I am talking about the ones where you physically shake a magnet back and forth through a fixed coil to generate electricity. I assume there is some sort of capacitor or other device to hold the charge as it builds up and is later dispensed to the LED.
I guess I should define what I mean by working well. I mean if I had to go outside for some reason at night… to feed my horses or check to see if the local hooligans have stolen another one of the godawful Gnomes I received for a Christmas present from someone who will notice if they are gone, will I be able to find my way to where I want to go without tripping over everything?
A less verbose person would probably simply ask how bright the light is and how long it lasts. I have seen the claims on TV but if all the claims for the last device I bought off TV had been true I wouldn’t be married today! :eek:
My brief experimentation with one of the shake flashlights left me unimpressed. It took quite a bit of shaking to get the LEDs up to full brightness, it wasn’t that bright, and it faded after a minute or two. OTOH, they never need batteries, so would be handy to have around since they have an unlimited shelf life.
A better solution that I saw in a hardware store this week had a folding crank built in. The crank turned a small generator to charge the capacitors. It had 3 LEDs and seemed a bit brighter than the shake version. It was also a lot easier to crank than to shake. I’ve seen a 3rd version that employed a squeeze-type handle to spin the generator. Not as good as the crank, but better than the shaker (IMO, of course).
So, in general, not so good for seeing things at a distance, but plenty good for lighting your immediate path, and the crank version is easier to use than the shake version.
I am very curious to know what sort of device you bought that would have destroyed your marriage if it worked as advertised. Pocket Fisherman?
I looked at them, but turned them down in favour of standard 2 or 3 cell AA powered LED flashlights. Coincidentally, my favourite place to buy stuff has them on sale this week for > 8$. I bought one of that exact model over a year ago, have used it for dozens of hours, and it has yet to run down the el-cheapo pair of AAs it came with. (This is when kept in my car all winter too).
With the metal body and LED bulbs, I know I can drop the damn thing on the concrete all I want and it’ll still light up my engine compartment so I can figure out that yes, I managed to leave my lights on and drain my battery on a -40C, 2’ of snow-type night.
In my brief store tests, those shake-em flashlights cost far more, seem to require RSI-inducing amounts of shaking to get the beam working, and have moving parts that might be prone to breakage.
Using an LED bulb grants both long life and a moderately bright light. (Nothing like a krypton bulb, of course, but better than the old, dim “yellow light” bulbs.) I got one for Deb, but I’m not sure that it gets a lot of use. The “charge” does not last quite as long as the manufacturer (or TV hype person) might lead one to believe, and it requires a lot of shaking.
The other problem, of course, is the magnet. It needs to be pretty strong to drive the charge and it is strong enough to justify warnings against letting the flashlight get too near one’s electronic watch, calculator, PDA(!), or other equipment.
The light she actually uses is a battery-operated LED light. Three AAA batteries will last a couple of months with constant use. The Forever light is good to have in the car for emergencies because you are not going to discover old corroded batteries you forgot to change with a dead light in an emergency, but for daily use, the Forever light is heavy, cumbersome and a bit of a hassle. (My opinion, of course.)
Here’s a ‘Forever Flashlight’ in case anyone wants to know.
I bought a Motorola FreeCharge surplus for ~5$ a few months back. You can apparently get a little LED module to plug in instead of your phone. In my limited tests with it, it seemed a very solid piece of engineering, though it does have a rechargeable battery (cordless-phone style) in it that could require replacement after a few years. YMMV though - I had a no-name squeeze-crank style flashlight many years ago that stripped it’s gears in less than a month.
How about going with a lithium battery? My father has a flashlight with a lithium battery that’s supposed to have a shelf life of at least 10 years. As for the useful battery life, I’m not sure what it is, but if you’re looking for something you can throw in the glovebox and not worry about that would seem to be a better choice than something with alkaline batteries or a crank.
No, the Forever Flashlights won’t serve that purpose. They put out a very dim blue light–think of them as an absolutely last backup for when all else fails and your supply of batteries has run out.
A good source of information about flashlights is the Flashlight Reviews web site. If you’re looking for a basic Maglite replacement, I’d recommend something by Elektrolumens. If you’re looking for something much higher-end, the Surefire U2 and the Night-Ops Gladius are both very expensive (> USD200) but have great build quality and are very flexible–they’re variable output, ranging from quite dim (if you want to preserve night vision) to blinding.
Depends on how you define “moderately”. No, LEDs won’t give you Tigerlight or MagCharger output, but a single Luxeon V will still put out over a hundred lumens.
I sent them all back…ad says shake for a few seconds…directions state must shake much longer…first one broke immediately…worthless in my opinion…I ordered quite a few…didn’t like them at all.
I bought one of these out of curiosity; it was £4.99 at my local petrol station. It’s… OK… shake it for a minute (and you have to follow the instructions and shake it horizontally to get the best out of the charging apparatus) and you get about 45 seconds of bright LED light, followed by a couple of minutes of not-so-bright light. It’s better than I expected it to be, but still not all that much use - it’s bright enough to light your way (if you don’t mind stopping every couple of minutes to shake it), but the beam is very narrow, so it is unsuitable for close work such as inspecting an engine compartment at night.
I got one from www.thinkgeek.com and it has turned out to be very useful for us. More than bright enough to deal with our midnight Rabbit feeding needs. It does require a bit of a shake before you got outside and then usually another about 10 minutes later.
We are a family that seems to be in a perpetual battery shortage with the kids (or me) often taking batteries from important stuff (remote, torch) to power toys and the like, so the forever flashlight we got was heaven sent.
Shakelights do what they’re meant to do, which isn’t much. They’ll be useful when civilisation comes to an end and batteries and bulbs run out. Until then I don’t even rate them as an emergency light - for much less weight and space you can carry a little Inova keychain light and several spare batteries. (I like the Inova because you can change the batteries without tools - there are several other brands on the market.)
To expand on what Hunter Hawk said, Surefire make a budget flashlight called the G2 (“Nitrolon”) which is pretty good and not too pricey in comparison to the rest of their range. You can get one here:
I was telling a friend about it & flexing my hand back & forth to show how the flashlight charged. When she smirked, I just hung my head, blushed & muttered “Shut up.”
I’ve never seen the shake ones, but I must say that the crank one I have has left me rather uninpressed. Similar issues–doesn’t hold much of a charge and you only get a bright light for a minute or two. Definately not made for regular use, mine doesn’t even seem to hold as much of a charge as it used to, and I didn’t think I’d used it all that much.
I’ve had one for a couple of years and I don’t have any complaints. Once you get used to shaking it every couple of minutes, it works fine. It’s not as bright as a traditional battery-powered, incandescent-bulbed version, but it works just fine for my limited, urban-dwelling purposes.
i found a somewhat similar “cranklight” at the local hardware store, it’s got the standard 3 LED design, with a difference, the “crank” is also a screwdriver handle, it has screwdriver bits stored in the back of the light…
and since it uses standard interchangable screwdriver bits, that means the screwdriver bit holder for my cordless drill fits on it…
i can charge it much quicker by sliding the bit holder on the handle mount point and the other end in the drill, then put the drill in “drive” mode and pull the trigger, quick, efficient charging
I too bought one of those cranklights (at Walgreens) and while it does work, I wouldn’t say it works well. The light fades quickly no matter how much I crank…um…charge it. It’s probably a good thing to have around in an emergency but I wouldn’t bother with it on a camping trip.
