Eneloops in EDC and D cell maglite

[TwiceFuzed]

I got my adapters in the mail today, they seem to be good quality and the batteries fit well and are easy to remove. My maglites run great on them so far. We'll see how the AA's do as far as runtime goes. I like the adapters so far. I have the amazon basics in one light and my old rayovac rechargeables (1350 mah, iirc) in the other. I plan to use the eneloops in one of the lights, but I thought I'd see how these do first.

 

[Up All Night]

Thanks for posting your take on the adapters TF. I've been looking at the very same product to keep a couple of 3 D cell rebel led mags at the ready.
Time to hit the buy button.

 

[TwiceFuzed]

Thanks for posting your take on the adapters TF. I've been looking at the very same product to keep a couple of 3 D cell rebel led mags at the ready.
Time to hit the buy button.

No problem, I'm using my maglite with the amazon basics in it right now at 14°F with no issues. The seller I linked above has 4 and 12 packs of the adapters, I believe. They took a couple weeks to get here though. I ordered on Dec 31 and received them today, January 13th. I think the package shipped from Nevada, I'd have to double check that though.

 

[GasganoFJ60]

I ordered a bulk set of the 3xAA adapters from ebay. Pretty cheap. Them seem decent enough in quality and look the same as the ones in various links posted in this thread. I just got in a whole set of eneloops and I plan on powering my trusty old 3D mag, an ML300 3d and my 6D Mag all with the adapters and eneloops.

Edit:Forgot to ask

If I have a charger than can do D-cells, is it possible to charge the loaded D-Cell adapters? Charge/cycle/breakin/discharge 12 eneloop cellls at a time?

 

[TwiceFuzed]

I ordered a bulk set of the 3xAA adapters from ebay. Pretty cheap. Them seem decent enough in quality and look the same as the ones in various links posted in this thread. I just got in a whole set of eneloops and I plan on powering my trusty old 3D mag, an ML300 3d and my 6D Mag all with the adapters and eneloops.

Edit:Forgot to ask

If I have a charger than can do D-cells, is it possible to charge the loaded D-Cell adapters? Charge/cycle/breakin/discharge 12 eneloop cellls at a time?

I think you should be able to. From what I've read the D cell eneloops that you used to be able to get were 3AA eneloops in a D cell size case.
That said, I'd say that it is probably better for the individual cells to charge them individually, they won't all peak and finish charging at the same time in parallel in an adapter. I think they will all be more evenly charged and balanced if you remove them from the adapters and charge them by themselves. Maybe someone with a better answer will chime in.

 

[Up All Night]

I would advise against using the adapters for anything other than powering your lights. You will want to group your AA batteries by capacity and check how evenly/unevenly they discharge during a partial run in your intended device.

 

[GasganoFJ60]

Gotya. Thanks

 

[iamlucky13]

I got my adapters in the mail today, they seem to be good quality and the batteries fit well and are easy to remove. My maglites run great on them so far. We'll see how the AA's do as far as runtime goes. I like the adapters so far. I have the amazon basics in one light and my old rayovac rechargeables (1350 mah, iirc) in the other. I plan to use the eneloops in one of the lights, but I thought I'd see how these do first.

I just have the 1xAA D-sized adapters, and those actually run my old 2-D incandescent Maglite just fine, too. I measured ~600 mA at the tailcap at the as-packaged voltage, so Eneloops should run in the ballpark of 3 hours.

Because of the voltage sag under load in alkalines, D-cells might not actually do much better before they start seeming dim.

A set of 3xAA adapters should outperform alkaline D-cells.

 

[TwiceFuzed]

I haven't actually measured the current draw from my maglites, but if they have a 3W LED running at 2.4 volts, that would be pulling 1.25 amps.

6AH at 1.25 amps would give you ~4.8 hours of runtime on 6 eneloops. I don't think my maglites are the 3W LED, so I should get more runtime than that. On alkaline batteries they are rated at 9h15m for the 114 lumen version, which is what I think mine are.

