Brian, my bad, your statement was a bit vague, and you werent specific in regards to what you meant by "wont fit." I thought you meant in regards to length. Which is why I replied it should with the extender.
Unfortunately, I lumped you into the vast majority of people that are absolutely clueless about batteries and things like that. Evidently, you're not one of them
I have no idea how much you know about batteries, especially since this is not really the forum for such things.
In theory, 18650's are 18mm. 123a 16mm. In the real world however, they fluctuate greatly, not by much, but they still fluctuate. So the majority of them have a larger diameter than 18. Again, not by much, but still larger. Could just be the casings and labels that give them a wider diameter. I have nothing but Fenix, and all Fenix are 18.5 as an example.
I have yet to find out what the actual diameter of the battery housing is with the patrol. It's one of those things I just need to call to find out and that call is buried last on my priority list, because it's just an FYI thing as I know I have no intentions of trying to use it.
But normally and as a rule of thumb, there is enough clearance in 123a housings to fit 18650's without any issue, unless it is an exact fit. And if it's an exact fit, that's normally because the manufacture designed it to specifically be so, as the 18650 will damage whatever it was being used in.
Seeing as how I could almost toss in my 123's into the patrol, I already knew there was latitude there, so I just assumed it would, as the 123a freely and easily fits in the housing, with respectable play left over.
Add in the ongoing debates / confusion / questions on many sites concerning the usage of the 18650 for the Patrol concerning "voltage", I could only have ASSUMED they fit, if not, then why all the talk about voltage, voltage regulators, discharge rate, blah blah blah, if the freaking things don't even fit in the unit to begin with!!! What a useless endever that is.
So not knowing what the actual dimensions were, combined with knowing I had spare room left over, combined with all the discussions already in play about whether they can be used with the battery extender, YES I ASSUMED.
Without even checking, as I already knew I was never going to risk it anyway, so why bother teasing myself by staring at that beautiful battery begging to be capped and used.
And once again, no matter how many times I have learned the "Assume Lesson" it still comes to plague and haunt me...
Once again though, I cannot even imagine why so many sites have threads concerning the uses of them, if come to find out now, they don't even fit to begin with. That will baffle me for sometime to come...
Want to know the funny thing Brian? I read your last post and said to myself "Geez, of COURSE they will fit Brian, but let me go actually do it to prove it to Brian... Then I read the other post saying they had and it didn't fit and my damn face turn red!
JPK, I just went through this internal battle with myself, convincing me that in daytime use the patrol would be just as useful as nighttime use, to identify potentially hidden targets. And I just concluded the matter with myself. To open that door again, with your probably excellent advice, it's too much for me at this moment
Plus I already invested 350 bucks to be able to detach the patrol and with the same mount, put the unit directly on my helmet and vice versa.
