Conversion of a headlamp for an 18650 battery. Conversion of flashlights to lithium batteries

Literally "on the knee" the lantern was dismantled, the mains connector was removed (the charge was from 220 in the original) and "interfering wires" - you didn't really need to touch them :)
Instead of a native battery, I used a power bank with a bank for 2600, removed my own cover from the power bank (metal is nowhere near printed circuit board), secured with electrical tape so that the structure does not crumble during vibrations or possible drops of the background.


In fact, you can do everything MUCH more accurately, but I was interested in the simplicity and speed of the solution at the time of the rework.




Something like this happened (the wiring could not be pulled out through the power bank, but at first there was an idea for a slightly different location, I did not redo it).
The bank itself was fixed by inserting it into the former network connector, even without additional. mounts quite firmly "sits"




Main pluses:
The lantern is alive!
Quite not difficult and inexpensive!
Easy to change battery (in case of failure) - they are common and inexpensive.
You can charge from any USB (including in a car), as well as, if necessary, use the flashlight itself as a power bank. There is a control of the flashlight charge.

The flashlight shines normally. I didn’t try to time it - but it shines for EXTREMELY for a long time, for several hours, I didn’t try to discharge it at once.

In this article, you will learn how to inexpensively convert a screwdriver battery from Ni Cd to Li Ion 18650 batteriesthereby modernizing screwdriver batteryby making it more powerful and increasing the time autonomous work... All stages of rework are described in detail, so there should be no problems, all the necessary components are listed and available.

Required components for rework

High-current batteries 18650 with a capacity of 2500 mAh. Data accumulators have already welded soldering leads, which is very convenient and, in addition, you can significantly save on battery compartments. You can order them online, they are delivered in a batch of 4 or 6 pieces. You can buy them using the links below:

Buy 18650 batteries - 6 pcs.

Buy 18650 batteries - 4 pcs.

Also, for the alteration, you will need two BMS 12.6V 40A boards, I bought it here:

Buy BMS Board 12.6V 40A

The charger will also need to be redone and for this you will need a voltage and current stabilization module.

Video on how to redo charger see article at the end

Buy voltage and current stabilization

At the time of the alteration, all the components (for two batteries) cost only 1,100 rubles, which is much cheaper than buying a new battery for a screwdriver, in which all the same Ni Cd batteries will be. After looking at the prices on the Internet, I found that one battery costs from 1200 rubles, and for the alteration of TWO batteries, I spent only 1100! All links to components can also be found at the end of the article!

Redesigning the battery

The first step is to carefully disassemble the battery case and discard the old Ni Cd batteries.

Then you need to disconnect the battery power terminal.

Two wires need to be soldered to it, preferably with a large cross-section; in this alteration, wires with a cross-section of 4 mm² and a length of about 100 mm were used. In the photo above, you can see the red wire, it was left in order not to confuse the polarity, it is advisable to also solder the red wire to this wire in order to avoid trouble and you will know for sure what it is +.

Solder the negative wire to the shiny contact:

Then you need to insert the terminal with the soldered wires back into the case in its place, be sure to observe the polarity!

To fix the terminal, you can pour hot glue inside the glass, I did not find a better fixation option, especially since it holds very well!

Now you can start soldering the batteries. We remove the heat-shrink tube from the batteries and bend them so that they can be soldered in series.

Next, we apply hot melt glue to the other side of the resulting battery, where the contacts stick out to the top and glue the BMS board as shown in the photo below. Please note that the plus and minus boards and batteries are opposite each other !!!

Then we bend the battery contacts onto the board contacts and solder them, starting with the minus!

We solder a short wire to the contact of the board B1, the other end of which we solder to the junction of the batteries!

We also solder a short wire to contact B2, the other end of which is soldered to the junction of the batteries on the opposite side!

Well, at the end, we solder the last, positive contact.

Now it remains to connect the terminals of the case with the resulting rechargeable battery, for this we solder the red wire to the "P +" contact, and the blue, negative wire, to the "P-" contact.

This completes the battery conversion! It remains to fix the manufactured battery and put the second part of the case in place. No more than an hour of time was spent on the alteration of two batteries and, as mentioned above, 1100 rubles of money. After the tests, the screwdriver began to work no worse than with the factory battery and, I would say, much better in terms of power and the charge lasts longer. I advise everyone to remake their old batteries!))
Buy Charger Socket
Buy Soldering Iron

For those who have no desire to remodel the charger, then using the link below, you can buy a ready-made one.

Buy a ready-made charger

Many are familiar with lanterns, ttype "Era" or "Cosmos" FA21M, as well as their numerous clones under other names. FROM a 30-watt halogen lamp and a 6-volt / 4.5 amp-hour lead gel battery. They are still on sale, as they were many years ago - except that the lamp has been replaced by an LED panel ...

Actually, in lead battery and high power and the problem of such lamps lies. Their power is categorically excessive for a house / garage / car, etc. - unless such a searchlight makes sense in the field or on the water. The dimensions are also redundant - it is not clear where to put this dinosaur / put ...
As a result, everyone who bought such a flashlight or received it as a gift (they liked to give them on February 23, hehe ...) sooner or later put them away, and when they got it out on occasion, they found that the battery was hopelessly degraded - the flashlight quickly charges , burns after that for a couple of minutes, and goes out ...

The cost of a new battery is completely unreasonable, it often exceeds the cost of an assembled flashlight, so such flashlights are often scrapped.However, the huge body gives DIYers a lot of creativity. You can put an LED lamp there, you can fill it with lithium batteries so that it burns continuously for six months, you can insert a PWM controller and much more.
True, the lantern will still remain hefty and awkward ...