They have the Luxeon Rebel 090 LED if anybody has the specs for that LED?

 

[TwiceFuzed]

I ordered a bulk set of the 3xAA adapters from ebay. Pretty cheap. Them seem decent enough in quality and look the same as the ones in various links posted in this thread. I just got in a whole set of eneloops and I plan on powering my trusty old 3D mag, an ML300 3d and my 6D Mag all with the adapters and eneloops.

Edit:Forgot to ask

If I have a charger than can do D-cells, is it possible to charge the loaded D-Cell adapters? Charge/cycle/breakin/discharge 12 eneloop cellls at a time?

I asked HKJ about charging the batteries in parallel in the adapters and he said that it should be ok to do that as long as the batteries were the same capacity and wear state. If you use two or three new (same age and capacity) batteries in an adapter, you want to make sure and always charge and discharge those batteries together, otherwise the batteries will charge and discharge at different rates and the charger will not be able to as accurately detect when the batteries have finished charging.

As far as I can tell it should be ok to charge them in the adapters, but I would keep an eye on them while charging, especially for the first few charges.

 

[TwiceFuzed]

I'm on my second recharge (cycle) in the 2D maglite with the amazon basics in it. I used it for about an hour tonight and checked the resting voltage of the batteries (in parallel inside the adapters) when I got home. They are at just over 1.35V, it's been about 2 or 3 days since I charged them, so they appear to be self discharging slowly and the light isn't draining them quickly.
I found a video on YouTube of a guy modding an LED maglite and he measured the current draw with alkaline batteries and a lithium ion battery, the light was pulling about 1 amp from the fresh alkaline batteries and about 660 ma from them lithium battery.
I would assume that the light would pull more amperage from a lower voltage nimh battery based on that observation. He also measured the lumen output and saw no difference between the li-ion and alkaline batteries, so the driver regulates the output as long as the batteries can sustain the current draw.

If you look at an alkaline battery's spec sheet, like this one:
http://data.energizer.com/pdfs/e95.pdf
You'll see that at 1 amp, an alkaline battery would be unlikely to be able to supply much over 6-7,000 mah, plus as the voltage drops, I would assume that an alkaline would be able to supply less and less current, hence the diminishing brightness as the alkaline depletes.

I don't know what generation of maglite the guy had, some of the newer ones have more powerful LEDs than my maglites, so it is possible that my maglites draw less current than the light he was testing. I tried to test the current draw, but couldn't get my light to light up with my probes, I guess they couldn't carry the load, or I didn't have good contact to the flashlight body, I may cut some wires to use instead of my probes and try again when I have time.

All in all, I'm pleased with the adapters and the AA batteries performance in my 2D maglites so far. I think these 2,000 mah batteries will get close to the runtime of standard alkaline batteries, and high capacity (2,400-2,500mah) nimh cells may actually outperform the alkaline cells, at the expense of less charge cycles, of course.

 

[TwiceFuzed]

My blue maglite, the one I've been using the amazon basics in, is pulling 1.52-1.53 amps continually from 6 AA batteries in the 3AA to D adapters.
My black maglite is pulling up to 1.4 amps to start the LED then it quickly falls to around 0.8 amps, I saw as low as 0.76 amps once. The batteries used (amazon basics 2,000 mah, charged last night) had a resting voltage of 2.85 volts (tested by placing adapters together in series) when I started testing. The same batteries were used in both lights. I also tried two additional sets (6AA each) of batteries, both with resting voltages of around 2.6 volts, the results were similar.
I put an 18650 in the blue maglite with a resting voltage of 4.09 volts, the light was drawing 0.90-0.95 amps from the 18650. The 18650 I used was a poor quality cell with very little capacity, after a few seconds the current jumped to about1.5 amps and then the light shut off, I assume the cells protection circuit stopped the battery from over discharging. I pulled the battery out and it had a voltage of ~3.8 volts, but was recovering some slowly.