Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

[MidnightDistortions]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

Been looking for some lights that will work with near dead batteries, especially since i got a bunch of alkalines that are sitting getting no use. I have been using them in one of my cheap plastic flashlights so at least they would get some use.

Another great way to use your dead batteries is in some weather clocks or transmitters. Got old AA and AAA's working in my Oregon Scientific station. I have to keep it out of the bathroom otherwise too much condensation will stop the weather station from working but otherwise it works great on dead batteries .

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

Been looking for some lights that will work with near dead batteries, especially since i got a bunch of alkalines that are sitting getting no use. I have been using them in one of my cheap plastic flashlights so at least they would get some use.

Another great way to use your dead batteries is in some weather clocks or transmitters. Got old AA and AAA's working in my Oregon Scientific station. I have to keep it out of the bathroom otherwise too much condensation will stop the weather station from working but otherwise it works great on dead batteries .

I used to be interested in sucking the last milliwatt out of alkalines till I had to deal with the leaks and now I don't recommend anyone using anything that can be damaged by leaking alkaline batteries to suck the last bit out of them. If you think about it the miniscule amount of power saved can be replaced by charging an eneloop just 1 time. I have cheap sub $3 lights I use to suck most of the power from used alkalines then I just toss them not worrying about the extra 5 hours at sub 1 lumen levels I could get out of it.

 

[yoyoman]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

My application is related to lithium primary CR123 cells that I harvest from a Malkoff Hound Dog on an MD3 body. The cells are not a dime a dozen and have a much lower risk of leaking. I get a very useful output and runtime. I'm quite pleased with this set up.

 

[gravelmonkey]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

My application is related to lithium primary CR123 cells that I harvest from a Malkoff Hound Dog on an MD3 body. The cells are not a dime a dozen and have a much lower risk of leaking. I get a very useful output and runtime. I'm quite pleased with this set up.

Are you using the Peak Logan with the QTC? I've tested my 17500 Logan with dead alkalines; I wouldn't call the last few hours of light useable unless you were trapped in a cave or something! On dead alkaleaks QTC allowed a choice of dim to barely glowing, so I took it out.

 

[MidnightDistortions]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

I used to be interested in sucking the last milliwatt out of alkalines till I had to deal with the leaks and now I don't recommend anyone using anything that can be damaged by leaking alkaline batteries to suck the last bit out of them. If you think about it the miniscule amount of power saved can be replaced by charging an eneloop just 1 time. I have cheap sub $3 lights I use to suck most of the power from used alkalines then I just toss them not worrying about the extra 5 hours at sub 1 lumen levels I could get out of it.

I can agree with that, alkaleaks are messy and not worth using. That's why i only still use them in electronics that are on their way out anyway. The weather station i have.. while it's still useful does not transmit the data from the sensor. I took poor care of both the station and the sensor but they work so i don't really care if alkalines leak in those devices, plus the acid should travel away from the device so i'm not really worried about that. The same would be said for any cheap electronic product that is easily replaceable, but it is probably cheaper and better to get Eneloops that would probably outlive (or stop working due to old age) the device it's running with their low drain. But it's great for experiments and on top of that i can hold off on buying another $40 16 pack of Eneloops until i need them and i won't have to worry about my stock of batteries all going out at the same time or similar times. That will probably be the case with the Eneloops i got, but i got high capacity batteries for that . Eventually i won't ever have to see an alkaline ever again, i won't ever buy them for sure, other than the smoke/carbon dioxide detectors. The less of them i have the better.

 

[AnAppleSnail]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

Eventually i won't ever have to see an alkaline ever again, i won't ever buy them for sure, other than the smoke/carbon dioxide detectors. The less of them i have the better.

I built a mini-mag mod that consumes about 6 mA from fresh Alkaleaks, about 4 mA from fresh Eneloops, and runs in direct drive. Does this qualify as a Battery Vampire?

XT-E Mini Mag Lite post on CPF. If not, thanks for reading. You guys seem to really prefer single-cell vampires, for flexibility in using old cells.

 

[MidnightDistortions]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

I built a mini-mag mod that consumes about 6 mA from fresh Alkaleaks, about 4 mA from fresh Eneloops, and runs in direct drive. Does this qualify as a Battery Vampire?

XT-E Mini Mag Lite post on CPF. If not, thanks for reading. You guys seem to really prefer single-cell vampires, for flexibility in using old cells.

