Electronics, Lighting, & Gadgets - Recommendations for SAFE RCR123A Charger & Cells?

Hi,

I'm running a Romisen RC-N3 flashlight during my commute with either alkaline AAs or CR123A lithium cells. I'm interested in switching to rechargable RCR123As, but the safety warnings on most of the RCR123a batteries and chargers is giving me pause... I want safety and reliability. I do not want to burn my house down. I get the sense that the technology is not quite mature yet, and for safety I might stick with proven NiMH AA cells.

Any experience with cells and chargers from BatteryJunction.com or DealExtreme.com? Please provide specific brands & model numbers. Thanks!

Dan

This charger from DX will charge CR123A lithium batteries with easy modification.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1251
Details for applying mods are on the page. If your going to purchase a flashlight you should just go ahead and purchase one of the new P7 or MC-E flashlights using 18650 batteries from DX. I purchased an Aurora AK-P7-5, Trustfire 2500mA 18650 batteries, a flashlight bike clip, and the charger above. High mode is actually too bright in traffic. Medium mode provides plenty of light without too much blinding of traffic. Low mode is good enough and prevents blinding of others as well as providing more than 5 hours of burn time on a single battery.
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r154/n4zou/dsc00098.jpg

This charger from DX will charge CR123A lithium batteries with easy modification.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1251 Thanks for the info, but with all due respect, this is exactly the kind of thing I am NOT looking for. The RCR123a charging terminals were disabled by the factory, so in order to get a functioning RCR123A charger I have to mod the unit? I am handy with a soldering iron but I would prefer to get a unit that is UL-listed and works out of the box as the manufacturer intended.

Thanks for the info, but with all due respect, this is exactly the kind of thing I am NOT looking for. The RCR123a charging terminals were disabled by the factory, so in order to get a functioning RCR123A charger I have to mod the unit? I am handy with a soldering iron but I would prefer to get a unit that is UL-listed and works out of the box as the manufacturer intended.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=201323
Here's a charger that I have, although I've never used it for RCR123a batteries (I don't have any). According to that info post, you would need some spacers, but that's not too difficult to do on your own. You could probably just use a couple magnets from dealextreme or something in addition to the spacers already provided by Pila. The cheapest place I've found the Pila IBC charger is at flashlightz.com

As for batteries, AW batteries seem to get great reviews on candlepowerforums.com . Here's a link to a forum post where you can buy them directly from AW for cheaper.
http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/showthread.php?t=184670

I have some tenergy 18650 protected li-ions and they work much better than the trustfire batteries I purchased from dealextreme. That doesn't say much about the quality though, since tenergy seems to get mixed reviews but I'd recommend giving them a try. I would easily try some tenergy li-ions from batteryjunction.com (http://www.batteryjunction.com/rc390reliba.html). Batteryjunction seems to get much better reviews for customer service than all-battery.com and they would definitely help you out if you got any bad batteries.

Here's the goods: LiFePO4 RCR123A (http://www.batteryjunction.com/rc375reliba.html). Different chemistry, no fire/explosion issues. Use the correct charger for these cells (http://www.batteryjunction.com/2rc375reliba.html).


Bigger picture: NiMH AAs are not a bad pick either, since your light has that option as well.

I've been using an inexpensive (read cheapest) set up for over 2 years.
I bought 4 unprotected 3.6v 800mah (supposedly) and a Nano charger
for my Nuwai Q3. (yep, old stuff)

What's your runtime using CR123's in your Rominsen?

still going strong. 20 mins run time before noticing drop in brightness,
then it goes into the charger. batts and charger bought from Lighthound.
I did have a battery explosion with AAAA batteries (non-rechargeable) that was in a Streamlight LED Penlight.
I'm guessing one would still not get the runtime with RCR123 than with primaries.
but for around the house light, rechargeables are fine with me.

What's your runtime using CR123's in your Rominsen?
I think between 80-120min for a new 3.0V CR123. Starts off very bright (215 lumens according to the mfg) and stays bright almost till the very end. 2xAA cells last a lot longer, let's say 8 hours, but they are much less bright.

I need 45 minutes of light for my evening commute. For now, morning commute is in daylight.

thanks for those runtime figures, ds.
they're not in the ebay ads.

I think between 80-120min for a new 3.0V CR123. Starts off very bright (215 lumens according to the mfg) and stays bright almost till the very end. 2xAA cells last a lot longer, let's say 8 hours, but they are much less bright.

That may be partly because you're using alkaline AAs. NiMH can provide high current and keep it up for most of its runtime.