I had posted the following on another forum. Posting here to share my experience.

For the past few days, I noticed a smell of something burning. I had went around my house several times but just could not locate the source of the smell.

Last night, while I was reading my papers. Suddenly, the light went off and all airconditioner, electronics devices stopped working. I immediately deploy my E2D which was my regular EDC to check the circuit breaker and grab my mobile phone to call for an electrican.

While waiting for the electrican to arrive, I intended to deploy Osram lanterns and Dot-It as my area lights. 1 Osram lantern in common living area and another in the kitchen. One Dot-It for each bathrooms.

The Osram lantern is my emergency area lights, hence both lantern has fresh Energizer e2 Lithium AA. I had tested them before putting away for long term storage. Hence, I was very surprise when 1 of them has a weak beam & nearly flat batteries.

I am fully aware that my son had been playing with the 2 Osram Dot-It, so I would need to replace their batteries as well.

Finding out your light need a battery change in the dark is no fun and worse, I do not have enough spare for the change. Each Osram lantern requires 4 AA battery while each Dot-It requires 3 AAA.

I only had 2 primary AA and 1 or 2 dozen rechargable AA/AAA that not holding a charge. I was left staring at the battery charger and rechargeable batteries. I am a little disappointed with my rechargeable batteries because I had actually recharge the entire lot less than 7 days ago. The self discharge rate was so high that none had enough charges to light up the Osram lantern. Had no choice but to make a trip to the nearest 24hrs convenience store to buy additional primary AA & AAA batteries.

Inova 24x7 was also put into service for a while, for navigating from room to room and it was really useful when I change battery for other lights.

I also put in fresh battery for the Old version of Inova T1 and Pelican M6 LED. Then give the T1 to my wife while I carried the Pelican M6 LED.

The electrican took 3 hours to reach my house from the time I called. He had one of those big 6V Everready flashlight with a weak beam that he was about to use to check my circuit breaker. To assist him, I switch on my modded Mag 2C with 3x CR123. His immediate comment was my light was very bright and switch off his EVerready. He found loose electrical cables which cause 2 circuit breaker to melt a little. It took him close to an hour to replace both burnt circuit breakers and ensure all cables are correctly wired and tighten.

Lesson learnt, I need to get more LED based lights for the extended runtime. My choice will be Inova 24/7 for the handfree convenience and Osram lanterns for the soothing cool white light.

I may have to keep some primary AA/AAA on hand, seem that rechargeable batteries is not so useful in a power failure situation. The inconvenience of having to do reqular recharge, just seem too much of a hassle.

Except for my E2D which seem some action, there was no need for me to deploy the rest of my Surefires or dipped into my supply of 200~300 CR123A. If the power failures had been longer, I will have to deploy my Surefire L1 & A2.

I am very thankful the damaged was limited to 2 circuit breaker and no open flames. In fact, 1 of the thing that I had purchased in the past year is a fireproof rating safe to store some of my important documents. While the rest of important stuff are in off site storage.

The issue with rechargeable batteries has been fixed (there have been a few threads on this recently). You need some of the new Low Self Discharge batteries, brands are Sanyo Eneloop, RayOVac Hybrid, etc. These do not have the self discharge issue that previous rechargeables have had. You can charge them in any NiMH charger though some chargers are better than others, if your charger charges too fast, or charges in pairs then replae it with something better.

A few days? Maybe I'm over-reacting to this story, but that's a long time to notice the smell of something burning in your house without figuring out the source. I think lesson #1 would be to not ignore a burning smell inside your house. I can't imagine going to sleep knowing that something could be burning in my house and not knowing where, especially with a child. The burning smell could've been something far more dangerous than loose breakers. If I couldn't find an obvious source of the smell, I think that I would have then tried cutting the power myself and seeing if the burning smell goes away. I still may not know the source simply by cutting the power, but at least the threat has been minimized or eliminated at that point if the smell stops.

It's good that you've taken some steps to protect your documents, but what about the people? Do you have smoke detectors and regularly check those batteries? Do you have an evacuation plan and does your son know it? Have you ever done a fire drill at night? There was that TV segment not that long ago that showed children would just sleep right through your typical beeping smoke detector even though it was beeping loudly in the same room with them! That was frightening to watch.

I agree.

The rechargeable batteries are for everyday use DD's cd player, clocks, remotes,etc.

I keep a stash of alkaline batteries for emergency use.

Your post sounds like a commercial!





I immediately deploy my E2D

While waiting for the electrician to arrive, I intended to deploy Osram lanterns and Dot-It as my area lights. 1 Osram lantern in common living area and another in the kitchen. One Dot-It for each bathrooms.


He had one of those big 6V Everready flashlight with a weak beam that he was about to use to check my circuit breaker. To assist him, I switch on my modded Mag 2C with 3x CR123.

My choice will be Inova 24/7 for the hand free convenience and Osram lanterns for the soothing cool white light.







Your post is more about the name brands and model of flashlights then anything else.


How about my rechargeable batteries didn’t work and I need to have alkaline on hand for emergencies and use LED lights because they run a lot longer on a set of batteries.

Everyone has their own way of telling their story and I see nothing at all wrong with including as much detail as someone choses to share. Actually, I like to know what folks are using in such situations. It's useful information. A generic description may appeal to you, but may not to others who prefer details. Let's not discourage folks from sharing in whatever way they want. He doesn't appear to be selling these flashlights, so it's a reasonable way to tell his story.

Firefly's post was originally written as a post over at Candlepower Forums, so that's why all the specific details about flashlights. I'm curious to see how the responses from the CPF crowd differs from the ETS crowd to the same post. I'm a little surprised that we're mostly just commenting on the batteries angle so far rather than the fire danger angle.

At the risk of being tortured with extra bright LEDs, I think you ought to get back to the basics of home preparedness.





Like, pick up a first aid kit at the local pharmacy.





A crow bar at the hardware store.




A diffuser tip from Fenix.



P.S. Film canisters and pill bottles work, too...




credit for above rig goes to NKB from multitool.org

I don't think you're overreacting Arney. I couldn't agree more. Wow! 2 days with some unknown thing burning in the house. I couldn't do it.

Read the other threads, there are decent rechargeable batteries. a test of my own was to fill two battery packs for a radio, one with rechargeables and one with lithium that had both sat for a year and I measured the run time and they were equal. Good rechargeables like eneloops are better than alkaline.