Innovage Outdoor crank-up flashlight

[lyra]

So, about a year ago, me and my family went to Ace, and we bought a 'kit' with a wind-up radio and a wind-up flashlight from the company of Innovage Outdoor. Now, right outside my window, there is severe weather, and a tornado watch in my area. I usually overreact WAAAAY over the normal limit when my area gets ANY sort of watches or warnings about tornadoes or floods. My flashlight still has light (I assume from battery power), but it has a battery that you cannot replace, and I have not used this flashlight for many months, so I do not know when the battery is going to give. You can crank it, but this is my question: how do you know when your Innovage Outdoor flashlight is fully charged when you wind it up? How long do you have to wind it to be fully charged? I'll post pictures if you guys need to know what it looks like.

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-98123780301262_2108_2107471

So how much do I wind it to make it fully charged?

 

[mrpeter105]

Hi:

I got one of those kits myself for 10 bucks about a year ago. The radio isn't too bad on AM. Both the radio and flashlight use two 350 mah AAA NICD cells to hold a charge . Luckily the radio has a power jack on it that accepts a 6v powersource that is able to charge it's internal batteries. Since it doesn't mention how long it takes I usually leave it for 5 hours. But that's just a guess. As for the flashlight I don't know how much current the crank produces. I would guess probably 10 or 20 percent of the batteries. Again that's just a wild assed guess. So between 5 and 10 hours of cranking. you'd probably wear your arm off before you filled the battery up. I've been thinking of trying to remove the batteries and charging them up fully somehow but just haven't gotten around to it. They didn't make it easy.

 

[Magnumpy]

you can't hotlink to local files :nana:

as to your question, you have to realize this is intended as an "emergency" deal so the battery is unlikely to matter much. it's probably cheap and low capacity, which again doesn't really matter given its intended use.

if you really want to know, take it apart. look for any identifying marks on the battery and measure the power at the dynamo while winding. you should be able to figure it out based on that information.

 

[alpg88]

So how much do I wind it to make it fully charged?

it doesn't matter, you crank as much as you can, (usually a minute or so), than use the light as long as it lights up, once it dies, you crank it again.

usually those crank lights have 3 small nimh cells , 400-600mah, they will not hold a charge for a year, if it still works, i suspect, that light has coin cells, and crank handle doesn't charge anything, but provides power to the led as you crank it.
i've had few crank lights like that, even shake light that i bought at a dollar store had coin cells, and coil that was supposed to power the light was dummy.