I recently purchased an Energizer LED Cranklight to keep in my vehicle. You crank the handle for a minute to get ten minutes of light. It also functions as an am/fm radio and a siren.
Well, I looked at the instructions and there is a small sticker that says:
:dubious: WTF? Seriously, WTF? I assume “compliance” has something to do with the FCC and radio use, right? Am I missing something? Can my flashlight be modified into a taser?
Searching their website, I could not find an answer, however, I did learn:
Guessing here that they are being defensive against some sort of lawsuit or something. Suppose you made a modification that allowed you to play the siren through a loudspeaker on your car to impersonate a police vehicle. I dunno.
… I think that’s the first instance of a crank-through license agreement on a flashlight. :rolleyes:
IANAL, but whatever it is they meant, it’s most likely unenforceable from their side since even though Energizer is the party responsible for compliance with various consumer electronics regulations, they are definitely not granting you any authority to use the flashlight, and if a certain modification or use is in violation of any law or regulation that’s between you and the regulatory agency to begin with. If there is some obvious usage/modification that they know is illegal, then this disclaimer probably will not do to protect them from civil action because it is universally true with any device and is common sense. For example, sharpening a spoon into a shiv and attacking random people with it is a crime and technically exceeds “your authority for operating a spoon”.
To comment on this part, my theories on things you can do with a flashlight that they could be referring to:
[list=a]
[li]You can damage/remove the shielding causing it to generate harmful interference [/li][li]Assuming it uses some sort of a big capacitor for storing generated electricity, depending on what the linear equivalent resistance of the capacitor is, it could be modified to zap, perhaps very unsafely.[/li][li]You mentioned it’s an LED flashlight, so it’s not very probable but it’s possible that without the glass the amount of UV it generates is unsafe/against regulations[/li][li]Perhaps the actual radio receiver can be tuned to frequencies that you’re not allowed to sell receivers for in some countries. [/li][/list]
Well, all the WAGs are good ones. I am pleased that there wasn’t a pile on about how everyone knows that with a paper clip and some Avon skin-so-soft you can turn the flashlight into a surgical laser.
Personally, I think that it’s almost certainly about the radio. With sirens, you’re looking at most at local noise ordinances, but radio transmitters come under federal regulations. And it’s not all that hard to turn a radio receiver into a radio transmitter.
Yet another wild guess about the label: I recently read an article online that tells you how to turn an LED Maglite into a high-powered laser, using the laser diode from a CD burner. Because the resulting laser is much more powerful than consumer-level laser pointers (it’s capable of lighting matches and bursting balloons), and because the resulting device wouldn’t have safety features that are required for more powerful lasers, and because a person making such modifications wouldn’t very likely relabel and recertify the laser, you couldn’t lawfully operate it without running afoul of the Code of Federal Regulations. Being an LED flashlight, I’m sure something similar could be done with your cranklight. At least, that’s what I gather about the situation.
Well, it took them a while, but the Energizer folks have responded. Apparently, it is an FCC thing, or so they would have me believe. I still prefer the Taser idea.
ETA: since I am the adressee I assume I can disseminate, distribute,
retain, or copy this e-mail, right?
I’ve seen similar warnings on lots of electrical products. AIUI, there are strict limits on the amount of radio frequency emissions from electronics, and if you tamper with the products you might affect the shielding and thereby make the product illegal to use.
I still prefer the Taser idea.