Bushwalk Australia

Howdy, I recently purchased a black diamond revolt headlamp. It has a usb port to recharge the supplied 3 aaa batteries. Unfortunately you can only recharge those batteries in the lamp. No others will work.

I'm not happy about that... Especially as it seems bd have gone out of their way to make sure you can only use their batteries. The batteries have a 3/4 length wrapping so the bottom metal part touches a switch in the unit. They are 1000mah batteries. I have some varta 1000mah batteries and ripped off the bottom of the label to attempt to fool the lamp. No dice, after around 3 mins if charging the lamp reported a charging error.

Can anyone explain the following... 1 how are the batteries different such that the lamp knows the difference? 2 Why do you think the lamp won't recharge regular batteries?

So grumpy... Thinking of returning it.

Cheers.

What type of battery? Possible circuitry?

Sorry NiMH

Take a photo of one. Are you using new rechargables or old ones you had lying around?

According to their website:

"Sleek, low profile design uses 3 Black Diamond NiMH AAA Rechargeable Batteries OR standard alkaline or lithium batteries (rechargeable and alkaline included as well as USB charging cable)"

It says there it takes standard aaa batts too, I would have thought that ment any brand. I could be wrong

Black diamond
http://backcountryskiingcanada.com/imag ... view-3.jpg

Varta
http://www.batterycity.eu/media/catalog ... ah-aaa.jpg

Not new batteries but ones I've used for months in my other lamp. I use a "proper" wall recharger that does deep cycle and trickle charge.

And the varta... Sorry my session got cut off...

http://www.batterycity.eu/media/catalog ... ah-aaa.jpg

If you already have a proper charger and good batteries, I would return it and get a Zebralight.

All I can suggest is scraping the paint off to expose the metal of the battery where the switch makes contact with the side.Just a guess..

Thanks. That's exactly what I did and the content of my original question!

@strider... The intent was to charge via USB in a car.

Strider wrote:If you already have a proper charger and good batteries, I would return it and get a Zebralight.

I love your left field suggestion Strider!

Strider wrote:If you already have a proper charger and good batteries, I would return it and get a Zebralight.

I love your left field suggestion Strider!

Looked on BD's site. Looks like you aren't the only one.

Under page 2 of owner reviews - Richard of Evergreen, CO.
http://eu.blackdiamondequipment.com/en/ ... NALL1.html

"The recharging circuit is fed, conveniently, by a USP wire. But to work you must use proprietary BD AAA NiMH batteries (how they differ from other brands is mysterious). These were provided, and arrived fully charged. The recharging circuit, however, did not work, not at all, or in any way. The red indicator light of charging stayed on ad infinitum, and the batteries picked up no juice. BD offered to replace, but my confidence in this product, and my disappointment with its ergonomics (see above) were enough to return for refund."

Yes. It's the "mysterious" part I'm trying to solve.

GPSGuided wrote:

Strider wrote:If you already have a proper charger and good batteries, I would return it and get a Zebralight.

I love your left field suggestion Strider!

Not left field at all. He mentioned he was considering returning it. Might as well upgrade to a better light in the process.

Just joking. But it is a bad mark on Black Diamond in my book.

Disclaimer.... I haven't seen the headlamp myself, but here is a review from Amazon by someone who had the same problem & figured out a workaround.

"Just to clarify, I just bought this headlamp today, and they used a trick to only allow you to use the BD batteries:

They put a second set of ground contacts just by the regular ground contacts. On the BD batteries, the ground terminal extends about a centimeter past the end of the battery. The headlamp checks for continuity between both sets of batteries and requires this circuit to be closed in order to charge.

To get around this, you can either peel the label off your existing batteries, or use foil to short the contacts."

Ok. Getting a little frustrated now... Please read my initial post. I have done all this. I do have a better headlamp... In fact I have 4 for different situations. I just would like to know what might be different INSIDE the battery.

See Turfa's post above. It's not inside the battery but the additional contacts on the outside of the batteries. So try cutting off the wrapping of your 3rd party NiMH AAA.

Facepalm. Please read my original post again. I'm un subscribing from this now...

cnschultz, I've been following the thread (and I've read your opening post) so I know you've tried removing the foil on the batteries already.

I don't think that anyone has asked if you know the chemistry of the BD rechargeable cells and whether this was the same as your replacement cells. (mainly ni-cd vs ni-mh).

Other than that, could you upload an image of the empty battery compartment so I can gain a better understanding of the setup?

-icefest

I also have read the original post & noted that you already tried removed the battery label, but this would only help if the battery case was conductive and in electrical contact with the negative terminal (assuming the comments about the extra terminals from the Amazon user are actually correct). This is pretty unlikely on a standard battery and if it is a case of needing to make a complete circuit from the bottom terminal to the one on the side you may need to short it with something like foil as per the Amazon suggestion, for it to work.

And hey, we are trying to help !

Try this.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media ... ef=pdp_new (scroll to the far right of the images to find the headlamp one)

Very detailed instructions on what someone did to get it working with non BD batteries. Mouse over the squares on the image to see details.

Turfa wrote:Try this.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media ... ef=pdp_new (scroll to the far right of the images to find the headlamp one)

Very detailed instructions on what someone did to get it working with non BD batteries. Mouse over the squares on the image to see details.

In the OP he said he has already tried this without success.

Perhaps try another brand of batteries?

Yes, but note that the batteries in the images all have metallic (therefore conductive) casings, this may be important.

Turfa wrote:Yes, but note that the batteries in the images all have metallic (therefore conductive casings) this may be important.

Very important, but all batteries have metal casings these days.

Looks like cnschulz has jumped ship. Now, what's the chance of someone on this forum also owns the same and has found a solution to the problem? Are there other BD products with a similar design?

Maybe he will re board the ship and let us know the outcome

Although the OP has bailed.... I'd suggest that there was possibly residue left from the label making a poor contact
and that is possibly why the battery charge error occurred.
On the main point about how the lamp can tell the difference.... I doubt it can......the issue is mechanical contact
with the outside of the lower bare part of the battery case. A poor contact means it may not work or it will
be unreliable. If the Amazon guy successfully "fooled" the lamp with foil and/or trimming the cover/label of the case
then it should work.....maybe clean the bared part of the battery with steel wool or something lightly abrasive.

WARNING DO NOT SHORT CIRCUIT THE STEEL WOOL BETWEEN THE TWO ENDS OF THE BATTERY IT MIGHT CATCH FIRE!