We have, I assume as most others here, quite a few lights powered by rechargeable lith ion batteries.
My wife thinks we need to have some lights that will run on alkaline or non rechargeable lithium batteries for use in one of those end of times….this is it…scenarios.
I suspect one won’t even have time to bend over and kiss…as the saying goes.
However, in the interest of making the wife happy I will venture into the land of non rechargeable.
I have heard that there are some that will take either but I don’t know which ones.
So, would want a relatively high powered one, a thrower, car….really, any suggestions would be helpful
When you think about shelf life, use lithium primaries over alkalines. They store more energy, are lighter, and they don’t leak corrosive liquid as “alkaleaks” regularly do.
Oh, and alkalines suck even at medium current, like 1A. The voltage drop under load is huge and the overall power output (Watt) is the lower the higher the current gets. The 1A graph should end approximately at the 2.5h spot (10h divided by 4), so you lose about half the energy between 0.25A and 1A:
All in all, there is no use for alkalines in an emergency flashlight.
There are quite some good AA lights and the 4xAA versions seem to be most emergency compatible: Still lightweight and handy, good runtime, more efficient than a 1AA or 2AA light with a boost driver.
hIKARInoob already mentioned the Thrunite TN4A. There are similar versions of Nitecore, Manker, Sofirn and Thorfire that come to my mind, just google “4xAA flashlight”. I’m sure there are more.
Why not do the good AND the sensible: buy her a light with 2 AA alkaleaks and treat yourself to a decent light with 4 AA Energizers. Forget about reasoning (the process of thinking about something in order to make a sound decision).
Right now I have 388 AA powered lights in my database. Here they are sorted by throw. There are a few that perform better than the TN4A but they all cost much more.
Any light that can be run by NiMH can be run by alkalines as well. There is no such divide between rechargeable and not rechargeable.
An option would be the 4AA Thorfire TK4A (it may be discontinuated) or the Sofirn SF11. Even if they claim that one is not a clone of the other they are very similar lights.
4AA may be a bit bulky, but at least the capacity in Wh on 4xNiMH would be similar to a one 18650, so runtime should be decent.
Of course the runtime and brightness will be compromised but it isn’t like the light won’t turn on on alkalines if you are in a situation where they are the only battery available. I wouldn’t run it on turbo or high on alkalines if I needed the batteries to last but saying that they can’t be used is an overstatement.
Stick with Eneloops. They’ll vastly out-perform alkaleaks, and will stay charged for 10 years in storage. If your wife insists on using alkaleaks, head straight to a lawyer specializing in family law. (Grab your flashlights on the way out.)
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My wife is really pretty sharp. She just mentioned that she had heard that lithium primaries, the same ones used for smoke alarms, hold a charge a long time.
I mostly use IMR and INR batteries for lasers because of the high current drain.
I had heard of Enloops but did not realize they hold a charge for so long. I charge my lith ions with a PSU using a two phase starting with constant current (should the batteries drop that low,) than a saturation charge at constant voltage.
I think it should not matter. But beware of parasitic drain. There are plenty of lights that will completely drain the batteries after a couple of months or a year or so.
Although I somewhat agree, I don’t understand where this is coming from here, how it pertains to this thread? Did I miss something? (Maybe someone deleted their post?)
