vol

The MagicShine clones use 18650x4 battery packs. The battery cable connectors have some variations, some are more deep set than others. For this reason I have never bought a battery pack without the light, since I can't know for sure if the battery pack connector will be compatible with the one on the light (and the charger). Is it easy to make a battery pack with 4 18650 batteries using whatever came with the original battery pack (wire)? Would be nice if I could. Or, alternatively, if I bought a battery pack with incompatible cable connector, is there an easy way to replace it with the old one (the connector on the battery pack that has lost capacity)? Thank in advance

noglider 

I have a holder with springs and leads, and it holds 4 cells in series. You would have to solder on the right connector.

davidad

I use this instead of the 2 battery holder that came with my Fenix BT-20. PANNOVO B-C04 Water Resistant 4 x 18650 Battery Pack Case for Bike Lamp - Black - Free Shipping - DealExtreme I had to make a male to male adaptor to make it work.

vol

That is like the one that came with my MagicShine Clone light.
Maybe when the current battery dies I'll open the pack and see what the inside is like, and any possibility to rewire to new batteries.

gregf83 

Not very safe but if you're only going to use it outdoors it might be OK. Not a great idea to attempt soldering directly to Li-Ion cells though. They are sensitive to temperature and are normally spot welded.

CliffordK

What voltage are you running?

So far I've only found one connector size on the 8.4V packs for CREE lamps.

I just snagged a couple of these today.
12000mAh 4x18650 Battery Pack 8 4V Rechargeable for Bicycle Bike Light Torch | eBay

Still hoping that they might actually be the 12,000 mah. I can measure the connectors when they arrive in a couple of weeks.

If you are making your own battery packs, you'll need to pick up some charge/discharge controller boards, such as:
2S Li ion Lithium Battery 18650 Charger Protection Board 3A 7 4V 8 4V | eBay
or
2S 10A Li ion Lithium LiPo Battery Input Ouput Chip Board PCB PCM 7 2V 7 4V 8 4V | eBay

I had one battery pack short out a while ago. I got some nice flames. Kind of scary. Anyway, you should be able to replace the plugs on your battery packs, but I'd be a little careful doing it. The waterproof packs/cases may be worthwhile as they should be easy to add/change batteries (also a drowned battery pack is a pain when you're out for a ride).

noglider 

I like that. Forget the idea I gave.

vol

8.4v 6400mAh. The connectors have the same size, but in some cases, the plastic part is longer than others, so the metal part is very deep inside it, and light or charger's cable can't be plugged in. See attached two for comparison--the 2nd one has longer plastic part and deeper set metal inside the plastic.


Since it's dangerous, I think I won't try...

CliffordK

Anything under 12V isn't particularly dangerous to you, unless you work hard to pierce the skin with electrodes. In my case, I managed to get a short between the metal sheath around the battery and one of the electrodes connecting to it, then the plastic around the battery began to burn. I was able to extinguish it before any serious harm was done, and the lithium in the cells never burnt.

Perhaps the small lithium batteries can push out higher amps than the equivalent alkaline batteries and thus make more spectacular shorts.

Anyway, if you do work with the batteries, make sure you have something thick ceramic to put them in.

gregf83 

It's not the voltage that's dangerous. If the cells do go into a thermal runaway condition there is nothing you can do to stop it and they can get extremely hot. There's a reason no reputable manufacturers will sell bare cells.