Been using a Surefire Fury DFT for about 2 years now. I have been rotating 2 of the Surefire brand SF18650 USB rechargeable batteries.
Keep one in the light and one in the truck that is charged. I work days so I get 2-3 months out of a charge.
Was clearing a house on an actual burglary and my light quits. Luckily we were almost done and not working nights.
Finished clearing the house and swapped to my spare battery and still nothing.

Put the battery on the charging cord and had a green light, which means it is charged. I left it on there while we finished things up.
I put that battery back in and I’d push the tail cap and about 5 seconds later the late would come on sometimes. Other times it would come on if I shook the light, or click the tail cap a bunch of times really fast.
Kind of leaning towards a battery issue than light issue.
So I will charge both batteries overnight and see what we get.
It will run CR123s which I don’t currently have any (blasphemy I know) at the moment.
So guess I will get some of those and keep those in the truck too.
I can’t find anywhere that Surefire says what their storage shelf life for these batteries are.
Their rechargeable CR123s say they stay good for 2 years.

Title scared me, man. At least it was only a flashlight.

Fresh CR123's have a shelf life of 10 years.

Just re-upped my Surefire 123A battery supply and the boxes have "10 year shelf life" printed on them.

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:
Just re-upped my Surefire 123A battery supply and the boxes have "10 year shelf life" printed on them.

Those would be the standard CR123s.
Rechargeable CR123s say 2 years in their FAQ

No mention of the SF16850s on their site.

Sorry, I was confused, I thought your were asking about std non rechargeable batteries. I read your post to fast.
No idea on the rechargeable.

Two is one, one is none.

Glad you managed though.

Night shifts I carry two real lights and a gun light. Day shift I carry one baby light and my gun light. Real lights in the car.

I also learned the hard way

Two for me also. I modified my portable radio case so it would carry a SureFire as backup to my main light.

Yep, two plus WML when in uniform.

A larger light on my vest. A smaller light in my pocket. And a WML on my gun.

Sounds like a switch problem with your light, to me.

Shit breaks and more often than not when you need it the most... glad this was not the case.

Personally, I'd get a new light and work on the old one.

I suspect your problem is with your switch, something that gets punched a lot of times. I carry a Streamlight Stylus Pro for a walkaround light and have to replace the switch on my rather ancient primary light twice. Fortunately is part or the tailcap which is a replaceable item on the Streamlight web site so it's a very easy low cost fix.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
Sounds like a switch problem with your light, to me.

Me too. I used to carry a cheap Coast light for fixing ATMs and it would do that all the time. Easy way to test is to turn it on and when it doesn't work take the tail cap and give it a sharp whack in against your other palm. If it turns on it's the switch.

Honestly I think it's your switch and I'd be willing to bet Surefire will hook you up.

That sucks. I'm sure even if it turns out to be a problem with the light rather than the battery, Surefire will take care of it, but that's not very helpful in the moment.

I'm on days now, too...and even since I rarely do "real" work like we did on nights, I still carry 2 handhelds plus my WML (often used to hand one off to some other dayshifter who doesn't even have one, or who's batteries are dead lol). It's still dark in the morning when I come on, and in the evening before I go home...plus old habits die hard.

Money is on the switch. Clean the contacts/threads, make sure actual switch mechanism is still screwed in tight. Try again.

Also I am a 2 is 1 guy. You might want to carry something small as a backup even something like a Microstream USB would likely drag you across the proverbial finish line if necessary at the cost of basically no extra weight or space.

I always carried 2 when I worked nights. Guess I will start again.

Yeah, I still carry 2, even without working nights. There are plenty of dark spaces you can encounter when working during the day.

With the quality and high output of compact lights these days, there's little reason not to keep one on your belt/vest and another in your pocket at all times, even in addition to (or in place of) your full-sized duty light.

We just received Streamlight Stinger 2020 lights. Hope these last longer than the last. Retail $250 and someone already dropped one.

So both batteries fully charged and no issues. I am guessing that spare battery discharged for some reason.
I am going to send Surefire a quick note asking what their standby storage time should be for this particular battery.
We had a week of temps where we did not break 20 degrees but still feel it should hold a charge longer than 2 months.