ok, I'd understood my one to be a Raptor One, but it definitely has the 'New Wisdom' logo. If not then I've misunderstood the advertising, :confused: probably due to not knowing the people or paying over-much attention anyway 😉

so, for 'Raptor One', read 'New Wisdom', throughout


my experience of lead-acid Oldhams is that they last about 5 years in regular service, which is not bad for a small lead-acid unit like that. They will probably be down to about 6 hours by then!

Commercial users dispose of them by this point, and cavers would buy them and limp on for many years; there used to be one notorious one at my ( then ) club which was good for about 3 hours with care, and it made 'learner' trips for several years in that state. 😮

lol yes I've about 25 Oldham batteries here, only two still hold charge as the others are really old. If you look after them you can get them to last a number of years.

Commercial users dispose of them by this point, and cavers would buy them and limp on for many years; there used to be one notorious one at my ( then ) club which was good for about 3 hours with care, and it made 'learner' trips for several years in that state. 😮

Sounds a lot like my club, though we're starting to phase out all the old stuff now...

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Can the (newish) Oldham Li-Ion battery be used with "old" headsets?

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Can the (newish) Oldham Li-Ion battery be used with "old" headsets?

mmmh yeah but not quite as bright and doesn't last as long as a proper T cell. Much smaller though obviously.

ok so, does the Oldham Li-16 work with the New Wisdom charger?

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Can the (newish) Oldham Li-Ion battery be used with "old" headsets?

mmmh yeah but not quite as bright and doesn't last as long as a proper T cell. Much smaller though obviously.

Yes it can.
The output of the LithiumIon battery is the same as the T-Series batteries. Both are 16ah and fully interchangeable.
Many mining opertions simply use their existing Oldham racks for charging too although Oldham recomend a slightly different intelligent charger for the new ones.
As for T cells, I have a couple here well over 5 years old and still giving over 20 hours output on main beam.

doesn't surprise me much... knowing mining people as I do.

I would reckon that producing a new product with the same key but a different power rating would be asking for trouble...

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Can the (newish) Oldham Li-Ion battery be used with "old" headsets?

mmmh yeah but not quite as bright and doesn't last as long as a proper T cell. Much smaller though obviously.

Yes it can.
The output of the LithiumIon battery is the same as the T-Series batteries. Both are 16ah and fully interchangeable.
Many mining opertions simply use their existing Oldham racks for charging too although Oldham recomend a slightly different intelligent charger for the new ones.
As for T cells, I have a couple here well over 5 years old and still giving over 10 hours output on main beam.

Voltage:

Oldham DL16 uses Li-Ion, which is a 3.7v nominal voltage chemistry. Oldham do not have some sort of magic Oldham Li-Ion, it's 3.7v nominal, whereas the T cell is 4v nominal. You will take a small hit on the brightness as the voltage is lower, on average.

Li-Ion is 3.7 nominal but fresh off the charger it could be as high as 4.2v, and will drop down to 2.7v during the cycle. The regulator in an LED head will compensate for this wide range, but a bulb won't.

Capacity:

The Lithium battery is 3.7v x 17ah = 62 watt-hours.
An Oldham T6 cell is 4v x 24ah = 96 watt-hours, so actually quite a big difference. But I'd far rather the lithium-ion on my waist!

Charging:

Li-Ion is a battery technology that requires specalist charging to avoid serious explosions, I really wouldn't try and charge a lithium battery off an old lead-acid charger. Unless it's in a sealed underground bunker in sibera :D

Seriously. People have died not charging Li-Ion batteries using proper Li-Ion chargers.

ok so, does the Oldham Li-16 work with the New Wisdom charger?

I wouldn't guarantee it - the people who import these are friends of mine and they don't advise trying to charge anything else with them, althought that's not to say you couldn't charge something else that was 3.7v with a similar battery capacity.

Having one myself and having been underground with someone using a Raptor, I'd say they're not only similar in appearance but similar in performance too. The top cable exit isn't a problem in my experience of having been through some tight and muddy crawls with it, I just have my cable tied to the edge of the helmet instead of going over the top with just enough slack at the front not to strain it. I don't know about how well it would hold up to working full shifts but so far the only problem I had was the battery getting low underground, and even then all it did was blink off on full beam every 15 seconds as a warning, going onto backup setting got me through the trip quite happily.

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I'd hardly be surprised that the importers of an item from China aren't interested in guaranteeing that it will work with a competing item from a different manufacturer.

I wouldn't, in their position.

but if they are the same voltage and capacity I don't see a problem.


as for putting Li lamps on a lead acid type charger, considering some of the things I have seen people do underground, that's pretty low on the scale. Compared to, say, cracking boulders on the grizzly with a sledgehammer and a piece of gelignite ( cut from a stick kept under the seat for the purpose ), I'd give that about a 1 or maybe 0.5....

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Can the (newish) Oldham Li-Ion battery be used with "old" headsets?

mmmh yeah but not quite as bright and doesn't last as long as a proper T cell. Much smaller though obviously.

Yes it can.
The output of the LithiumIon battery is the same as the T-Series batteries. Both are 16ah and fully interchangeable.
Many mining opertions simply use their existing Oldham racks for charging too although Oldham recomend a slightly different intelligent charger for the new ones.
As for T cells, I have a couple here well over 5 years old and still giving over 20 hours output on main beam.

oh, there always has to be one, doesn't there?

