in 3 weeks i will be traveling to Newfoundland, Canada to my home province for 3 weeks of traveling and off-grid camping. I will be bringing along a ton of flashlights, some to do wilderness beam-shot photos, testing, etc.
We will also be bringing the original Steam Pipe Light 1st-place winner from the BLF 2014 contest, & the Apocalypse 1st-place winner from the BLF 2015 contest to use, take photos, & give a work out there on the trip.
Some plans also set for this trip is to test the limits of 18650 Lithium Ion cells. as we will be doing some camping on my family’s 80 acre land, there are some nice open gravel pits to do the planned testing. What i plan to do, is video record what happens when a Lithium Ion 18650 cell “vents” inside a flashlight, and outside a flashlight. I have a couple dozen of Laptop pulls, Ultrafire, and other worn out 18650 cells, and i will be doing a battery of tests on them in the gravel pit. Some of these tests will be Overcharging, over heating, short-circuiting, etc., both in and out of a flashlight. I have 4 - 5 aluminum flashlights i will sacrifice for these tests, most particularly for the over-charging/venting tests. I will also do remote-video testing of 18650 cells in a over-heating situation, by setting up a Propane torch to heat the cell to the point of explosion. Also depending on my Uncle who owns the farm, i may do a test of an old 18650 cell (fully charged) being shot with a 22LR.
On this trip all my modded LED lanterns and flashlights will also get a work out, including the BLF/SRK Lantern prototype.
new topics will be posted for these adventures & tests.
UPDATE, July25,2016:
- Below os the photo of the flashlight damage, from a forced to vent its 18650 Li-Ion cell in the light.
>> The light was an all Aluminum side-clicky multi-5mm LED type. The light was turned on with a fully charged Samsung 18650 cell in the light, and force-vented from overheating to cause the thermal-runaway of the Lithium Ion 18650 cell.
once i get the videos of the spectacular venting in action, i will post it here in another update. The force was great enough to cause the light to knock over the block of wood it was lend in place on by metal posts, along with a fireworks-like bang blowing out the side switch first, then blowing out the driver, lens, and LEDs board through the front. the head was intense enough to melt parts of the aluminum body, and disintegrate the driver board into ash in an instant.
Videos soon of both the in-light vent, and open cell venting of several cells, along with what it took to get these cells to vent, and what abuse they withstood!
UPDATE, August,1,2016:
- The first video is online!
I just created a new Youtube Channel for all my upcoming reviews, tests, videos, etc. and the first video is the venting of an 18650 cell inside a flashlight.
- as explained above, we learned that most Lithium ion 18650 cells are much tougher than predicted.
- The first attempt to get a cell to vent (outside a light) was overcharging it very quickly with unlimited amps at 12 volts rate, ( from a DeepCycle RV Battery capable of 700 cranking amps) using a #14/2 AC extension cord. The three non-protected cells we tested, ( a Samsung, a Panasonic, and a cheap Ultrafire) all failed to Vent, they all got extremely hot but none of them vented. what did happen some internal “fuse” must have blew, as they went into an open circuit and ended up with 0 volts.
- the second test was with two more cells , ( a Samsung and a Sony) only this time we hit them with a fill 120 volt AC load, they too failed to vent! ( also went into a full open circuit) even though one the #14 gauge literally arced on the top on one cell and welded itself to the cell button, then the cell went open circuit again.
- Last we finally got some to vent, but with only applying heat slowly from a propane torch directly to the body of the cell. (same goes for the in-flashlight experiment. I will upload the cell venting test videos soon of the cell venting outside of lights, but below is the one of the 18650 Samsung venting INSIDE a light! With the flashlight securely held in place between two metal rods on a section of 2x6 board,
The flashlight was turned on with a fully charged cell (as seen in the video) Th rest of the events is listed at the time intervals below:
- at 2:08 minutes into the video the flashlight goes out.
- at 4:42 minutes into the video the rubber switch boot fails, venting some smoke from the light…
- at 5:56 minutes into the video the 18650 cell goes into full thermal runaway & vents with explosive force blowing out the switch, lens, LED board, and driver.