Welcome to Lumencraft® (formerly Adventure Sport Flashlights and Matt Smith) since 2012, where you will find quality reviews on the best everyday carry, super thrower, and brightest flashlights. Plus made from scratch original products, such as high power LED conversion kits for Maglite.
If you are a flashlight manufacturer or dealer and would like to have your products appear on the channel you can contact us at the email below. Currently we are focusing on "topic" based videos such as "Best Everyday Carry Flashlight" Or "Brightest Flashlight under $50". We still make individual reviews for a single light if there is something special about it such as it breaks a previously held record for output or distance in its size class.
I thought Convoy specifically did not support lithium primaries?? Anyways I had a NIMH battery die on me from sitting in the car. I always use lithium-primaries for lights stored in the car. Sadly flashlight manufactures have a hard on for lithium-ion so we don't have a lot choice.
This won't meet enough high power draw requirements compared to a bunch of 18650s or 21700s in series. That's gonna be a huge problem because of insane amounts of heat generation and inadequate power.
It's size will not allow this form factor to become the industry standard. People rarely use all these super high brightness 100000000 lumen flashlights, because they are too big to carry in a pocket or a backpack, costs more, hard to recharge, hard to get replacement batteries and overall less convenient. Yes they have specific use case scenarios like Police, Coast guard, maybe some specific kind of technicians Idk. But the point is not enough people will buy them thus this new battery form factor will not go mainstream. Also for EVs there might be heat related problems with this 46950 form factor because of it's very high volume to surface area ratio compared to 21700.
Why cant i just get a highbeam from a car & use that as a flashlight? Like i want night to turn into day. If not that then i want to see a beam of light.
NiMH is not generally better than Alkaline. It depends on the use case. For low power applications Alkaline is often the better choice, because the self discharge of NiMH will often limit the service time of the device. Another drawback of NiMH is the lower nominal voltage. Sure, if you load your cells with 2A the voltage will quickly plummet on Alkaline cells, but if your load is a bit more moderate the voltage of Alkalines will be higher than that of NiMH for a longer time, which some devices require. Yet another disadvantage of NiMH cells is that you can't really use them in series without a BMS, if you want to reach their rated cycle life. If you mistreat a NiMH, it could be dead after the first use. Also your claim that NiMH has more capacity than Alkaline is wrong. Capacity is a function of discharge current, thus you can't just load the cells with 2A and see which dies first. Using other loads your tests will vary. Generally speaking Alkalines have more capacity than NiMH. I agree with you, that NiMH are better for often used and regularly serviced devices, that require high currents. But Alkaline is the better choice, if your device sits a long time or uses only small currents.
NiMH are GARBAGE They DO NOT last 1000 recharges They do not provide the proper voltage They go bad even if you do not use them They cost WAY too much money and only shills sell them today Rechargeable Lithium are a much better value They maintain a constant Voltage (1.5 Volts) until dead They provide more current than NiMH They can be recharged twice as many times as NiMH before going bad They maintain a usable charge far longer than NiMH They are cost competitive with NiMH They work in ALL devices that require 1.5 Volts instead of 1.2 Honestly Compare "ANY" NiMH to XTAR 2500mAh (4150mWh) rechargeable Lithium AA batteries, then remove this nonsense video from RU-vid
Really interesting! Thanks for making this video. I have some electronic test equipment that I tend to use somewhat infrequently, and have been using Alkaline cells in them. But I end up having to store the cells separately because they leak like Henry's bucket over time. I'm going to wait for your Li-ion (+ buck converter) review before deciding what to replace the alkalines with.
Real life scenario directly linked to author's test : I am using an edc convoy T2 with a cree xpg2 emitter on board, the driver is incompatible to a lithium battery like a 14500 so i have to strictly use AA batteries. I chose duracells which performs excellent as long as they don't drop under 1,3 volts which limits performance significantly, so i see no point in using a 1.2 volts nimh ..at least when it comes to flashlights...which is what this channel ia about 😀
It's funny, Maglite was so amazing in the 90s. I kept a 6-cell in my car, and carried a 4-cell in the job I had in 1999 where I worked overnight and had to do a facility walk-through each shift. I spent a fair bit on D cells in those days.
Duracell and energizer are pretty overpriced. My go to is Panasonic platinum power alkaline. I've used them for a decade and they never leak. I have platinum d cell batteries in a maglite that are 9 years old, half discharged, in the heat cycles year round, and they look brand new still.
