Olight 18650's working in my Acebeam EC35 Gen ii

Hi all,

Super short version: Today I found out my acebeam EC35 Gen ii can use (some) Olight 18650’s, both for light, for usb-C charging and for discharging as a powerbank. My question is: is there any danger in using these? I assume that, if the negative terminal on the top end of the battery does contact something on the acebeam it will just shut off – my working assumption is that this is covered by the ‘reverse polarity protection’? So is that the worst case scenario? It doesn’t work? I guess I would just like to get a vibe from anyone who knows more about this sort of thing if there’s any theoretical way this could lead to an overheating / explosion situation?

Bit more detail:
Olight’s batteries have a negative ring around their positive button at their head (Seperared by a bit of black plastic) as well as on the normal rear end. This means they usually aren’t compatible with normal 18650 flashlights.

My Acebeam EC35 Gen ii is also a powerbank flashlight and I already knew it was very ‘accepting’ of 18650’s – it can take flat tops, button tops even super long ones with built in USB charging – I’ve never found one that couldn’t go in.

I already know Olight 18650’s can go in some bay chargers, such as my fenix and nitecore ones (I would only ever try this with a trusted brand) as long as the bay can make contact with the positive button and nothing touches the negative surrounding section.

Today I tried one in my acebeam, and out of three, two worked just fine, and one did nothing. I can also charge and discharge them in the acebeam as if it’s any other 18650.

I’ve noticed the Olight 18650’s are a bit varying in design, with some having a thicker plastic seperator between positive and negative, and more or less ‘revealed’ negative sections (for some the plastic wrapper comes further up). This might be why one didn’t work – maybe with the slightly different layout, the negative section was touching something in the acebeam – this is what gives me some faith that if this happens with the others then they will also just stop working.

Thanks so much,

Stephen

Still, seems pretty dangerous to use a battery with negative exposed on the positive side in lights not designed for it. You could easily short the battery out. But I guess you can use it as an emergency power source if it works in your case.

3 Thanks

This is the thing I don’t like about Olight, for me the convenience of the magnetic charging is outweighed by the inconvenience of the proprietary battery. I don’t think you can buy the customised battery for the S1R Baton any more, that one will accept standard RCR123’s but they can’t be charged in the light.