Anyone switch from 18650 to AA headlamp?

[NEPkaspot]

Good to know. Thanks for the info!

 

[eaglemountainman]

I would never go back to AA's.

 

[Incahoots]

Love my Zebralight Headlamp. Best battery I have used were Eagletac

 

[Tbuckus]

https://www.18650batterystore.com is a great source for good, fresh batteries. https://www.imrbatteries.com is another great source. You can trust them. Depending on your light, you may not be able to run protected batteries, and you may not need them. Protection means there is a little circuit board on one end of the battery that will turn the battery off under certain conditions. Once you know whether you need protected or not, you then check what the max current draw is on your light and match your battery to that. Some batteries can produce extremely high current draw. These are great if you need them, but the generally will drain faster and often have less total capacity.

So, what light do you have?

I have a Nite Core LR50 lantern.
A lite with USB recharging capabilities.

 

[Mike Islander]

I have a Nite Core LR50 lantern.
A lite with USB recharging capabilities.

For that light any button top, protected 18650 will work. I'd say nice for car camping. Not a light I would carry in the back country.

A Zebralight will have 6x the brightness on one 18650 and 1/4 the weight. It will run 15 days on low instead of 4. And the batteries will cost $5 instead of $17. But for car camping that is a nice compact lantern.

 

[Tbuckus]

For that light any button top, protected 18650 will work. I'd say nice for car camping. Not a light I would carry in the back country.

A Zebralight will have 6x the brightness on one 18650 and 1/4 the weight. It will run 15 days on low instead of 4. And the batteries will cost $5 instead of $17. But for car camping that is a nice compact lantern.

Is agree on the weight. It’s an impulse buy that I’m starting To regret. My intention was to have a dual purpose charger for my phone/gps for spike camps.

 

[Mike Islander]

Is agree on the weight. It’s an impulse buy that I’m starting To regret. My intention was to have a dual purpose charger for my phone/gps for spike camps.

Still serves a purpose. Just for backpacking there are better suggestions if weight is important to you.

 

[theoutdoorsman]

While I can't say I've switched. I have always stuck to AA batteries. I run 18650's for my work headlamp as well as flashlights at home, but up in the hills I like to keep it simple and run lithium primaries and a single AA headlamp. My GPS is also AA, so keeping one cell type is the logical way to go.
I will say that I avoid taking game at last light when possible though, so the lower output headlamp is more for camp duties and not navigating terrain.

 

[Benjy howell]

The downfall of all AA lights is there not gonna be as bright as the lithium battery lights ... plus side to AA lights is u can find batteries everywhere for them !