this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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flashlight
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Portable illumination
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Just be wary of them as they are likely unprotected cells.
Batteries made for flashlights will have a protection circuit board on it to protect against over & under voltage and sometimes overheating.
Unprotected batteries do not have a circuit board on them and are usually protected by the device that they are installed into.
You can use them BUT you have to be incredibly careful with them as if things go wrong you will be holding what has essentially become a small pipe bomb.
So if I charge them using the flashlight would that have the protection built in?
No,
Lights designed for charging removable batteries will (usually) have charging circuit designed for protected batteries as they expect the battery to provide feedback on voltage, temps etc.
Random unprotected cells should be charged in an external charger in a fire resistant area and used extremely carefully in lights you don't mind loosing.
The only thing I would recommend for you to do is send them in for recycling.
The protection circuit of a cylindrical Li-Ion battery doesn't report anything. All it can do is to interrupt the circuit if the current gets too high or the voltage too low.
You might mix this up with tool batteries that usually have multiple cells in a series and in parallel, monitored by a battery management system (BMS).
Most quality flashlights have an integrated low voltage protection. The protection PCB will only protect the battery when it's handled outside of the flashlight, but it will usually reduce the performance and efficiency due to the added resistance.