I use the tenergy 18650 with pcb (protection coating something) and they work just fine, I would not recomend the tenergy rcr123a's as they are doing nothing but pissing me off at the moment. they keep shutting off after 5 seconds. they shut off because they get hot and they wont work again for about 5 minutes. I only get one good drag off of them
hyerdeficit --
I don't want to make any undue presumptions about your understanding of such batteries... so my comments here aren't necessarily aimed at you in particular. Also..others before me have covered the following very well elsewhere. Nevertheless... it's important enough to repeat it even despite the risk of redundancy.
The acronym
pcb you previously mentioned generally refers to the term "
printed_circuit_board".
Batteries that are "protected" ...are those that have been outfitted with a small electronic circuit (on a very small circular circuit board) which is almost always situated at the base of the cell ( this is the (-) electrode of the battery).
If one takes a moment to inspect a 'protected' battery closely, or especially if you have the opportunity to visually compare a 'protected' cell with a non-protected one...you will notice a small annular indentation running around the bottom of the cell just underneath the outer plastic shrink-wrap sleeve. This circular indentation is the outward visual evidence that a thin pcb (as mentioned) is affixed to the battery.
These protection circuits serve (variously) to shut down the flow of electrical current either to, or from, the cell whenever the existing charge (aka: voltage) in the battery has reached critical upper and lower preset limits (as during charging & discharging cycles respectively). In addition, there is also at least one another mechanism *sometimes* employed by certain battery manufacturers which is designed to help protect against excessive thermal conditions (overheating).
Lithium-chemistry batteries are great modern-day devices. But they are also capable of rather rude behavior (i.e. fire or explosion) if their usage is not kept within certain constraints. This means they must not be allowed to exceed certain (upper & lower) charge-level states - and electrical current flow demands must always be restricted to stay within important operating limits.
From your description of the behavior of the rcr123a batteries you mentioned (getting hot and shutting off for a period of time)....
I would venture a guess that the batteries are being loaded too heavily. This means they are being prompted to deliver a higher rate of current-flow than what they are intended to provide. It sounds to me like there's a "thermal-shutdown" threshold that's being exceeded..and thus they are only delivering energy for a few seconds while also rapid heating up. When, even after only a few seconds, they get hot enough... they 'internally' shut down and disconnect themselves from the electrical load (hopefully that is!).
Everyone should take note and keep in mind however that any battery which is supposedly 'protected' with pcb's & thermal shutdown mechanisms cannot be absolutely guaranteed to behave properly. The protection measures employed are not 100% fail-safe. They have been known, even if only occasionally to NOT perform properly.
Word to the wise [for you and everyone else out there!] -- I would certainly recommend that you not keep subjecting any battery (of any size or kind) that exhibits this type of behavior.... to whatever conditions-of-use (or attempted use) which cause them to act that way. In my opinion... continuing to do so - is just asking for trouble.
sincerely,
fisch