Don't depend on one type of fire starter. I like to carry a Bit lighter of a knockoff, a Ferro rod, storm proof matches, Fresnel magnifier, gotten balls with vasoline, a small pencil sharpener, dryer lint (non-synthetic material). Yeah, sounds like overkill. What you choose to start a fire with may depend on the conditions you are in.
Logic is simple and clear, as is mathematics. But not for everyone. But when it comes to batteries, not everything is as rosy as we would like. A few years ago I bought a bunch of 1.6V AAA and AA batteries. They were interesting in that they were suitable both for old photo cameras that needed high voltage, not 1.2V, and for remote controls. A universal solution, better and cheaper than alkaline batteries. And because I was very poor, I didn't buy the branded ones, but Chinese ones called PKCELL. I even praised them a lot when he met a friend. But... instead of ~1000 cycles, they lost their capacity very quickly (after maybe 20-30 cycles or so). Even though I charged them with their own charger... Now I have bought a Lithium AAA. Only 4 so far. They are not 1.2 or 1.6 but 1.5V. They have protection and the peculiarity that they have to be charged with a special charger because the input needs 4.2V. So far, the impressions are also ambiguous, because 2 nuances immediately stood out: in the photo, there were batteries with a type-C hole, and they even came with a cable for it, but WITHOUT such a hole, and secondly, 1 out of 4 lost its capacity in the same way (to zero!) after the very first charge. I assume this is due to the quality... The remaining 3 are doing fine so far. But I'm not really hoping for 1000 cycles. Only the low price made me buy them.
1:56 - $0.00325 is not less than a quarter of a cent (less than a third though). I like the charts, but testing a single AA at 2A discharge is a bit extreme. I have never seen a AA-powered device that consumes 2A, nor have I seen a discharge chart from a battery manufacturer using 2A as the test load. The hypothetical example of charging once a week for 19 years isn't likely to even be a possibility as the batteries will have very degraded capacity after only 10 years and probably won't function at all at 19 years. The batteries will degrade simply from calendar aging even if charged only once a year. That said, I do agree that rechargeables are the best choice for almost every application.
The point of the segment at 6min mark was to show that the batteries did not meaningfully degrade over the course of 9 years of usage. I can't say that they will or won't last a full 19 years, it's a stretch, and I assume the capacity would be greatly reduced by that point - but the lifespan is rated in charge cycles and not years. I have heard of these cells lasting well over a decade with no apparent performance difference.
The biggest reason alkaline batteries are still being bought today is mainly because they're being overtly bundled with electronic devices. That bundling process is enough to convince those unable or unwilling to discern the details in this video to never purchase anything involving alkaline batteries again.
I run Eneloops in my Fenix TK41 to get max output, I tried it with regular Duracell's and the output was about 50 percent. They work good in my Sunwayman D40A as well. Come to think of it I only use Eneloops or Duraloops in all of my AA light regardless of cell capacity, they rock.
Im using ni-mh only in a RC car. A pack of AA Varta and my Fenix HP16R are unbeatable. Ni-Mh are useless outside where you cant recharge them, plus you cant throw them away. In the city they still arent good, being only 1.2V For money saving they work but you need a good quality charger, too. They are best when you depleat them fast, as in RC toys.
I'm thinking on picking up these. 1.5 volt. POWXS 3500mWh High Power Rechargeable Lithium AA Batteries with Charger, Ultra Long Lasting 1.5V Lithium Batteries AA 8 Pack and Universal AA Battery Charger
Not entirely true! This only applies to relatively high output current. Some devices (mostly low power devices) doesn't like NiMH at all as the devices have high cut off voltages and low current draw which isn't NiMH forte at all. Your graph shows the best case for NiMH and the worst case for alkalines, a high output current. When output current is low Alkalines are better because they work better with high cut off voltages and the voltage doesn't drop off as fast as in alkalines. Many low power devices cut of at 1.1-1.2V. I always use alkalines in remotes, clocks and similar devices. For other devices that needs new batteries more often i use NiMH. In my remotes alkalines last at least 5 times longer than NiMH because of much lower voltage drop on low currents.
