Hi, I'm new to the forum and in high power laser hobby. I recently bought a 445nm parts bundle from survival laser and everything worked fine but for only a few minutes after a full charge of the 2 RCR123A batteries. After about 10 minutes of total run time the power drop down to a few mW and one battery is 3.5v and the other one is 2.5v. The batteries are rated 880mAh and if I put an ampere-meter between the minus of the last battery and the hosts instead of the tail cap I can see a drain of 850mA with fully charged batteries. So where the problem is ? The batteries are 880mAh the laser drain 850mAh but it stay on for only 10 minutes. Do you think it's a defect battery ? The batteries are the blue model from ultrafire.
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Survival laser 445nm 1W poor battery life
- Thread starter laserfari
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Teej
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There's about a 100% chance that the cells are faulty. As you are using two in series, and the discharge rates are different, do not use them any more...you can get a fire or explosion from fake cells like that.
Ultrafire are a known counterfeit brand, meaning, lots of cells are labeled as "Ultrafire", but the nickname is "suretocatchfire".
A clue is that they are rated at 880 mah and RCR123/16340 are rated at a max of ~ 750 mah....due to the chemistry....so they are fake.
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Teej
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I see you are in France. I'm not sure what the shipping regs are there regrading li-ion cells.
Tenergy and Nitecore are ok brands.
As I said Ultrafires are more famous for being counterfeited, and, Gary, who I don't know personally, probably doesn't KNOW if the cells are real or not....
..but, frankly, it would seem that he might have seen the 880 mah rating and put up a red flag...or, just know a lot about lasers, and squat about cells.
You could ask him directly.
Is there a thread somewhere on LPF about choosing battery ? You say the max capacity for an rcr123A is physically limited to 750mAh but the nitecore are 650mAh. A true 650mAh is better than a fake 880mAh but there is real quality 750mAh ? And there are also LiFePO4 batteries but I can't find the true nominal voltage of this battery, It's certainly not 3.7v because the chemistery is different of Li-ion. Somebody use them in his 1W blue laser ?
mortuus
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A 1W laser will drain the batteries quickly, even a good ones with high power in them wont last that long, thats why i prefer to use lower powered lasers mostly its a pain to have batteries that dont last very long.
Teej
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A cell rated at 650 mah is probably an honest rating. Also, some 18350 are IMR, and the mah can be lower, but, the ability to MAINTAIN a higher amp draw is better.
IE: If a device has a high enough amp drain, as mah is MEASURED in this context at low drains only, some lower mah cells CAN last longer in a high drain device, if IMR instead of ICR, etc.
I just ordered two nitecore nl166 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D2OCQB2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A38GBW24HDG5AI I will make a little test to know how long they last and if it's really 650mAh I will post the result here when I recieved the batteries.
