14500 vs AA: Are 14500 the prefect EDC light battery?

For many years I used a 1XCR123A light of some kind or another as my EDC light. 4Sevens, Fenix, lately Eagletac D25C. I like how bright they are but I don’t like how those batteries aren’t nearly as common as AA or AAA. From a survivalist perspective, commonality and availability is an important factor. You never know when you’ll need to improvise or make do with whatever you come across… and you’re far more likely to come across AA and AAA than R123As. Still, given the different modes flashlights have these days and that they can go for days at a time on moonlight mode I was still ok with that. Keep an eye on the batteries, replace when needed and don’t wait until they are completely dead.
The thing is, with LED technology getting better every year, I started carrying around 1xAA EDC lights, lately the Thrunite T10T, which is a nice, sleek titanium light. At 169 lumens its bright enough but I found myself missing the extra power of the Lithium batteries. After a bit of reading around in candlepowerforum and checking that the T10T could take it, I went ahead and got a couple 14500 lithium ion batteries (basically the same form factor as AA, but in li-ion).
Man! Those are nice. You visible get more lumens out of it (about 250 lumens), its rechargable so you dont waste money on batteries and if needed you can go ahead and use common AA found everywhere.
This works great for EDC since you can give a quick charge every few weeks to keep your 14500 in good shape. Maximum brightness, no more dead batteries all of a sudden, making it an ideal solution for having both brightness and battery commonality. Best of both worlds kind of situation.

Here you have a comparion of two 1xAA lights, Sunwayman Dolphin C15A on the left with a AA Duracel Primary, and the Thrunite T10T with a 14500 TrustFire on the right. When using Duracel AA, both are about the same brightness, so here you can clearly see the difference.

FerFAL

Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”.

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• Anonymous

  I’ve recently started using the single AA/14500 flashlights for EDC. Ordered a few different ones from Ebay to compare. My findings/opinion so far. For $3- $3.50 get a flashlight with zoom (a very handy feature) and 3 modes. (high, low and pulse) Order four 14500 batteries rated at 2300 MaH $7-$8 or there abouts. If you need a charger, you can get a cheap one for under $2 that charges one battery at a time. You might find a package deal with battery, charger and light but the battery will probably be a lower MaH. The flashlights appear to be about the same quality. Not bad, not great. I settled for the thinnest 3 mode zoomable light and ordered a few more of them. I carry it clipped to my Leatherman case with a small hole punched in the case side to accommodate the end of the clip and to assist in retention. Great EDC for very little money Light $3 charger $1.50 (do not get the EU model, get the US) and 4 batteries 2300MaH $7 and gave two to my son. So you can get the system for well under $10 especially if you and a friend or two order together. Search Ebay “14500 charger” and “14500 (batteries,battery) (2200,2300)” and “14500 flashlight” Set searches for lowest price plus shipping and buy it now. I use the 14500 battery in it but an AA can be used if you don’t want to buy a charger and rechargeable battery. The charger is for 3.7 type of batteries and I do not believe they will work for rechargeable AA batteries. If you want to use rechargeable AA batteries buy a AA charger

  Jun 3, 2015, 2:45 pm 0 Reply