Rc123a tenergy batts!!

[quovadis]

I complained about these 3 volt batteries on the Puresmoker forum and now that i have multiple PV'S that use 6 volts, I want to complain about them again.

This is what happens :

Both 3 volt batteries are fully charged. The PV works wonderful for about 20 minutes or so.
Then Vapor suddenly drops.

I always find one of the two batteries has lost it's charge and not the other.
It does this on all the PV's (Chuck, prodigy, silver bullet).

The dilemma is that these batteries are marked with a number (i rotate 16 of these batteries).

The one out of the two that loses it's charge will next time round not lose it's charge, but the other one will.

At first, i thought that the batteries that lose their charge quickly were bad..
so i eliminated them.

Now i am starting to see a pattern emerging...one of the two only loses it's charge...when that happens vapor drops to zero, since one battery only is not sufficient to power the 801 atty efficiently.

I have never had the situation where i vape for an hour, and both the batteries are equally used up.

One will read 3.3 volts and the other 2.4 or lower.

Has anyone else experienced this ?

 

[nbaagain]

I have multiple brand CR123s and CR2s and it happens to all of them. I don't think it's limited to just the Tenergys. Perhaps they aren't designed to be "stacked" or in a "series" or whatever. I don't know the jargon and don't think there's a device other than an PV that uses 2 of them in such a fashion. It is a minor inconvenience to me though and just a reminder to bring enough batteries. At home I use a PT and I have no worries.

 

[highping]

Quo, just curious.. is it always the batt on the bottom (or top)? Does it make any difference if you swap positions half way through? I'm just wondering if it's the increased contact of one verses the other (ie bottom one has better contact with the spring than the top one has with the atty adapter). Although, it shouldn't really matter, as every electron that moves through one has to move through the other.
Ponderous really

On another note: I'm getting my chuck soon. (should ship out monday) and was thinking about trying high voltage at some point. Are you saying that I will only get an hour at 6V?

 

[quovadis]

Quo, just curious.. is it always the batt on the bottom (or top)? Does it make any difference if you swap positions half way through? I'm just wondering if it's the increased contact of one verses the other (ie bottom one has better contact with the spring than the top one has with the atty adapter). Although, it shouldn't really matter, as every electron that moves through one has to move through the other.
Ponderous really

On another note: I'm getting my chuck soon. (should ship out monday) and was thinking about trying high voltage at some point. Are you saying that I will only get an hour at 6V?

That's a damned good point.
I think the bottom.
I never thought of checking that.

I never get an hour.
One battery drains way before that.

At first i thought it was the tenergy blue 950 Mah batts only ...
Now i have a sneaking suspicion that it's all of them.

The one that discharges is always around 2.4 volts when measured. The other still reads 3.3v.

From now on i shall check if top or bottom..

One thing is for sure ...it's doing this on 2 chucks , 2 prodigies, one silver bullet...
5 pv's have same results ..

so it has to be a battery problem...

One other thing i have noticed it that plenty of vapor...suddenly goes to zero vapor when this happens...

This means the battery suddenly loses it's voltage.

 

[billyboy689]

i dont know if this may relate to the op's problem but it helped out someone else

as tenergy batts seem to be the choice for people in the us i will post this link here and then past an important paragraph from the site relating to the way these wonderful hitech batteries regulate thier power delivery , which seems to conflict with some mods

Tenergy RCR123A 3.0V 900mAh Rechargeable Li-Ion Battery (as low as) $3.99 ea!#

Quote from site
"For SureFire and other brands of incandescent(halogen, kyrpton, zenon, etc) flashlights under 7.2V we do not recommend this setup. We typically do NOT recommend these for any bulb flashlights - you use them at your own risk in these types of devices despite the voltage regulation at it takes the voltage regulation ~12 milliseconds to activate. They work GREAT for LED flashlights"

just putting this up as most mods behave like a bulb flashlight rather than an led type , so this can have an impact on performance/power regulation

 

[ski]

I've got the Tenergy RCR123A 3.0v 900 mAh, using in a FogLog (i guess the precursor to the Chuck). I haven't experienced this problem. I do find that one battery drains a little more than the other, but I alternate between the FogLog and a nicostick all day long and charge the batteries overnight. I've been alternating between 2 sets of the Tenergy's for the past 2 weeks, no issues. One thing I have noticed a couple of times is that one battery will need a bit more charging in the morning before I start using it. If you test your batteries w/ a meter right off the charge do they both read the same?

 

[quovadis]

I've got the Tenergy RCR123A 3.0v 900 mAh, using in a FogLog (i guess the precursor to the Chuck). I haven't experienced this problem. I do find that one battery drains a little more than the other, but I alternate between the FogLog and a nicostick all day long and charge the batteries overnight. I've been alternating between 2 sets of the Tenergy's for the past 2 weeks, no issues. One thing I have noticed a couple of times is that one battery will need a bit more charging in the morning before I start using it. If you test your batteries w/ a meter right off the charge do they both read the same?

