Looking for advice on canister batteries

[PfcAJ]

I own a bunch of canisters and guys in my peer group own a bunch of canisters.

Lithium packs are the way to go. Light Monkey makes good packs. The cheaper ones from Battery Space work but its hit or miss with quality. I had two packs fail on the SAME DIVE from battery space, but have since had good luck. I think I got a bad back of cells in those two problem packs as they were built at about the same time.

The burn time does degrade with time, but its not a big deal for most applications.

If you're going to be doing a bunch of traveling the lithium packs might give you a hard time. Even the baby ones are close to the limit. If you *need* the burn time, you just might be saddled with using nickel packs. Some manufacturers have developed work arounds but it all seems a little suspect to me.

I'm not a fan of using any sort of controller between me and my vest. I want it either ON or OFF. The less things I have to worry about breaking the better, imo. E/O cords are cool because you can swap cans and accessories as needed.

 

[guruboy]

You can get a custom NiMH pack made locally (and usually cheaper than onljne). Harder to find a shop that will do Li-Ion.

 

[fmerkel]

As indicated, rechargeable packs of ANY sort are susceptible to both the initial quality of the cells, followed by the component assembly, then to the care. Li-on had a distinct advantage in power:weight ratio. OTOH, they are more susceptible to exaggerated capacity/performance marketing, AND don't take as well to abuse. You can take a great pack, hammer it a few times and pretty much trash it. NiMh has a....tiny bit....more ability to handle a 'stupid' on the end of the light, but it can be trashed too.

The components are not unimportant, not just the cells, which are critical. If you put in a lousy protection circuit, it's like putting a drunk cop at a rush hour intersection.....something bad is going to happen. Trouble is, you simply don't know and can't find out if the damn PCB (protection circuit board) is any good, or probably even what it is. I've seen a number of them from major manufacturers allow the cells to go WAY out of balance, effectively crippling the pack. MOST do NOT balance the pack, they merely control the discharge and charge limits.

Then the chargers. I hate to even go there. Most of the chargers even from a good manufacturer are pretty low end. They don't make them. They just buy the and re-brand them most of the time. They don't tell you squat. Charging is just a light that's red, then turns green, beyond that you have no clue what's going on. Personally I think that's kind of pathetic. And they charge you up the wazoo for that. It's like playing whack-a-mole in the dark.

I put together a 2s4p (2 series, 4 parallel) pack (8 cells of 18650's) out of laptop pulls WITH a balance tap. Buy that on line, probably $100-150 with no balance capability. Cost maybe $10 and my time to solder it together. When I charge it with my hobby charger I know EXACTLY what EACH cell is doing.
I don't have a have voltage cut-off so I'm responsible for that.

I've seen main brand li-on packs for canister lights selling for $200 off their website. EXACTLY the same pack could be purchased from Tenergy for $50. I've taken them apart. The problem, and it's a big problem, is knowing what you are getting into. It's not a weekend study. Take a lot of digging.

 

[guruboy]

You solder your own Li-Ion? Bold!

 

[high/baric]

mine is still going after over 6 years. It all depends on if the cells used are high quality and how well you take care of them. Remember, the technology is exactly the same as that in your laptop and cell phone batteries.

Actually, that it is the same technology that's used in my mobile devices is what got me a bit worried In all fairness though, the abuse a mobile phone battery takes in daily use is in another order of magnitude that I would expect a diving light battery to take in normal use. HID still seems like the standard among serious cave divers here (better the devil you know or for whatever reason), but I personally find the arguments made for LEDs more compelling. Sure it's nice to be able to widen the beam for other purposes like shooting video, but I have a dedicated set for that. UWLD do also seem to have high quality LED solutions, but are not available here, so unfortunately that's not an option to me.

If you're going to be doing a bunch of traveling the lithium packs might give you a hard time. Even the baby ones are close to the limit..

It's an important point, especially as many companies seem to have limits on total capacity of batteries carried with you. Right now I don't think I'm going to be using this light abroad for a while, as my U/W camera setup has plenty of light for the kind of diving I usually do in the tropics.

Thanks for all the feedback so far!

 

[tbone1004]

UWLD has a distribution and service center in Europe. Can buy direct from their website and they'll likely ship from the Netherlands
Welkom bij duikcentrum De Tuimelaar

all of their lights are kept under the minimum for UN38.3, and unlike Light Monkey, do not have a sketchy AF work around to let them fly. The total amount of lithium in the canister is under the limit, no isolation required which is what has bitten people already with the Light Monkey canisters. The UWLD's are also about 30% more efficient than the Light Monkeys so while the biggest canister is still legal to fly, the smaller ones offer a significant amount of burn time.

If you haven't bought a heated vest, I would recommend purchasing one from Exo2 as they are naturally current limiting, and unlike every other vest out there now, is damage tolerant since it uses carbon impregnated rubber for the panels instead of woven carbon fiber that is very brittle. You can take a knife and hack up the exo2 panels and they'll still work fine, no other mfg can claim that.

 

[high/baric]

UWLD has a distribution and service center in Europe. Can buy direct from their website and they'll likely ship from the Netherlands
Welkom bij duikcentrum De Tuimelaar

Hey, thanks for the info! Unfortunately ordering a battery from NL would make warranty repairs almost impossible, but it's an option to consider for sure.

 

[tbone1004]

where is here?

 

[high/baric]

Finland. The national post service refuses to carry batteries abroad, which leaves only courier companies. I once tried to ship a damaged Kindle e-book reader to central Europe for repairs and the cheapest offer from courier companies was about 150€ for the delivery. Buying a new Kindle and shipping it from central Europe ended up being the cheaper option. I can only imagine what they would ask for a 2-3kg bulky battery.

 

[tbone1004]

if that is the case, I'd say find someone local or look at potentially DIYing if you're concerned about any warranty issues. That, or find a good excuse to go to the netherlands for a weekend....