Flashlight explodes in Colorado man's mouth

The Cree XM-L T6 LEDs are only capable of 1000Lm at 10W. That's more heat than you want to hold in your hand for long. The U2 LED is now a touch more efficient.

I have a wonderful focussable head torch from Aliexpress with this LED - all my friends and their friends have bought one too, no failures yet in 30+ units spanning more than a year. $15 delivered to Australia. Cells extra. Amazing.

The cheap Chinese 18650's (which all seem to have brand names ending in Fire - TrustFire, SureFire, UltraFire - get the pattern?) usually claim some exotic capacity, like 6000mAH. Few of them are better than

The best cells are the NCR chemistry made only by Panasonic and Samsung, which reach 3400mAH. Don't trust any higher claim.

Clifford Heath.

On a sunny day (Wed, 21 Jan 2015 23:25:05 +1100) it happened Clifford Heath wrote in :

Thank you, good data to keep in mind.

At 100 lumens/watt, I think that's only at 25C. The efficacy drops at higher temperatures.

Got a link to this flashlight? I'm shopping around for something better than the piece of junk I bought on Amazon for $15.

Such batteries are normally rated at 20% of the stated capacity. For example, this Panasonic 2900 ma-hr 18650 cell was tested at: "Discharge : constant current, 550mA, 2.5V cut-off"

When I tested an UltraFire 3000 ma-hr cell at the 1.3A operating current of the cheap junk flashlight, I was only able to get about 820 ma-hr:

Trust, but verify: So far, all I've found are radically overstated capacities. I even managed to buy a counterfeit Ultrafire battery. I haven't tried the NCR flavor yet. Hmmm... about $10/ea. Ouch.

I use it mostly for night hiking.

Clifford Heath.

Thanks... It only runs for 3 hours at the lowest light level? It still mus t be fairly bright. When I'm night hiking I like a very low light level... sorta moonlight level is perfect. I've got a black diamond head lamp I b ought from EMS years ago. I use it daily, (night hikes with dogs and readi ng in bed.) and replace the batteries maybe every 6 months. (alkaline)

George h.

I've only just got my NCR cells and haven't tested them fully, but even on the cheap cells it runs 70+ minutes at full power. I've never let it run down on low power but I suspect it would run 8 hours, and probably more than 12 on the NCR cells. A friend has done extensive tests on the NCR cells with his other lamps; he built a fully adjustable MCU-based (talking!) controller.

The nice thing it shares with the expensive LedLenser is the focus, which creates an even pool of light with few edge artefacts or spill-over, adjustable from sharp focus (an image of the die) to about 3m wide at your feet.

A lower power level is unnecessary anyhow, given that duration.

Thanks. I'm currently using an older Rayovac Sportsman headlight, which is lacking in brightness, beamwidth, and battery life (3x AAA batteries). This looks like an improvement. However, I goofed and didn't notice that it was a "head torch". I was looking for a better hand held flashlight.

The same aliexpress store has 159 hand-held flashlights, many by the same manufacturer. I'm sure you can find a good one there.

I think I'll get one- it will be interesting to compare with my expensive Petzl one. Probably unsuited for life and death situations, but might be handy by times.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

A large car battery can dump several hundred amps into the starter motor.

The short circuit current into a slab of metal, considerably more.

The battery will probably boil over, and any sparking is likely to detonate the evolved gasses.

A link I found posted on another group opened an article which pretty much blamed the flashlight.

There was not in so many words any suggestion that a faulty lamp had shorted the lithium cells - that pretty much leaves the likely cause; the cells had been left in an unstable state due to overcharging.

Footage of the injuries looked pretty bad - but it has to be remembered they were probably mostly caustic burns rather than thermal burns.

I've just watched a Youtube clip of an 18650 deliberately shorted, venting for the most part takes place without much drama, just at the end there's a few bursts of sparks - but no worse than a small firecracker.

ATM; the e-cigarette forum is infested with scaremongers trying to convince everyone that an exothermic lithium cell is on a par with a pipe bomb!!!

Yeah, that would be my guess. The lousy photo of the switch assembly showed that there were no threads left after the incident. What's left shows 3 threads, which is the bare minimum. I didn't see any damage to the on-off push button, so I would guess that the hot electrolyte came out from the battery compartment, and not the on-off switch assembly.

I also don't believe that he heard a "pop". I've blown up Li-Ion batteries and they take quite a while before anything goes "pop". They get hot, they belch gasses, they belch electrolyte, and only then do they go "pop". He should have gotten some clue of what's about to happen from the heat, gasses, and smell before the back end blew up.

My guess(tm) is that he did get a warned, but rather than just drop the flashlight, held onto it with his hand while it was still in his mouth, which allowed him to release his teeth. That's when it blew, launching the switch assembly into his mouth. Had he still had the switch in his mouth, it would have launched the battery assembly away from his face, leaving the switch clenched in his teeth. He still would have had some bad chemical burns, but nowhere near as bad.