I have about 16 yellow 750Mah and 6 blue 950 mah

I noticed the blue's initial charge is higher than the yellow ones. The blue may read 3.7 volts when fully charged.

The blue ones, when this happens ...read 0.00 volts.

The blue ones have an additional circuit that trips them and they read 0.00.

same thing...

No ..the blue batts never read exactly the same when fully charged...one may be 3.4v and the other 3.6 v..

The yellow ones same thing one may read 3.2 v and the other 3.37 v


What am i doing different ???

The charger?? let me post pictures of the charger.

 

[quovadis]

Are there any other brand 3 volt rechargeable batteries we can use?

 

[quovadis]

I also have a whole bunch of 3.7 volts unprotected.
let me try those...
I will be vaping at 8 volts though...a bit nasty

 

[BARENETTED]

Quo,

WOW! Very interesting. I am both happy and ...... to see your post.

I have a few mods.

Silver Bullet using one 18500 - no problems at all(yet).

ZI Moshi LV - uses 2 CR2 3.0v. For the first couple of weeks it was fine.
I have the same exact problem with CR2s as you describe while using the CR123s. I thought - how could 8 batteries have gone bad in less than 2 months? I ordered 4 more which just arrived last week. Guess what? Same problem after only 4 days! Strangely, the vapor does not just gradually drop off, it just stops dead. I thought the problem with my CR2s was that they were unprotected. However, (and I did post this in another thread) I was unable to find a protected version of the CR2 and asked if anyone else was successful in finding them. The CR2 does not seem like it is very popular. From day one of vaping, like you, when I get batteries for my pipe, cigar, JS, mods, etc. I mark a number and date on them with a Sharpie marker, but I never made note of which went in first, when using this mod, which was the only one that used 2 batteries.

Chuck - arrived on Friday. It is pretty, but I have not been able to use it since the batteries I ordered for it have not arrived yet. I ordered 6 Tenergy CR2's and right now I am really peeved to think that I am going to have the same problem.

Any 'battery heads' in here that have an educated opinion????

 

[quovadis]

Ok
well at least now we are sure there is a problem.
I was blaming the prodigy but now i know it's not the prodigy since it happens on all pv's.

We know it's not a bad battery causing this because all batteries do this.

Ok ...look at what i have done...NOT PRETTY ...but i want to eliminate the possibility of the spring causing this.

Not pretty to look at...my soldering skills are close to pathetic.

 

[LaterSkater]

I was having the same problem. It turned out to be the charger in my case. One side of the charger was not making contact. I read in a thread here somewhere to put a straw under the negative leads on the charger to insure connection. It seems to have worked for me.

 

[quovadis]

No it can't be the charger...because both batteries measure full on the multimeter before they go into the PV.
I would see if the charger was not charging them. I have a multimeter.

 

[doots]

hmm. I havent seen this with the 123a battys but havent used them long.

I also use CR2s and havent had that problem with them.

CR2s do not frighten me to use. Theres way to much fear about these batteries IMO.

I'll let you know if I explode.. lol

 

[quovadis]

I have not used CR2 yet
is there a USA source for these?
They need to be rechargeable though.

 

[jsimmang]

ill send ther link when i get back home. yes there is place i think for th cr2s

 

[BARENETTED]

Quo - right - it is not the charger - batts come out fine - it is 5 min later that they are not fine - its like something is either eating them up or they are not holding the charge. Cheap chinese crap!.

 

[a2dcovert]

My suggestion at this point would be to try and segregate the batteries that go flat quickly. Assume at this time that you have several bad batteries. Try to see if you can get 1 or 2 pair that work through a whole cycle normally. Running batteries in series or parallel it is very important to pair batteries that are closely matched. It is a possibility that one bad battery can cause another to fail if it goes flat abnormally.

So try and isolate some "bad" batteries to see if you can find a good pair.

Kevin

 

[BARENETTED]

A2D - great idea - but already tried it. One night my brother came over and we checked the voltage on all my CR2 batteries. - one good - one bad etc.
I took 2 that tested good (that were previously not paired together) and after 20 minutes - goodbye vapor. WTH????????

I am frustrated.

 

[quovadis]

Yes i agree..
the problem is that next time around the first one that failed will not fail.

I just tried some purple 3.7 volts, and they lasted for a while before one dropped to 2.5 volts, the other dropped to 3.3 volts

Bugger this...it's driving me crazy!!!

I have 2 types of 3 volt batteries and two other types of 3.7 volts (same size)...
same problem ...