AA battery 'build'.

There are so many per-manufactured boxes out there I can't see why anyone would 'need' to build their own battery pack from scratch. So I didn't either.

I searched for an existing b0x that would take 10xAA cells and simply soldered a couple leads to it and loaded it with rechargeable AA's.




Compared to Lipo batteries, rechargeable AA's are less suitable for high draw applications, but this pack will happily supply two 10W LEDs for a couple hours. Considering I already had three smart chargers in-house and lots of AA cells - this wasn't something that took a lot of thought. This particular one was a specialty box normally used to power radios and was $20.

Lipo batteries

These are ideal for high current applications and probably the lightest batteries currently on the market. Cells rated at 11.1V using 3 individual cells give the best performance for these lights and the least cell balancing issues. Hobby stores carry them for RC use. Their lifespan is usually less than 1,000 complete cycles. I started off with the Vision X battery, dissected and analyzed it, and decided I could get more for my money elsewhere. They're nice batteries, but Vision X don't actually make batteries. Like most lighting companies, they just buy and resell from battery manufacturers, and the volume isn't usually high enough to make the prices reasonable. So I was sble to buy some RC batteries with more capacity and built in protection for about half the price.

LiFeO4 cells

BatterySpace carries these and they'll give the highest number of charge cycles of any battery currently on the market. I do have some issues with some of the shipping charges and shipping policies that BatterySpace uses. They charge more and use UPS to levy fees that no-one else does. No-one 'needs' to use UPS to ship Lipo batteries within a country.