Flashoholic heaven - a blackout

The wife has been giving me grief about all the flashlights. But last night the power went out for a couple hours and she was scared until I pulled out half a dozen flashlights. I even made her repeat "flashlights are out friends."
I only wish I had finished my Luxeon Star conversion before last night. I want to rig mine with 2 resistors in parallel - a 5 ohm and a 1 ohm. I will put a switch on the branch with the 1 ohm resistor so that, when the switch is off, the circuit has 5 ohms of resistance (for fresh alkalines) and when the switch is on current will flow through both resistors giving .833 ohms of resistance (for rechargeables and dead alkalines). My only fear is that it might get used by a person who doesn't understand what that second switch is for and burn out the LS.
BTW, does this sound like a good idea or is it not worth the effort?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by danno:

BTW, does this sound like a good idea or is it not worth the effort?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's a great idea - AS LONG AS you never, never loan the flashlight to somebody who doesn't understand them. And if for some reason you must, tape the switch in the lower power position first and tell them it will explode and spray hot battery acid all over the place if they pull the tape off.

My neighborhood was always plagued with blackouts. At least it was until I spent a load of cash on a Honda generator and a transfer switch. Aint that always the case.

The hi-low sounds like a great idea to me, and how many other people will really use the light besides yourself? Of course it only takes on... You could also use it as a tempory "turbo" switch, just don't leave it on to long.

What kind of light are you putting it in?

There was a blackout recently in my neighborhood.

I was sitting in front of my computer (as usual) when it hit. Instant darkness. I was literally three steps away from my flashlight collection.

I was blind. I actually had to pull out the Photon on my keychain to find my way. Straight to the homemade power failure lights, which I put in the room corners. Worked pretty well actually, the initial panic of being in darkness subsided.

As I relaxed I chuckled a bit about the neighbors, who had to go outside and turn on their car headlights to finish whatever they were doing.

Can't wait for the next one to hit...

We had a blackout a few years ago when the primary feeder blew, taking every transformer on it along for the ride.

The power was out for 8 days.

The only odour you could smell was an odour like a rotten refrigerator, multiplied by several hundred. There were also some people who thought they weren't supposed to flush when the power was out, so after awhile, that nasty rotten **** smell started coming out of the woodwork as well, mixing with the rotting fridge odour.

Hottest f$*%^*&$&# summer on record too - no power, almost no water pressure (means no showers!), no AC, no fans - pee-you!!!!

Several people in wheelchairs died that week, because they could not get out of their apartments for cool air (elevator was out) and heatstroke got to them.

I hear the same thing happened in Chicago not too many years back.

No numner of LED flashlights would have helped in this case.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>What kind of light are you putting it in? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The lucky victim --- uuum, candidate, is a 3-D cell light that was issued to me when I was in the service years ago. It has two things going for it. First, the switch is on the barrel. Second, when the reflector/bulb unit is removed, the head (of the flashlight) is essentially empty except for two copper contacts coming up from the body. I'm pretty much a "hamfist" when it comes to soldering, so I'm gonna need a lot of room.