4 21700s, the pack will dip so low that the batteries appear to be nearly completely discharged. And after the first turbo cycle, reactivation won't give 80,000 again. It's not possible. Why can't there be an option for an 8x 21700 pack or even a 12 x 21700. With this configuration, you won't be able to use turbo at all if you want useable run time.
I'm a huge fan of your lights. I own two x70s because I feel as though it was one of the best thought out high lumen lights in terms of it's size, thermals, and battery configuration. I'd really love to see more large format lights like it, with an impressive turbo, high sustainable output, and most importantly enough battery life for extended use. EDC lights are meant to be small, but there's no reason to minimize the size of a 30k plus light. It will never be small enough for EDC anyways and you only get compromises. I was looking forward to this light but unfortunately I can't buy it because it isn't useful when the x70 was a much better light.
What’s the highest lumen model available that doesn’t have a proprietary pack? Could there be a concern for safety here, by not risking a muggle using low amp cells in such a high output model.
Imalent has a battery pack also for their beast.
These brands surely don’t want warranty claims at the fault of the user
There is definitely a concern for safety. I'm one of the few people that is seemingly okay with packs in lights, but only if they're designed to offer performance good enough that I won't need to charge it for extended use. Ideally, it should be designed in excess of a light with replaceable cells so the pack never feels like the limiting factor.
When you use a pack in a light, you can include a BMS (battery management system) that monitors the voltage of each cell and is able to shut the light down as soon as even one reaches it's minimum. Cells are never consistent and without a BMS in series lights, the problem will keep getting worse each time you use it because the cell will continuously be drained below it's minimum voltage and this damaged. After charging, this damaged cell is more likely to heat up and possibly even vent inside the light.
A BMS also makes sure that cells aren't overcharged by effectively charging each on individually. Again, this prevents damage or in this case overcharging which in and of itself could be a problem.
Personally, I would like to see Acebeam design a light that used a pack with a BMS, but which had user serviceable cells that could be replaced when they go bad. Even better if you could cheaply buy a second empty one to put your own cells in. I like the idea of swapping entire packs instead of trying to load in 12 batteries in the dark, but first they need to be user serviceable. The fact that they aren't seems to indicate some other motives.
[quote=Elettromagnetico]
C'è sicuramente una preoccupazione per la sicurezza. Sono una delle poche persone a cui apparentemente va bene con i pacchi di luci, ma solo se sono progettati per offrire prestazioni sufficientemente buone da non doverlo caricare per un uso prolungato. Idealmente, dovrebbe essere progettato in eccesso rispetto a una luce con celle sostituibili in modo che lo zaino non sembri mai il fattore limitante.
Quando usi un pacco in una luce, puoi includere un BMS (sistema di gestione della batteria) che monitora la tensione di ciascuna cella ed è in grado di spegnere la luce non appena anche una raggiunge il minimo. Le celle non sono mai coerenti e senza un BMS in serie di luci, il problema continuerà a peggiorare ogni volta che lo usi perché la cella verrà continuamente scaricata al di sotto della sua tensione minima e questa verrà danneggiata. Dopo la ricarica, è più probabile che questa cella danneggiata si surriscaldi e possibilmente anche sfoghi all'interno della luce.
Un BMS assicura inoltre che le celle non vengano sovraccaricate caricandole efficacemente singolarmente. Anche in questo caso, questo impedisce danni o in questo caso un sovraccarico che di per sé potrebbe essere un problema.
Personalmente, mi piacerebbe vedere Acebeam progettare una luce che utilizzasse un pacchetto con un BMS, ma che avesse celle riparabili dall'utente che potrebbero essere sostituite quando si guastano. Ancora meglio se potessi acquistare a buon mercato un secondo vuoto in cui inserire le tue celle. Mi piace l'idea di scambiare interi pacchetti invece di provare a caricare 12 batterie al buio, ma prima devono essere riparabili dall'utente. Il fatto che non lo siano sembra indicare altri motivi.
[/Citazione]
I certainly agree with you, at most I would have proposed two versions as Manker on the MK38, one with battery pack and one without.
The ONLY and primary reason manufacturers use proprietary battery packs is so that the user is dependent upon them for the rest of the life of that flashlight. It’s all about money.
I’ve been using lithium ion batteries for 12 years. For the last 7 years most of which have been unprotected. I haven’t had one issue . I don’t want to hear about the safety factor for the reason that they’re using battery packs. That’s BS.
I want to choose what batteries I like to use in every one of my flashlights.
I don’t want to pay an outrageous price when it comes time to replace the pack.
Realistically, how long is this pack going to last anyway? If you use the light several times a week and push it hard you’d be lucky to get 2 years out of it. In order to have Peak performance.
So, Acebeam, how much is the replacement pack? I’d say $150 minimum.
the reason is physics
Optimization for max Amps requires minimal resistance.
a 4s pack with removable cells has 10 contact points (4 cells each side + pack to head)
a spot weld 4s pack only has two - pack to head
Less resistance equals less voltage drop equals more power.
In a situation were you want to absolutely torture the cells and extract mental amounts of power a spot weld pack will always have the edge
also less chance for the user to fuck up in a 700w light
You CAN’T argue that the user is Now dependant on them for replacement at an outrageous cost.
Money has absolutely a big part of it. Otherwise they be cheaper right?
+1,
Voltage drop as a result of electrical resistance between the battery and (spring) contact is proportional to current. Over 10 years ago when we only had less than 1000 OTF lumens from a single XM-L T6, current draw would only be about 3 amps max from a single cell if I’m not mistaken ( which is a normal load for classic green Panasonic 3400MAh 18650B cell). Suppose the total electrical resistance between the battery and contact points results in a voltage drop of 0.1V, then that would have little influence to your flashlight’s performance.
However, if you have a modern light that draws ten times as much current from a single cell, so 30A, then that exact same electrical resistance would result in a voltage drop of a whole 1V. So even a fairly full cell with 4.0V, the driver would only “get” 3.0V under max load. Which basically means that low voltage protection is about to kick in.
Clean clean clean clean the contacts constantly to avoid this problem. One solution to bypass this problem is to solder the batteries, hence resulting in a battery pack.
I wonder when we might begin to see 4680 batteries in these types of lights, so thereby eliminating the issue with multi-cell lights and the dangers of using unmatched cells, etc. Anyone have any ideas on when that will be? Have not heard much on the new cells.
+1
Totally forgot to mention this but it's probably even more important to Acebeam than safety. They don't want people buying the light and only getting 50,000 lumens because the contacts aren't good. I've heard of people gaining 10k lumens in lights just by cleaning contacts or shifting around cells. That's not to say it isn't possible to design a carrier with good enough contacts. But like you said, spot welding is just easier. And in theory if they use thicker copper strips, direct contact should be hard to beat. That doesn't in any way mean that the easiest solution is the best. I'm just disappointed that they (seemingly) used it to include the absolute bare minimum number of cells.