This is a superb video, but you dismiss one of the top complaints of NiMH; long-term storage. People don't have the patience to recharge a dead cell; they want power *now* . Therefore, we have deal with that issue head-on. Pretty much any NiMH AA with a capacity around 2000mAh is likely to be low-self-discharge, but we should *test* an array of products to see their actual storage profiles. This would require a test lasting up to 2 years, unfortunately :(. It might be difficult to extract multiple, "intermediate" videos from such a test, but perhaps that's a different discussion. I personally have no issue with self-discharge and have used NiMH in 95% of applications for 15-20 years (increased usage as low-self-discharge was introduced), but normal people *hate* the idea of pulling partially flat cells from a drawer. They want fresh batteries right this moment and, in my experience, never place dead cells into rechargers until they need to use them. This makes them angry and they go back to alkalines, or *worse* , heavy duties. People are *bad* at recharging AA/AAA cells, yet they love their rechargeable power tools, so I don't entirely understand the psychology. Heavy Duty batteries are a whole different issue and they probably deserved to be mentioned in this video as many people fail to understand just how bad they are. Heavy Duties might even make Duracell look like a good deal.
Thank you. There's a lot to say about this, but I largely gave up trying to convince people :(. My friends and family all returned to buying Duracells after losing or throwing away their NiMH batteries. I've used the same pair of Eneloops in my daily shaver (AA travel type) since 2009 and they still have ~75% of their capacity. I only use alkalines for very specific purposes, such as in smoke detectors. Yes, even that's a questionable use of alkalines, but that's another topic ;). For a long time I was confused about why people would keep buying the most expensive batteries available, Duracell, yet refuse to buy the most expensive NiMH available, Eneloop, and otherwise tend to buy generic brands even when they sacrifice quality and performance. Eventually, I came to accept that most humans are not built like me; most people are highly influenced by advertising :(. Duracell dominates because they spend the most on advertising and humans are far more gullible than they like to admit. Eneloop is a similar "premium" brand that has high profit margins, so perhaps they should run Super Bowl ads as well. Duracell *did* sell NiMH cells for awhile and at first they were rewrapped Eneloops, but they switched to their own supplier and I'm unsure if they are even available. Duracell might claim that their NiMH products failed in the marketplace, but that would be deceptive, since they never ran multi-million-dollar ad campaigns for their NiMH products. Why? Because NiMH would make them a lot less money, of course, and some of that math is made obvious in this video. This is why I don't really care about Eneloop being overpriced. No, I don't buy Pros or Maxes or whatever, but even the most profitable Eneloops are still cheaper than Duracells, yet most people I know *still* buy Duracells even after I politely begged them not to 20 years ago :(. They waste hundreds of dollars per year on Duracells, yet think Eneloops are expensive? That's irrational and I think it stems directly from the marketing budgets of Duracell and Energizer.
Wow. I thought I knew a lot about rechargeable batteries (and I do, but mostly the larger ones used in RE), but I didn't realize how good NiMH has gotten. My first thought when starting the video was, why not use NMC with a built-in buck converter (they've gotten really cheap and efficient now) to maintain exactly the voltage you want, have a higher energy density, and a better cycle life? But, even though I use NiMH, I didn't realize it has a better output profile than alkaline _on the first cycle!_ and it's now available with similar cycling performance to NMC, so the extra electronics NMC needs to work at 1.2-1.5V just isn't necessary. -Having said that, NMC (and LiFePO4, which has a flatter voltage curve and better cycle life, albeit ~30% lower energy density) still maintains its charge much better on the shelf, so the sooner we convert all our small electronics to work at 3.2 or 3.7V, the better. But that's going to be a long time yet, and until then...- I _love_ it when I learn something I had no idea I was ignorant about! Edit: After following your link and reading about the Eneloop cells, I realized they have a 10-yr shelf life, so what I said above in the 3rd paragraph can be discounted. I think you should stress this more in your video.
Be interested in you having a look at Ikea rechargeables... they seem to come from from the same plant in Japan as Enerloops and have the same stats... I think they're the same product.
Super happy you did this test. It confirm my suspicions and i love to see battery tests on ikea, amazon, and eneloop …especially for high output 2400+ mah loads. I use them on photoshoots so batteries are a big deal for me. Just subscribed. Keep up the good work.
Interesting video, I think I might skew my battery usage more towards rechargeables. Two things you didn't factor in: the cost of a charger and the cost of electricity to charge the batteries. I know it wouldn't change the lifetime comparison too much, but would still be very interesting to see the numbers.
I thought about adressing chargers, but left it out of the video because the long-term cost is neglibible and I didn't want to take a big detour to discuss the best chargers. Cost of electricity wasn't something I considered though, that's definitely an interesting part of the equation! I think I'm going to put together a written post with more detail on a lot of this stuff and will probably address that there