I don't know how much mA a stock mini-mag uses, i never did the math.. but your mod sounds pretty low for mA consumption.. how many hours do you get out of the light? Single-cell vampire lights and other devices is generally better to avoid driving a weaker cell into cell reversal and with alkalines they can leak when driven into cell reversal. NiMH batteries will just degrade faster. As i said though the devices that i still use alkalines for are not really all that important and i think the low current prevents the weaker battery from overdischarge, none of the batteries are doing that as of yet all seem to be producing at least 1 volt or a bit lower, last time i checked the lowest battery voltage was around 0.89 volts.

 

[yoyoman]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

No QTC in my Peak Logan 123. I do have a momentary switch on it.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

I don't know how much mA a stock mini-mag uses, i never did the math.. but your mod sounds pretty low for mA consumption.. how many hours do you get out of the light? Single-cell vampire lights and other devices is generally better to avoid driving a weaker cell into cell reversal and with alkalines they can leak when driven into cell reversal. NiMH batteries will just degrade faster. As i said though the devices that i still use alkalines for are not really all that important and i think the low current prevents the weaker battery from overdischarge, none of the batteries are doing that as of yet all seem to be producing at least 1 volt or a bit lower, last time i checked the lowest battery voltage was around 0.89 volts.

I think a stock minimag incan is in the range of 500ma, the older led minimag is about 400ma or so. A decent led can be direct driven by 2AA batteries with alkalines being a lot brighter than nimh. 5ma is about 1/4 the nominal current input of a single 5mm white LED and if an alkaline AA has about 2500mah a 5ma current should give you about 500 hours runtime or about 3 weeks but in reality it may be nearly twice that as the voltage drops on cells unregulated circuits reduce output and 5 drops to 4 to 3 even down to less than 1ma which depending on the led could put out useful light still. My first battery drainer was a cheap 4AA battery holder, a variable resistor, and a single 5mm LED. I would put an ammeter inline and adjust it down to about 4ma and when it started getting too dim I would crank the variable resistor. I than added another 4AA holder in series and could run 6-8AAs and then take a voltmeter and measure the individual cell voltages when they got under 0.3v I would take them out and dispose of them.

 

[MidnightDistortions]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

I think a stock minimag incan is in the range of 500ma, the older led minimag is about 400ma or so. A decent led can be direct driven by 2AA batteries with alkalines being a lot brighter than nimh. 5ma is about 1/4 the nominal current input of a single 5mm white LED and if an alkaline AA has about 2500mah a 5ma current should give you about 500 hours runtime or about 3 weeks but in reality it may be nearly twice that as the voltage drops on cells unregulated circuits reduce output and 5 drops to 4 to 3 even down to less than 1ma which depending on the led could put out useful light still. My first battery drainer was a cheap 4AA battery holder, a variable resistor, and a single 5mm LED. I would put an ammeter inline and adjust it down to about 4ma and when it started getting too dim I would crank the variable resistor. I than added another 4AA holder in series and could run 6-8AAs and then take a voltmeter and measure the individual cell voltages when they got under 0.3v I would take them out and dispose of them.

Thanks for that clarification . That helps out quite a bit, though i don't think you could get much light out of it, maybe unless you do some mods.

That's a pretty nifty setup though, i was actually planning on doing something like that and maybe hook up a string of LEDs that i could use old NiMHs and Alkalines on. I already have a setup but it's hooked up to a wall outlet, doesn't do much if the power goes out, i'd rather have a battery hooked up so i could get some light with a flick of a switch.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

Thanks for that clarification . That helps out quite a bit, though i don't think you could get much light out of it, maybe unless you do some mods.

That's a pretty nifty setup though, i was actually planning on doing something like that and maybe hook up a string of LEDs that i could use old NiMHs and Alkalines on. I already have a setup but it's hooked up to a wall outlet, doesn't do much if the power goes out, i'd rather have a battery hooked up so i could get some light with a flick of a switch.

I have this remote controlled 4AA incan light that I've bought a diode for so I can connect it to a walwart and when the power goes out the batteries will automatically power it as long as the voltage is higher than the batteries via the AC power it shouldn't drain them any. If you wanted light from a switch you could easily just get a SPDT switch and have it toggle from a walwart to batteries.

 

[MidnightDistortions]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

I have this remote controlled 4AA incan light that I've bought a diode for so I can connect it to a walwart and when the power goes out the batteries will automatically power it as long as the voltage is higher than the batteries via the AC power it shouldn't drain them any. If you wanted light from a switch you could easily just get a SPDT switch and have it toggle from a walwart to batteries.

