I couldn’t find a relevant thread so here is a good reason not to leave cheapo chinese lights unattended…

Beware of cheap bike lights bought online!!
This is the remains of my bike helmet with head torch that caught fire while charging. Luckily I was home at the time and managed to throw it out of the door before anything else caught fire. These were the cree XM-L T6 led lights. I’ll be buying the more expensive ones from now on or investing in a fireproof box to charge!!

Beware of cheap bike lights bought online!! This is the remains of my bike helmet with head torch that caught fire…

Posted by Todd Taylor on Sunday, November 8, 2015

can’t link to a facebook photo so I’ve stuck it in my photobucket.

I would wear that!!. In a Roses tin on the concrete garage floor is where mine get charged even though they aren’t ‘cheap’ Chinese ones.

and how many lumens is a helmet on fire?

Light looks ok though…

The lights didn’t catch fire, the battery caught fire. Rather significant difference!

Believe this guy had the same problem…

molgrips – Member
The lights didn’t catch fire, the battery caught fire. Rather significant difference!

It’s always the batteries or the charger. However “bought a cheap Chinese light on ebay” usually means it came with a crap charger and recycled laptop batteries that are assembled in a dangerous way, no over/under charge protection etc, and thus the above happens.

If the light is £20, aside from the build quality issues, assuming the light is okay, just bin any battery stuff it comes with. No way it can be reliable or even safe for what must be about £1 of value.

Spend what you like on the light. It’ll fall apart or not, work or not. But spend more and spend British for the battery and charger.

And don’t for a moment assume a ‘CE’ mark on a Chinese charger means anything at all.

What deadkenny said.

Although IMO some chinese lights are good. The original (and presumably latter) magicshines, and current nitefighters seem to use better quality components. The latter goes to a fair length to talk about it’s use of protected panasonic cells etc. The common factor between those lights is both cost >£50.

In a Roses tin

This sounds bad. You want to let the explosion (should it occur) disperse, not contain it in a fragile metal thing.

This sounds bad. You want to let the explosion (should it occur) disperse, not contain it in a fragile metal thing.

youtube some Lithium battery fires, they don’t explode, it’s just a very intense electrical fire. A better option is a charging bag which lets the gas escape, but keeps most of the hot metal and dust inside the bag.

Buy cheap, buy a house twice. 😉

Having looked at those charging bags there seems to be a problem with cheap Chinese ones!