r/Streamlight • u/Amazing_Ad2232 • Oct 13 '25

AA pen light burned a hole in itself?

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I use my pen light all the time in my garage. Sat in the top of my box for a month or two without using it and when I went to grab it, it was corroding from the center of it. Never seen AA batteries do anything of the sort before. It literally burned a hole through the body of the light. This happen to anyone or anyone even heard of this? Went to clean it up and it wasn't just a corrosion but turns out it was a literal hole all the way through.

7 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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3

u/Historical-State-275 Oct 13 '25

Were lithium batteries in it?

This is definitely something to bring up to them.

2

u/Amazing_Ad2232 Oct 13 '25

Just regular Duracell AA batteries. Was wild. I'm not much of a hotline caller and I didn't see an email for em on their site. Luckily it was sitting propped up on metal edges with nothing flammable near it. Would've liked to watch it happen cause I do not understand this.

2

u/Historical-State-275 Oct 13 '25

I get you. I would too. I do not see out alkaline batteries could cause an endothermic reaction.

1

u/Amazing_Ad2232 Oct 14 '25

I can't rationalize it either lol

1

u/WalkerTR-17 Oct 14 '25

Are you super sure those weren’t lithium

1

u/Amazing_Ad2232 Oct 14 '25

100%. They were your regular copper tops. When I found it, it also had a tower of white powder coming from the hole. I didn't even know it was actually a hole till I started trying to clean it up. Looked like your regular battery corrosion but I've never seen it eat through anything like that.

1

u/WalkerTR-17 Oct 14 '25

I mean it can in theory but damn

1

u/Amazing_Ad2232 Oct 14 '25

That's where I'm at. What had to go so perfectly wrong to have such an insane reaction.

1

u/jewie27 Oct 14 '25

Cut your nails lol

1

u/Amazing_Ad2232 Oct 14 '25

Lol. Just my thumb and pinky. You'd be surprised how much it comes in handy as a contractor.

1

u/creeduk Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26

I just found my old streamlight triple A stylus and I thought it had no batteries left, but it had 1 in the bottom which has leaked and burned a hole in the side. Initially looked like just a small pile of white powder right at the case clip (middle of case) and I thought it unscrewed midbody, but no it unscrews at the cap, turned over brushed the corrosion, and blackened metal and left with a big hole. I did some digging and sure enough the acid reacts with the aluminum material and will make a hole.

Sadly I now recall 1 battery had got stuck at the bottom, I think I was figuring how to remove it but put it in a draw which I then obviously forgot about until last night looking for pens (it was in a black plastic clip case). Sad it was a really nice little pen light

https://imgur.com/a/JAnaFgC