There seems to have been a fair number of coincidental and unlikely failures. Each is possible, but the combination unlikely. My guess(tm) is that's one or two of these at most:

1. Shorted lamp
2. Insufficient number of threads holding the on-off switch assembly.
3. Internal pressure buildup sufficient to strip threads but not blow out plastic lens.
4. Wrong battery type.
5. Overcharge from defective charger.

From personal experience, there's no effective gas seal between the lens assembly and the battery compartment. For waterproofing, the flashlight relies on the lens seal. In single experience with blowing up a flashlight, the plastic lens blew out, while the aluminum section remained intact. The photos show no damage to the lens, which suggests that either the on-off switch assembly threads were weak, trashed, gone, or useless.

Maybe. I don't believe that there's much Lithium hexafluorophosphate electrolyte in a pair of RCR123A LIFePO4 batteries. It's expensive but affordable because not much is used. Nasty stuff: I just took the liberty of crushing a CR123A battery in my bench vise, and managed to extract about 2 small drops of some liquid.

My guess(tm) is that he used two non-rechargeable CR123A batteries, instead of RCR123A batteries, and tried to charge them. The nominal voltage of the CR123A is only 3.0V, which would be thoroughly overcharged by a 4.2v LiIon charger. There's also the IMR16340 LiMn rechargeable battery, which will fit, but is also easily overcharged. Unfortunately, I can't recognize the cell type from the photos.

if it exploded infront of his facee, maybe he'd be blind now.

te

Might not need a spark if the vent doesn't vent enough. With lead/acid, alo t of them are sealed now. They probably do have some sort of safety valve b ut then again not everything works as planned. Plus the fact that they did not make it to put out 800 amps, even if it is rated that for "cold crankin g amps".

I had an Oldsmobile with a 455 that pulled enormous amps on starting. In fa ct so much that I put two batteries in it. Between the starter not being so hot and the high compression it was ridiculous. With only one battery if i t didn't start in like one revolution I was f***ed.

But it was one hell of a fun car. Non-transverse front wheel drive with a W34 455. Something like 510 ft/lbs torque at 1500 RPM or some s*it. Would r ip the tar right off the street, literally.

Those were cool cars.

That would have been the "Toronado".

Indeed an apt headline. I have never seen any flashlight explode, given the number of times I have seen people hold it in their mouth when trying to do something quickly with both hands free.

Yeah, and it wrecked me for all other cars. It was a 1970 and Dad got it fo r me in 1975, 15, my first car. People would say that's crazy today but oh well. My generation used to stand up in the back seat and whoever was drivi ng would punch it and we would fall into the back seal. If a cop saw that t oday he would probably call child services on you.

I had two 1970s, one was not a W34 and was smashed in the front. I needed t he exhaust system for my sleeper. Huge dual inlet muffler that cost $300 ne w back then.

The one I drove was $225 in 1975, probably in August or thereabouts because my birthday. No exhast, but only one rust hole in the whole thing. The oth er one was $100 because it was smashed. I did drive it some but the radiato r was laking so I had to keep filling it. Had those plastic seatcovers. The smashed one got scrapped and later I smashed the other one.

Later I bought a non-running 1969 and found a tie rod literally through a c ylibder wall so that was going nowhere. Later I bought a 1976 but after a c ouple years the engine blew in that.

It did wreck me. Every car I got after that was like "What a piece of s*it, what is there like a little rabbit on a treadmill running this piece of sh it ?". Also very few cars corner like those. Turn too hard too fast and it' ll rip the tread off the front tires.

I'm surprised I survived actually, they way I drove. I mean competent and a ll that, but I have literally gotten a ticket for flying in a car.

I also had home brew car amps in it based on the Tena Mindblower design. A real 30 watts RMS/channel into eight ohms. Doesn't sound like much by today 's standards but it was better than almost anything out there back then. I saw a few amps with output transformers thsat claimed 25 watts/channel. I t hink that one was pretty close. the rest said "200 WATTS !" but they had ab out a a four amp fuse. That is 200 watts PIPILS, that would be Peak Instant aneous Power If Lightning Strikes. Mine had a ten amd for each channel and it would nuisance blow them about every month of so. Not really efficient b ut did the job.

Now that I think of it, I could have put those batteries in series and run the amps off 24 volts. Of course the problem is that I was goung through sp eakers at an alarming rate. It would have been worse.

I as playing with one of those high power hand spotlights not long ago with a bad battery. I was thining of making it wired until I found out how much current it pulls.Let's just say that when cold, the probes on my meter hav e more resistance. I wonder if the batteries ever explode in those.

Luckily they won't fit in (most) people's mouths.

The only lithium powered flashlight I have is a big lamp with a carrying handle - it wouldn't fit in my mouth any which way.

From new, the lithium cell has been prone to self discharging unless I leave it on charge. I only ever use it outdoors, and when I get a round-tuit, I plan to divert an 18650 from my e-cigarette stock to see whether that puts it right.