Nice, i probably would have some sort of IR motion sensor that turns on when i move past that will automatically turn on the lights, though that might take up power from the batteries if i don't have a wallwart hooked up. In my experience some wallwarts have vampire drains that isn't costly but over time it racks up. Though i might just get something like this that way it would only be on when i am at home. I already shut off my surge protector that i have my PC, TV, cable modem ect... all hooked up to. Just doing that cut my electric bill $7 a month.

As i said it's probably not costly to do just that one wallwart but i definitely don't want it running when i am not at home, would be completely pointless and i am at home around 50% of the time.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

Nice, i probably would have some sort of IR motion sensor that turns on when i move past that will automatically turn on the lights, though that might take up power from the batteries if i don't have a wallwart hooked up. In my experience some wallwarts have vampire drains that isn't costly but over time it racks up. Though i might just get something like this that way it would only be on when i am at home. I already shut off my surge protector that i have my PC, TV, cable modem ect... all hooked up to. Just doing that cut my electric bill $7 a month.

As i said it's probably not costly to do just that one wallwart but i definitely don't want it running when i am not at home, would be completely pointless and i am at home around 50% of the time.

I've looked into IR motion sensor lights and almost all the ones that I've seen have a standby operating current in the 10+ma range which means when not in use they will drain batteries at 240mah a day. As for walwarts draining power you are focusing on them and not the appliance plugged into them as a walwart doesn't drain much if there isn't much power used. You have to calculate the power output of the walwart by associating it with the load on it and a light that isn't using any power most of the time plugged into one will probably cost only a few cents a month. I have these C7 lights that use 3 LEDs and are rated at costing about 75 cents a year to operate 24/7/365. A cable modem has a 5v 1A walwart or can use up to 5 watts of power so that over a day it would be 120watts and a month 3600 watts or about 3.6 KWH perhaps 50 cents while your PC can use more and a TV on standby could use 10-20 watts to use $7 a month would be approx 60KWH or mean you have about an 83 watt drain on that strip if electricity is 12 cents per KWH.

 

[Timothybil]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

I've got you all beat! I have one of the last Hurricane lamps that Surefire sold. This was back in the day when incandescent was king, and cells that wouldn't light a P60 anymore still had a reasonable amount of life left. The Hurricane lamp was a small square plastic case that would hold sixteen CR123a cells, eight up and eight down, in pairs. The lid had clips to hold it onto the case. The clips on one side were two stage, the first stage just held the lid on, the second stage made contact with a pair of cells to light the lamp. The lid also had eight small holes on the top aligned with the eight pairs of cells. When a pair of cells was totally drained, one could either move another pair into that position, or position the bulb over another pair by using a different hole. The bulb was one of those small molded center dome bulbs one used to find on cheap penlights. It was probably one or two lumens. The idea was to use whatever life was left in a pair of cells to light the much lighter load of the small bulb to use up the remainder of the cells. It was designed to be used in basically emergency power outage situations where any light would be appreciated.
With the advent of LEDs there usually isn't enough left in a pair of cells to light up the bulb. I may think about making an LED replacement for the incan bulb that is there. Any suggestions?

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

I've got you all beat! I have one of the last Hurricane lamps that Surefire sold. This was back in the day when incandescent was king, and cells that wouldn't light a P60 anymore still had a reasonable amount of life left. The Hurricane lamp was a small square plastic case that would hold sixteen CR123a cells, eight up and eight down, in pairs. The lid had clips to hold it onto the case. The clips on one side were two stage, the first stage just held the lid on, the second stage made contact with a pair of cells to light the lamp. The lid also had eight small holes on the top aligned with the eight pairs of cells. When a pair of cells was totally drained, one could either move another pair into that position, or position the bulb over another pair by using a different hole. The bulb was one of those small molded center dome bulbs one used to find on cheap penlights. It was probably one or two lumens. The idea was to use whatever life was left in a pair of cells to light the much lighter load of the small bulb to use up the remainder of the cells. It was designed to be used in basically emergency power outage situations where any light would be appreciated.
With the advent of LEDs there usually isn't enough left in a pair of cells to light up the bulb. I may think about making an LED replacement for the incan bulb that is there. Any suggestions?

If it is a PR base bulb you can buy LED swap ins but beware that polarity can be an issue.

 

[hyperloop]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

Hi there, don't know if this has been posted already, apologies if it has. The Olight ST25 Baton has a moonlight mode which runs off AA cells which are depleted for other devices which need higher voltage. Cheers.

