In power failures, or dangerous storms, you cannot rush out & buy a battery.
Actually, I do ocean and flatwater kayaking and camping, so I understand what you are saying. But a waterproof flashlight (and spare batteries) is much smaller and lighter than a crank flashlight, so I still don’t see the attraction. (I actually take a candle and candle holder along for these types of activities. Absolutely waterproof and provides instant light.)
How many times are you going to tell us you “don’t understand why anybody would want one?” I can’t speak for everybody, but I got your point the first time.
Zero more times.
I think it comes down to personal preference.
When on my own, be it kayak or canoe, I usually don’t bother bringing a flashlight or candle lantern, for after a good day I’m in the tent before the bugs come out (bug mesh with a retracted fitted nylon fly for use if it looks like it might rain), I’m usually asleep before it’s too dark to see, and I’m OK at carefully shuffling in the dark on the rare occasion that I have to leave the tent at night (that’s why God created 32oz Nalgenes – no more needing to leave the tent at night). If worst comes to worst, I could dig out my candle from the survival bag, but I really don’t like anything burning in or near my tent.
The flip side of the coin are folks who like to spend the evenings around a campfire before hitting the sack. After staring at a campfire, we need flashlights to see where we are going, so when I am paddling with others, I bring along a flashlight. If it’s kayaking, then a wee led head-strap one to save space, and if it’s canoeing, then a lantern/flashlight, for it’s lantern function occasionally comes in handy, and the volume and weight (260 grams) is meaningless in a boat that holds five 60 litre/16 gallon barrel packs for flotation under the deck, with room to spare for a day-pack.
Where I prefer a crank when paddling is on canoe trips of a week or two in duration, for I will not have to worry about whether or not it will run out of power. If the battery dies, I will not have to wait until the next day and then fuss with solar recharging, and I will not have to fuss about finding batteries and replacing them in the dark. All I have to do is turn a crank, which is about a complicated as I can manage when I am tired.
For skiing (where weight and volume count far more than when paddling), I have not come across a good solution, for due to the very long nights, I will often want to read in the tent when after a long night’s sleep I wake up before the sun gets its act together and rises, but extended light use takes a lot of battery power (batteries hate the cold). My preference is a wee LED headlamp on a headstrap powered by a lithium battery inside my clothing, for cranking can not keep up with power usage for extended periods. I used a candle lantern for decades, but never felt comfortable using it (the same goes with wood stove hot tenting – I never had any incidents, but I never felt comfortable either) – just give me a tent surrounded by drifted-in trees, or a quinzhee.
So yeh, personal preference, based on balancing varying circumstances/conditions and varying needs/desires.
No. During power outages, we usually sit by the fireplace. One of us is on their phone reading emails, Facebook, texting, looking at news, etc while the other one sits, cranking to charge their phone.
If the power is out for any significant time, we’ll eventually head to a bar. Last winter we showed up at a bar with an extension cord/octopus and our phones, tablets, kindles, etc. We were not the only ones who thought to do this!
I got a shake light for my parents. t works, but you have to shake it a lot – I’d rather crank, myself. It’s much more efficient.
I keep a squeezy light in my car. It looks like this, but it has no capacitor, just a small flywheel. Each squeeze is instant light but for only 4 seconds or so.
Update. I am an idiot. I was curious because it looked just like that one, So I went and looked and it has a switch I never noticed, it does have a capacitor :smack: I guess I never really looked at it in the light before, because the only times i used it , it was dark, and didn’t light it’s own case.
I ordered a shake light and the little crank lantern to which Muffin linked. I no longer fear The Clown or shitting my pants…but, in the end aren’t they the same thing?
TMI.
Then you probably don’t want to know that I store the energy in a supercapacitor.
It’s really very efficient. I can play it back later.
You guys have it easy. My last resort flashlight is one of those Russian hand squeezed units. A single squeeze, which is not too easy as it it spins up a flywheel, gives you maybe 5 seconds of light that is constantly fading. But, hey, it works. Minei s an older one with a convention light bulb, I bet an LED version would be pretty neat.
Dennis
I guess like ZonexandScout I’m missing something here.
I have a bunch of solar cell flashlights. 2 hours spent in the sun will run them all night. No matter what happens to the weather or the power or the bears taking my shit in the woods, there’s going to be more than 2 hours of daylight before it gets dark again. Any polar exploring I’m ever gonna do is in the endless daylight of summer, not the endless night of winter.
ISTM cranked flashlights were useful before the advent of modern solar cells and modern batteries and modern LEDs lamps. IMO nowadays they’re right up there with kerosene lanterns as examples of things that make light the hard way.
Heh, we’ve used an oil lamp for light during a power failure. When the power fails at 7 pm on a winter evening, the solar flashlight sitting in the kitchen junk drawer will just piss me off. Plus, the solar flashlight cannot charge my phone.
The crank light I cite above uses LEDs – they last longer and are tougher than incandescent lights. A hand crank flashlight stored away from the sun won’t be able to use solar power and won’t be charged when you need it. And what I said about batteries still goes. I don’t se a hand-crank flashlight (along with radio/phone charger/etc) to be obsolete or pointless technology at all.
Gravity light. https://gravitylight.org/how-it-works-1-1
Although not a hand-held flashlight, here’s an off-grid/non-fueled fixed position light that lets a slowly descending bag of rocks/books/body parts etc. do the cranking for you.
TedX talk on the development of the Gravity Light. GravityLight - lighting a billion lives: Jim Reeves at TEDxWarwick 2014 - YouTube
Just made use of a Solar/crank hybrid light.
And now, “behind the fridge” is clean.
Nice not to have to hunt for batteries1