I like to place battery driven sensor lights around my apartment, so that I don't need to go for light switches everywhere. Those normaly run on 3 AAA batteries, but it makes more sense to use these 18650 lithium cells I have laying around, that got nothing to do. Reqired them, works great and far longer than with cadmium batteries. However I realized from the beginning, that these lights, would drain the batteries. Which is why I only use my shitty cells for those. The good thing is, approximately around 3V, the sensor light won't stay off but constantly turn on even without movement, so you know when to change the battery. BUT: The brightness goes down within a few hours so far, that you simply don't recognize the barely shining light until it's dark, so the battery may run far below 3V. I may have totured one or two of my cells this way and they have very little capacity left. General message: It's good to have a bit of knowledge about lithium cells, since they are everywhere. Not discharging too much, and preferably not running it to their upper and lower limits all the time to keep them healthy (I usually try to keep my phone charged between 30% and 70%). And don't use fast charging with any device, if you are not in a hurry. Charging your battery pretty much works like your stomach. If you consumed every meal in a high speed fashion, you would not feel good very soon. Same goes for the voltage rates, you would like your stomach to be "relaxed", it's not very good to drain your body until you are almost starving of hunger and to then always eat as much as you possibly can. You don't die of it, but it's not healthy, as is going all the way to 0% and 100% with a battery all the time not healthy for it.
I never thought of that but i guess 18650 cells generally have no circuit to prevent them from running below 3 volts like some battery packs will in a device... in that scenario you gotta really worry about dipping below that then I imagine
@@OGmolton1 Certainly, I have a charger, that shows me the volts, and using 18650s in those lights can drain them below 3V. But that is why I said, I only use my shitty cells in those lights. Highly discharging causes no other problems but potentially lowering the capacity of the cell. And since those cells were not very good ones anyway, no need to go easy with them. But still, even bad 18650s last a lot longer than AAAs.
I like to place battery driven sensor lights around my apartment, so that I don't need to go for light switches everywhere. Those normaly run on 3 AAA batteries, but it makes more sense to use these 18650 lithium cells I have laying around, that got nothing to do. Reqired them, works great and far longer than with cadmium batteries.
However I realized from the beginning, that these lights, would drain the batteries. Which is why I only use my shitty cells for those. The good thing is, approximately around 3V, the sensor light won't stay off but constantly turn on even without movement, so you know when to change the battery. BUT: The brightness goes down within a few hours so far, that you simply don't recognize the barely shining light until it's dark, so the battery may run far below 3V. I may have totured one or two of my cells this way and they have very little capacity left.
General message: It's good to have a bit of knowledge about lithium cells, since they are everywhere. Not discharging too much, and preferably not running it to their upper and lower limits all the time to keep them healthy (I usually try to keep my phone charged between 30% and 70%). And don't use fast charging with any device, if you are not in a hurry. Charging your battery pretty much works like your stomach. If you consumed every meal in a high speed fashion, you would not feel good very soon. Same goes for the voltage rates, you would like your stomach to be "relaxed", it's not very good to drain your body until you are almost starving of hunger and to then always eat as much as you possibly can. You don't die of it, but it's not healthy, as is going all the way to 0% and 100% with a battery all the time not healthy for it.
I never thought of that but i guess 18650 cells generally have no circuit to prevent them from running below 3 volts like some battery packs will in a device... in that scenario you gotta really worry about dipping below that then I imagine
@@OGmolton1 Certainly, I have a charger, that shows me the volts, and using 18650s in those lights can drain them below 3V. But that is why I said, I only use my shitty cells in those lights. Highly discharging causes no other problems but potentially lowering the capacity of the cell. And since those cells were not very good ones anyway, no need to go easy with them.
But still, even bad 18650s last a lot longer than AAAs.