 

[MidnightDistortions]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

I've looked into IR motion sensor lights and almost all the ones that I've seen have a standby operating current in the 10+ma range which means when not in use they will drain batteries at 240mah a day. As for walwarts draining power you are focusing on them and not the appliance plugged into them as a walwart doesn't drain much if there isn't much power used. You have to calculate the power output of the walwart by associating it with the load on it and a light that isn't using any power most of the time plugged into one will probably cost only a few cents a month. I have these C7 lights that use 3 LEDs and are rated at costing about 75 cents a year to operate 24/7/365. A cable modem has a 5v 1A walwart or can use up to 5 watts of power so that over a day it would be 120watts and a month 3600 watts or about 3.6 KWH perhaps 50 cents while your PC can use more and a TV on standby could use 10-20 watts to use $7 a month would be approx 60KWH or mean you have about an 83 watt drain on that strip if electricity is 12 cents per KWH.

Thanks for clearing that one up . I thought Walwarts themselves take up energy but it's nice to know they won't.. it's the appliance attached to it that would take up more energy to run. It probably would be more ideal to use a switch then have the IR motion sensors on, another idea would be a light sensor, if there's no light the lights would turn on. Again probably would have to find a way to shut it off, but since Walwarts do not take up much energy like you said, a setup to turn the lights on in an event the power goes out would be beneficial. Would have to make sure the batteries are charged and working though

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

Thanks for clearing that one up . I thought Walwarts themselves take up energy but it's nice to know they won't.. it's the appliance attached to it that would take up more energy to run. It probably would be more ideal to use a switch then have the IR motion sensors on, another idea would be a light sensor, if there's no light the lights would turn on. Again probably would have to find a way to shut it off, but since Walwarts do not take up much energy like you said, a setup to turn the lights on in an event the power goes out would be beneficial. Would have to make sure the batteries are charged and working though

I'm not saying they don't take up energy, without something plugged in they do take energy but a rather tiny amount perhaps a few cents a month or so. I have power outages taken care of mostly here in that I took these 3AA taplights and converted them to LEDs with a resistor connected across the switch to one end of the circuit so the light "glows" in the dark and I recharge them every few months to keep them glowing. For something like what you are saying the cost of running it off a walwart is miniscule and would save you time and the annoyance of having to recharge batteries often. I would suggest that if they were LED you could modify them to allow a constant amount of current to the LEDs enough to make them glow in the dark bright enough to find them could be added that draws only a few ma of current.

 

[MidnightDistortions]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

I'm not saying they don't take up energy, without something plugged in they do take energy but a rather tiny amount perhaps a few cents a month or so. I have power outages taken care of mostly here in that I took these 3AA taplights and converted them to LEDs with a resistor connected across the switch to one end of the circuit so the light "glows" in the dark and I recharge them every few months to keep them glowing. For something like what you are saying the cost of running it off a walwart is miniscule and would save you time and the annoyance of having to recharge batteries often. I would suggest that if they were LED you could modify them to allow a constant amount of current to the LEDs enough to make them glow in the dark bright enough to find them could be added that draws only a few ma of current.

Great idea! Plus it's most likely the crap batteries that i'll use, but for the most part i plan on designing one that will either charge the batteries or be able to remove the battery pack to hook up a fresh set set of charged batteries.

 

[Timothybil]

Re: Battery Vampires - Lights that you can feed your "dead" cells to, listing..

I'm not saying they don't take up energy, without something plugged in they do take energy but a rather tiny amount perhaps a few cents a month or so.

All wall warts waste energy in and of themselves. The process of changing voltage and converting from AC to DC is not 100% efficient at any time. When the attached device is drawing current, the losses to inefficiency are miniscule in comparison, and not worth worrying about. It is when there is no device connected, or the device is not drawing current that the inefficiency can be considered wasteful. The old, heavy, bulky wall warts that always felt warm to the touch used transformers for the voltage conversion, and even when idle there was voltage applied to the input side of the transformer. The magnetic fields that resulted cause the iron cores of the transformer to vibrate slightly, producing heat. The newer slim wall warts are all solid state, but are still always active and not 100% efficient.
To cope with this and minimize what are usually called 'parasitic' losses, one can find higher end power strips/surge strips with one of the outlets labeled 'Master'. It has circuitry that can sense when there is no load on that circuit, and power down the rest of the outlets until a load appears on the Master outlet again. These work great when a piece of electronic equipment has several other electronics associated with it, and they are not used for a significant portion of the day. With a parasitic loss of one or more watts per hour, this can add up to one or two dollars a month just for the association of equipment. Think of all the phone, tablet, iPod, cordless phone, battery charger, razor, etc. wall warts sitting around doing nothing for a majority of each day, and the losses add up.