Oldhams lead-acid cells were and still are, good kit. But they are still small-capacity, low-output lead-acid cells. If someone says they have one which has been treated like a baby from new and it still works, I wouldn't argue. Working mine cells lead a hard life, and 5 years is pretty good really.

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oh, there always has to be one, doesn't there?

Oldhams lead-acid cells were and still are, good kit. But they are still small-capacity, low-output lead-acid cells. If someone says they have one which has been treated like a baby from new and it still works, I wouldn't argue. Working mine cells lead a hard life, and 5 years is pretty good really.

Mine were mostly ex rental batteries, so no they haven't had a hard life. One of them I boought 2nd hand 5 or 6 years ago. A week or two ago I switched it on and left it for 21 hours on main beam, I gave up then and put it back on the rack.

L16 and T5,T6 batteries are rated at 16ah (not 24ah for the T's, that gives a difference of 62Wh compared to 64Wh. Not a huge difference)
Nominal 3.6volts for the L16
Nominal 4 volts for the T5/6

Expected lifespan-
T5 600 cycles
T6 400 cycles
L16 600 cycles.

With the T cells there seems to be a fair degree of luck over how long they last. Some outlast others by years for no apparent reason. I have two identical ones bought new at the same time, one expired months ago and the other still works like new.

Charging:

Li-Ion is a battery technology that requires specalist charging to avoid serious explosions, I really wouldn't try and charge a lithium battery off an old lead-acid charger. Unless it's in a sealed underground bunker in sibera :D

Seriously. People have died not charging Li-Ion batteries using proper Li-Ion chargers.

I would tend to agree, however at Boulby Potash they have L16s alongside T6's on the same charging rack

Li-Ion is 3.7 nominal but fresh off the charger it could be as high as 4.2v, and will drop down to 2.7v during the cycle. The regulator in an LED head will compensate for this wide range, but a bulb won't.

The rating on the L16 of 16ah is until the voltage drops to 3.6v. It will probably continue quite happily once it drops below that but thats not what the rating is too.

luck, well yes. Depends.. have they been dropped in transit, for example, and broken the internals? No way to tell but it will affect the performance.

Have they been topped up with distilled water, boiled water, plain tap water or muddy cave water? Again, can't tell... have they been overcharged, boosted ( say, by using a 6v motorcycle-type charger ) or simply left to go flat and left that way? Again, no way to tell.


600 cycles is about 3 years' work.....

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luck, well yes. Depends.. have they been dropped in transit, for example, and broken the internals? No way to tell but it will affect the performance.

Have they been topped up with distilled water, boiled water, plain tap water or muddy cave water? Again, can't tell... have they been overcharged, boosted ( say, by using a 6v motorcycle-type charger ) or simply left to go flat and left that way? Again, no way to tell.


600 cycles is about 3 years' work.....

Couldn't tell you about its history before I bought it, did the courier drop one of them? no idea 🙂
After that they have both been treat exactly the same and had pretty much equal usage.
Not arguing about their lifespan, obviously private owners are going to get a lot more time out of them simply because they aren't working a shift every day.

The rating on the L16 of 16ah is until the voltage drops to 3.6v. It will probably continue quite happily once it drops below that but thats not what the rating is too.

s'not mate 😉

That's absolute cell capacity, including all the capacity it can't use because you can't drop a Li-Ion below 2.7v or it will blow up. That's the same with any Li-Ion, it's just the way the technology works. Similar with lead acid, you can't drop below a certain point or you'll kill the battery.

A T6 cell is 24ah, I promise :flowers:

The T2 is definately 16ah though.

In any case, they are all big enough to last any of us a very long exploration trip, so who cares.

I love the new li-ion batteries, they are the way forward. Sometimes technology advances in the right direction, and Li-ion batteries on caplamps are an example of this. But I never had a problem with the T cells, heavy though they are, if worn properly on a belt it's hardly felt and you get used to them. I like my Oldham T's and use them frequently.

I never really had a problem with the old T cells, or the black rubber ones. Self-rescuers are twice the weight.

same with caving, they aren't heavy really.

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[
That's absolute cell capacity, including all the capacity it can't use because you can't drop a Li-Ion below 2.7v or it will blow up. That's the same with any Li-Ion, it's just the way the technology works. Similar with lead acid, you can't drop below a certain point or you'll kill the battery.

A T6 cell is 24ah, I promise :flowers:

The T2 is definately 16ah though.

In any case, they are all big enough to last any of us a very long exploration trip, so who cares.

.

Check the specs 😉

http://www.gilgray.com.au/minersCapLamps/downloads/dt&l_spec.pdf 

Excuse the Australian source Gilgray are Oldham agents for down there. The spec sheets for Oldham L16, T5 and T6
All 16ah, battery specification at the bottom of the page.
Oldham qoute battery amp hour specs to 3.7 volt, would have to search for the source for that one tho

And just to be really anorak-ish 😉

http://www.enersys-hawker.com/english/mining.asp?lang=e 

Here is the Enersys-Hawker website (Oldham manufactirers)
Again qouting 16ah

I suspect, Mr.Jagman, that you're correct! 😉

It would make sense for the battery packs to contain the same amount of electricity, if only to not confuse folk who are using both types of battery.

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