Streamlight engineering passed along to me never to use rechargeables in their lights, even more so than lithiums, saying their initial charge is higher, and so will overheat and burnout the light even more effectively than lithiums, also voiding their warranty. My “love affair” with lithium disposables comes from personal experience using alkaline disposables. I also have been reading, on this forum and elsewhere, that lithiums hold their charge, when stored and when in use, for longer, as well as recovering some degree of their charge after being used better than alkalines, and so simply will provide more power for longer stretches, whereas alkalines drop off faster and die earlier. If there simply aren’t any lights like I’m looking for that can run on lithiums, I’ll have to choose among the longest runtimes & low-setting brightness output levels between the alkaline models, but I’m hoping lithium AA models can be found instead. Suggestions are most welcome.
It sounds like you've made up your mind.
Enjoy the Streamlight.
To Chicago X: I don’t know where you got that idea. Haven’t made up my mind yet, but am actually looking elsewhere than Streamlight right now. Currently considering FourSevens AA models as a possibility, but remain interested in as many options as people might suggest. Do you have suggestions based on my original post here, and the exchanges along this thread?
I’m intrigued about this lithium issue, since their being targeted at some pretty high end consumer electrical goods, I’d expect them to be a good idea, it almost strikes me as scare mongering, particularly as most rechargeable cells are 1.2v rather than 1.5v, so what’s their say on eneloops?
As I only run cheap Chinese crap with primaries and am happier with the output/run time of true lithium cells, its pretty much a none issue to me, but curiosity and all that…
I’m not a technician, and don’t know a lot about this stuff. I’m just picking things up now as I ask around and am given feedback, here and elsewhere. But yes, gords1001, you may want to Google the various manufacturers mentioned in this thread’s posts and ask them. I’m going to Google “eneloops” - never heard of them before. Feedback about rechargeables is that their initial charged-up output level is way over the voltage rating on their labels, so flashlights that use them need circuits that compensate to hold back LEDs from being overdriven and heated up, leading to blowing the light out. That’s why I’m asking the manufacturers if I can use lithium disposables in their products or not. From what I’ve been reading, alkalines just drop off in power and die a lot faster than lithiums, so there isn’t a contest between them when it comes to maintaining a higher output for a longer time using lithiums.
Fully charged nimh’s are 1.5 volts fresh off the charger (my cheap ones anyway)
The Energizer AA batteries sometimes read 1.8volts fresh out of the package.
The only way I can think of that they’d be worse on the streamlight is if due to the lack of regulation, they draw more amps and that’s what overheats them. It’s plausible