tnforever
Newly Enlightened
Hello all, this will probably be shouted down by a few people for being such a basic question.
Note first that I did read the threads about bulb testing and figuring out voltage, but I'm still confused.
Basically I have this old emergency light that comes with a flashlight, a fluorescent tube, and an amber signal light. The flashlight bulb, however, is long gone, and the person who owns it *ahem* has no idea what the bulb rating was.
So, I have 3 questions:
1) Aside from taking it apart, or blowing up more bulbs, how can I determine what kind of bulb it uses? The light uses 6 D cells arranged in two columns of three, so I can only presume it's either 4.5v or 9v
2) Is there a way of determining the correct voltage bulb I should use based on the cells? ie I know that 2 cell lights have a nominal voltage of 3v, but should I buy a 3.6v bulb to ensure that it won't blow, or should a 3v bulb be sufficient?
4) Aside from this, I have a ton of crappy $1 lights that are virtually useless, and I want to upgrade them so they'd actually put out some useful light (right now they put out maybe 10 lumens from comparison to my L2D) are there some reasonably priced (I'm not sticking $10 bulbs in a stupid $1 flashlight, prefer it to be not more than a couple bucks) bulbs I can upgrade them with? They're all 2-cell, most are D, I do have 1 that's 2AA. I also have some emergency lights that are 6 cell. This also applies to A couple maglites that I have, which are 2-3 cell, I understand the best are ROP bulbs (without modding), but any other options are welcome.
In all, I understand that this is a pretty far reaching and open ended question, it's just taht most of the threads in the incan forum are pretty hardcore (flashlights pushing 1000 lumens?!) but all I want is a reasonable upgrade of really cheap flashlights to make them serviceable. I would overwhelmingly prefer things to be OTC, shipping really kills when you buy cheap things.
Note first that I did read the threads about bulb testing and figuring out voltage, but I'm still confused.
Basically I have this old emergency light that comes with a flashlight, a fluorescent tube, and an amber signal light. The flashlight bulb, however, is long gone, and the person who owns it *ahem* has no idea what the bulb rating was.
So, I have 3 questions:
1) Aside from taking it apart, or blowing up more bulbs, how can I determine what kind of bulb it uses? The light uses 6 D cells arranged in two columns of three, so I can only presume it's either 4.5v or 9v
2) Is there a way of determining the correct voltage bulb I should use based on the cells? ie I know that 2 cell lights have a nominal voltage of 3v, but should I buy a 3.6v bulb to ensure that it won't blow, or should a 3v bulb be sufficient?
4) Aside from this, I have a ton of crappy $1 lights that are virtually useless, and I want to upgrade them so they'd actually put out some useful light (right now they put out maybe 10 lumens from comparison to my L2D) are there some reasonably priced (I'm not sticking $10 bulbs in a stupid $1 flashlight, prefer it to be not more than a couple bucks) bulbs I can upgrade them with? They're all 2-cell, most are D, I do have 1 that's 2AA. I also have some emergency lights that are 6 cell. This also applies to A couple maglites that I have, which are 2-3 cell, I understand the best are ROP bulbs (without modding), but any other options are welcome.
In all, I understand that this is a pretty far reaching and open ended question, it's just taht most of the threads in the incan forum are pretty hardcore (flashlights pushing 1000 lumens?!) but all I want is a reasonable upgrade of really cheap flashlights to make them serviceable. I would overwhelmingly prefer things to be OTC, shipping really kills when you buy cheap things.