I picked up such a lantern in a dump in a complete set in a box - someone apparently had it in the country until the battery was completely degraded, and after finding out the price of a new one, it was sent to the trash. And I decided to make a compact lantern out of it to highlight the route when swimmingon a boat at night. The peculiarity of the alteration is the use of a native halogen lamp - firstly, it already exists, which means it is free, and secondly, it shines really powerfully. It is not very advisable to convert this lamp to an LED - the geometry of a reflector designed for an incandescent lamp is not very suitable for a diode ...

We unscrew the excess overall plastic from the lantern - a black "crown" around the reflector, a handle, throw out the battery, remove the switch, and then cut off the "head" with a cutter from a hacksaw blade - this is what we need:

Here's what happens:

We cut out a head cover from any plastic and put it on 5 M2 screws with nuts.

Oddly enough, holding this freak in your hand is quite comfortable. I only made a rope lanyard so that the lantern would hang on it if it slipped out of my hand.
But fantasieswill - you can even attach a three-kopeck door handle, even screw a bolt and, if necessary, screw an empty tube with a pressed-in nut onto it, which acts as a classic lamp handle - whatever you like. You can even attach an elastic tape and make a forehead with an incredible power ...

In modern times, more and more technology is used as batteries lithium ion batteries... They do not have a "memory effect", unlike Ni-Cd. They can deliver high current.

I decided to remake two old flashlights for lithium-ion 18650 batteries, since I have them a large number of... Yes, and getting them is not difficult at repair firms that repair laptops.

For the alteration, we need a number of components:
- the actual flashlights;
- ;
- ;
- plexiglass;
- a piece of thin plastic;
- ;
- wires, hot melt glue, tools.

Flashlights of a convenient size for installing 18650 batteries, in the amount of two pieces. In principle, you can describe the revision of one flashlight.

I have different charge controller boards. One Mini-USB, the second Micro-USB.
These boards can be purchased in China for 15-20 rubles per unit. Also sold in radio stores and radio markets. I have boards without protection (BMS), but we can handle it.

We disassemble the flashlights and take out all of them, except for the switches, LEDs.

Now we take thin plastic, I have this ABS from an old battery. It turned out that it is black, but not scary, it will also look great on a blue flashlight.

We cut out the windows so that they fit tightly into the place where the plug for the charge was previously pulled out.

We cut out the required size for the window and holes for the connectors of our charge boards. It is not necessary to glue them, they must fit tightly and I will then strengthen them.

Since our boards do not have discharge protection, battery boards used in this situation mobile phone... You can buy with protection, but I do not have such in stock now. Therefore, I resort to a slightly laborious solution.

We solder the wires from our BMS to the batteries. We put the charge controller boards in place and prop up. I used pieces of wine cork as a spacer. We strengthen everything with hot melt glue, but it is possible without it.

We solder the switches, my switches are breaking a plus. There is an LED board on the black flashlight. The switch has two on positions, one of which I turned on a single LED, and the second position turns on the main LEDs. The blue flashlight has one switch position.

We collect flashlights and solder reflectors and move on to the next stage.

The next step, we cut out two records from transparent plastic, I have this plastic from the CD box. We sand it with sandpaper until the surface is dull, so the light from the LED is more pleasant.

We glue it to the place where the engine used to pull out the power plug. You need to glue on one half of the flashlight. Suddenly it will be necessary to disassemble the flashlight.

A new flashlight ... lay in bed for a year and his battery died (as it turned out, this happens with similar flashlights without exception, 4 friends have the same thing) - it's a pity to throw it out (used it once), it's very difficult to find a new battery + battery cost \u003d flashlight cost ... there was a simple solution to the question…
It is interesting that the lanterns had different operating conditions (by February 23 they were presented to the employees) - but all died "in one hour." Naturally a shame, just needed, "new" and on you :)))


Having tried to search for similar batteries in special stores and markets, I came to the conclusion that it is completely inappropriate to buy such a battery for the cost of a flashlight. I couldn't find a cheap alternative, besides, the battery characteristics were confusing ... 5v strained when converting to a different type of battery ...


And there was no desire to radically alter the exercise and the flashlight.
At first there was an idea to plug in 18650 - but the voltage is one volt lower (how the flashlight will burn - again alterations ... + disassemble / assemble for charge ... in short, again problems :(

The way out was very simple - buy an external cheap power bank, which already gives out 5v at the output, has a built-in charging system CHEAP AND TASTY :)

In fact, the native battery had 2Ah. It is clear that in our case all kinds of unnecessary losses - but the price justifies the means + some advantages appear :)

Literally on the knees, the lantern was disassembled, the mains connector was removed (the charge was from 220 in the original) and, well, the "interfering wires" - you could not really touch
Instead of a native battery, I used a power bank with a bank for 2600, removed my own cover from the power bank, secured it with electrical tape so that the structure would not crumble during vibration or shock.
In fact, everything can be done MUCH more accurately, naturally, but I was interested in the simplicity and speed of the solution.





Something like this happened (the wiring could not be pulled out through the power bank, at first there was an idea of \u200b\u200ba slightly different location).
Those. the bank itself fixed it by inserting it into the former network connector, even without additional. mounts quite firmly "sits"

Main pluses:
The lantern is alive!
Quite not difficult and inexpensive!
Easy to change battery (in case of failure) - they are common and inexpensive.
You can charge from any USB (including in a car), as well as, if necessary, use as a power bank (depending on the quality of the latter).

The flashlight shines normally. I didn’t try to detect it in time - but it shines EXTREMELY for a long time, probably for several hours, I didn’t try to discharge it at once.