pretty much all my batts are unprotected, but was wondering other then safety is there any other reason to use protected ones?
Most protection circuits will also prevent an over-charge and over-discharge situation. This promotes cell longevity, in addition to the safety aspect.
All my cells are unprotected too but, you can’t understimate safety. In rock climbing, everything is doubled up so if something fails, you don’t die… If the low voltage cut off of your driver fails and you didn’t realize, when you next recharge the cell, it could expolde and burn the house down. That is why most people suggest monitoring your cells when recharging and to do it in a safe area. For some, the extra safety of a protection circuit is worth the extra cost.
I wonder how that really works out though. Isn’t it equally possible that because people believe that the protection on their cells is working that they won’t check them before charging and actually be less safe? Kind of like relying on your belay man instead of paying more attention to your climb.
So the question should be this. How many people have had accidents with unprotected cells vs protected cells. So far the only problems I have really heard about personally were with cheap but protected cells. People where treating ^%$fire cells like they were safe just because they said protected on them.
Besides the over-charge/discharge, they also protect against short circuit.
Sometimes people will use a magnet to act as a button top on the battery but it may slide and touch flashlight body and battery at the same time causing short.
I’ve seen a pic of a battery short and it looked like the side of the battery melted/burned, very dangerous.
EDIT: I wanted to add that I just got into 18650s this year and all mine are unprotected.
getting them stuck in lights they weren’t made for…
Any specific reasons for getting unprotected cells? I hope you use protected cells in multicell lights though.
*fire cells are crap. cant even use them in a tr3t6 if you wanna use high mode, the protection kicks in and shuts off power Most good protected cells can handle the load fine without tripping like this. the thing is those *fire cells have to cut out with low draw due to actually being 1600-1800mah cells, not 2400 as they are labled.
Initially I thought I was blessed with a light that was driven hard, but sadly it was just the poor batteries. Using real protected cells the circuit doesn’t trip when it isn’t supposed to (normal use on HIGH.)
This light is driven a tad harder than similar examples though, 3.03@ at the tailcap, vs 2.6 and 2.2 on my other tr3t6 lights, tested with 2 Fenix 2600mah protected batteries, and again with unprotected laptop cells (to compare protected vs unprotected amp draw) and it was nearly identical (3.01A protected, 3.03 unprotected) with both the protected and nonprotected batteries.
Of course the unprotected cells were only for testing, so in went the protected 2600’s, and that’s what I’ve used in it ever since.
18sixfifty: Consistency in checking cells is a personality thing (I believe) and I guess, because ‘we’ like flashlights etc so much, we have the personality to consistently check the voltage and other details of cells. If a person doesn’t like lights as much as a flashaholic, they are more likely to make mistakes in charging, discharging etc. As an example: I gave a doctor friend a light with an unprotected 18560 cell. I wrote out all the instuctions about using the charger, low voltage warning, over heating, over charging etc, and emphasised that he NEEDS to read my manual… The first thing he did was insert the cell into the charger the wrong way around… :zipper_mouth_face: (good thing it was an easy fix.) After a couple weeks training, (we ride at night and he uses the light as a helmet light,) the battery died on him because he never recharged the cell… I reminded him to recharge it as soon as possible even if for 10 mins…a week later, he still didn’t charge the cell so I took it back and recharged it myself…. LOL
After much research I had decided to get the LG 3000mAh 4.35V because HKJ’s comparison showed those to be head and shoulders above the rest of the 18650’s.
These LG’s are only available as unprotected.
I also got Cottonpickers(cpf) 4.35V/4.2V charger with voltage meter and always check voltage before and after use as well as intermittently.
I’m very impressed with these cells and am very happy to have moved to rechargeables.
As of now I am not interested in multi-cell lights, too large for my current tastes 
