I still find battery numbers a little confusing and I’m not sure about the amps. For example, I have a flashlight that takes a 14500 battery and the reviews that I read say the tail-cap amps for turbo is 3.7A but all the other settings are less than 2A. My battery is rated at 3A. Since the light steps down quickly, do I need to find a battery that’s at least 4A or will the 3A battery be good.
It seems to me that I would be better off using a battery that runs the light longer, even if it isn’t as bright as it could be on the highest or turbo setting.
A 6 volt led at 3 amps uses approximately twice the watts of a 3volt led at 3 amps.
So its important to know your driver/emitter. But when measuring tailcap amps… you can ignore that.
This is not allowing for forward voltage, battery resistance and battery voltage sag. Which is the ohms law bit. So a max of 3amp drain battery will not be adequate for a 3 amp max emitter. In turbo. I just double it at a minimum. Dont know if thats enough.
If turbo is 3.7a and high is 1.9a a 3 amp battery may still not be enough for high as the battery gets lower. Depending on emitter etc. If your battery is hotter than the light head or getting hot at all… thats not good.
If that makes sense. If im wrong, someone without a smooth brain will correct me
I understood most of what you said and it makes sense. Based on what you said, I need to rethink my battery orders. I have 93 lights and off the top of my head, I would say, half of my 18650 and 21700 flashlights have adequate battery amps but my throwers and 14500 lights might need to be upgraded.
You have given me a lot to think about, thank you very much.
I like to keep a few high discharge batteries on hand in each size. For most of my lights the high capacity batteries are fine, but the few I need max output out of get a high discharge battery.
With 93 lights I’m sure your situation is the same and a couple of high discharge batteries in each size would be really nice to have, if for no other reason than those times you need a few extra lumens so you can say “that’s not a flashlight, THIS is a flashlight!”
