Crank Flashlight Musings

Flashlights and rechargeable batteries

Hugh — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:46:31 +0000

So I was thinking of using rechargeable batteries for my flashlights. The idea made sense to me. I mean, after all, this way, instead of having to throw away my dead batteries when I realize that they’ve conked out, I can instead take those dead batteries and pop them into a charger of some kind, and the after they’re charged, make use of them some more. And this was something I was sort of familiar with since, well, rechargeable batteries are used in quite a lot of common devices nowadays. Mobile phones make use of them. So do laptops. And cordless phones. And quite a lot of other devices I’m sure. So it helped that what I would be trying out wasn’t alien technology at all.

So I went around online, looking at various places which were offering rechargeable batteries for sale, as well of course as the necessary chargers. And the prices, while of course more expensive than the usual non rechargeable types of batteries, seemed reasonable enough. I’d be paying more of course, but then I thought that I’d be able to get that back by being able to use the batteries over and over and over.

Green flashlights

Hugh — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:45:42 +0000

Also, just from a fairly green perspective, I didn’t like how it seems quite unsustainable to just keep on buying and buying batteries to feed my hungry flashlights. I mean, I don’t know much about recycling batteries and all that other stuff. Landfills or what have you. But it just seems to me that these batteries, when they die, have to end up somewhere. And it also seems to me that batteries probably have all sorts of nasty stuff in them that I personally wouldn’t want to get in the stuff I drink, I eat, or I swim in. So it just didn’t seem sustainable, and also I didn’t really want to feel the kind of guilt that comes with being part of the problem instead of being part of the solution. So I thought I should start looking for a better way. So I thought maybe I should start making use of rechargeable batteries instead of the throwaway type.

Flashlights and flat tires

Hugh — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:44:53 +0000

So I had a flashlight in the trunk of the car handy, so that in case I had to change a flat tire on a dark road sometime, then I’d at least have some light to work with. But then what happens is that I pop the flashlight in the trunk, and don’t really check on it until it’s actually a time that I need that flashlight. Think emergency or inconvenient situation. So sometimes weeks or even months go by without me giving the flashlight a try. So what happens? Well, the batteries go dead, and I don’t know about it until the exact moment when it’s absolutely not an option for me to go wandering around looking for a place to buy fresh batteries.

I know, I know. I could just have kept a pack of fresh batteries somewhere in the car. But I was thinking that given enough time, I might have a similar situation on my hands anyway. Even those batteries might refuse to work well if left alone for too long. Also, I just don’t like the idea of having batteries just lying around in the car, subjected to the extreme heat that my car is usually subjected to on a sunny summer day.

Flashlight juice

Hugh — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:43:58 +0000

Again, why a crank flashlight? Well, up until this point, I’d pretty much been using normal flashlights. The kind that you can just simply buy at any grocery or hardware store. And I didn’t really have too many problems with them. They worked. If I needed light in a dark place, they were there to provide illumination. The problem though was that those darn flashlights were such greedy, hungry monsters. Basically, I’d keep it somewhere nice and dry and cool, and yet I’d find that when it was time to make use of the device, the batteries were dead. So there wouldn’t be any light at all. Or there’d be a bit of light, but then after a while, the light would fade, and then conk out altogether.

So I was getting somewhat tired of having flashlights that tended to run out of juice just when I needed them. The problem was that I don’t really use flashlights on a regular basis. For example, I used to keep a flashlight in the car, for those moments when you need to do a quick inspection, or maybe change a flat tire, somewhere where there really isn’t any light or hardly any light to work by.

My crank flashlight

Hugh — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:34:02 +0000

I have a crank flashlight. Basically what that means is that I have a fairly compact flashlight, which pretty much looks like most other flashlights out there, except that this one has a sort of handle connected to it. When the handle isn’t in use, it just pretty much lies flat along the edge of the device. But when it is needed, it pulls out and the handle has a little stubby handle of its own, which is what I use when I need to wind the device.

Why the crank? Well, the idea here is that this flashlight doesn’t make use of the usual batteries which are used to power these types of devices. No AAs or AAAs or D cells or anything quite like that. Instead, the flashlight has its own form of on board battery, and when the crank of the flashlight is wound at at least a certain speed, that on board battery gets charged.