Duracell 1432 Flashlight: Battery Drain.

This is a common problem with the electronic switching.

google flashlight parasitic drain

A flashlight that's dead when you need it is worthless. Take 'em back to Costco.

Newer flashlights advertise "no parasitic drain". Get one that explicitly states that. Anything else is a crap shoot.

Only viable if you have a charger that takes three cells (or charges one-at-a-time). Many chargers only charge pairs. Usually (squint at the fine print) '1.5V' means it'll work on onesies, twosies, threesies, foursies. "2.8V' on my Energizer charger means it only works on two or four.

Alkaline start at 1.55v ad are totally flat at about 0.8v. NiMH stay at abo ut 1.2v for most of their discharge.

NT

So the choice of $2.50/ cells was not a good one. Try 50 cent cells.

that may be a reason to go new.

NT

I assumed we'd all be able to charge 3 cells. Maybe not so.

NT

The cheap NiMH cells have a high self-discharge rate. They are quite suitable for some applications, such as devices that are left almost permanently in a charger, such as home cordless phones, some power tools, but area a giant pain for devices that are left off for long periods of time, such as flashlights, cameras, test equipment, etc. Before LSD NiMH cells, I still recall practicing my profanity when I had to charge a device before I used it. No thanks.

The self-discharge is 5-20% on the first day and stabilizes

is approximately three times as high.

I've heard that said a lot, but it doesn't match my experience. Fusiomax ha ve usually still had lots of charge in them months later. I have a drawer o f various NiCd & NiMH, random ones I wouldn't have as much confidence in. I IRC you can get cheaper deals from China than the fusios.

In the 90s I used a gas powered torch. No battery torch comes anywhere near it in reliability terms.

NT

Conspiracy theory notwithstanding...

I suggest that some designer made a bad decision to use a cheap part to manage the flashlight modes. Some manager made an uninformed decision to remarket the result. Everybody saved a penny, except the user. Caught with their pants down, some vendors are now advertising flashlights with zero parasitic drain. It's unlikely that Duracell had any malicious intent in this.

There really is no clean fix for this. If you use your flashlight every day, it won't affect you much. If you use it infrequently for emergencies, you absolutely, positively want it to work when needed. About all you can do is put an insulator somewhere in the battery assembly and remove it when the emergency happens.

Next time, buy one that advertises zero parasitic drain.

I just hate it when someone ruins a perfectly good conspiracy theory. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Hanlon's Razor.

Standby/parasitic current drain of various flashlights (including leakage current and estimated battery life):

There is already a class action suit to prove otherwise:

"Duracell Class Action Says LED Flashlights Drain Batteries Quickly" (12.4MB) The case seeks to cover a proposed nationwide class of

flashlight models from Duracell, Costco, Home Depot or Amazon during the to-be-defined claim period.

With alkaline cells, I like to store them outside of the device in a plastic bag. I've had too many problems with alkaline cells leaking all over the inside of flashlights, radios, and toys.

Probably a good idea. I guess I've been lucky as none of mine seem to have the problem. However, I haven't measured it, so I'm not really sure.

You can sue anybody for anything. Sometimes you even win. BUT I don't expect anybody at Duracell ever sat down with the evil intent to sell defective flashlights as a means to increase battery sales. It's much more likely that someone in purchasing decided they could make a buck on flashlights and did zero evaluation.

I skimmed part of the attached links.

Should they be punished for not recalling them? Probably, but what is the appropriate punishment? We all have stuff that performs less than expected. Where do you draw the line?

I'd bet that Costco took back any presented for refund. Don't know about the others.

The people with flashlights ain't gonna get rich, but the lawyers sure will get rich off this lawsuit.

I have several of these that I bought at garage sales. Didn't take long to discover why they were almost free. I probably won't be able to make a claim without a receipt. Stick a piece of plastic between the battery pack and the spring. They'll be fine when needed in an emergency. Another strategy is to leave batteries in the flashlight, wait for them to leak, get reimbursed for leaky batteries.

If I were to sue Duracell, it would be over leaky batteries that ruin the devices they power. I'd get behind serious punishment for that. Although I've had them replace seriously damaged devices on demand.

It's all about the Benjamins. If replacement cost is less than the additional profit, that's what controls the decision. In this case, they pissed off the wrong ambulance chasers. ;-)

user.

ghts

Usually companies are busy looking for the next wheeze, the next way to sel l more product. And we surely know that a lot of these ideas are knowingly not in the consumer's interest.

a company that size with a large reputation doing zero evaluation? Not cred ible

afaik parasitic drain is not a crime. I don't know any law that prohibits i t.

Batteries leak, it's inherent in the design. If you force companies to pay out then the price of batteries goes up. Effectively you force everyone to buy an insurance policy. Why aren't you blaming the product mfrs for not us ing gold plated contacts that wont' corrode & easy wipe battery holders?

NT