Flashlight with toxic "rubber" switch cover?

[Patriot]

I've noticed the same smell on my Ellys. Actually a lot of Chinese rubber smells that way...I've noticed it on other products as well.

Ditto. There are many Chinese products that smell that way now. It's nasty! You inner "sixth sense" tells you that it's not at all good. The only light that I have that smells like that is an advertised 3 million CP Vector dual beam spotlight. I keep in in the garage because I dislike the smell so much.

Ditto about Walmart smelling the same way. There is definately something unhappy going on during the manufacturing process Maybe a chemist will chime in with his or her two cents....

[Edit]
I'm light heartedly interested and not worried that I'm going get cancer because if it. Now, if I was working in the Chinese factory producing it.......
I just think it really smells, um....not right...lol

 

[hank]

Anyone taking organic chemistry, who has access to a NMR lab?

If so run a sample and figure out what the chemicals are.

Last time I got gassed in a demonstration (thirty years ago, think of that) nobody in the student hospital was able to identify the chemical used, and they had several kids in there who'd taken the gas canisters full in the face --- and all it said on the canisters was "expiration date June 1958" ---- so we took one over to the chem lab and ran a NMR and figured out what the chemical was.

(It was acetic acid on a neutral dry powder carrier, and once they knew that, the doctors could wash it out with water and baking soda -- before they knew they were afraid they had to pick all the particles out with a surgical microscope. Nobody ended up permanently blinded from that day.)

It's always good to know what chemicals are being used. There are a _lot_ of "mold release" agents used to get molded rubber/silicon to pop out of the molds easily without sticking. Some of them include lead powder, which is one of the problems with polyvinyl chloride, just as an aside.)

Perhaps coincidentally, learn from the people interviewed by the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/b...7ad19856687df98a&ex=1178078400&pagewanted=all


"I don't know if there's a regulation on it. Probably not. No law or regulation says 'don't do it,' so everyone's doing it. The laws in China are like that, aren't they? If there's no accident, there won't be any regulation."


Sooooo, who's still in academia, with access to modern lab equipment? I'm _sure_ there are far faster and more accurate ways to characterize volatile organics now, probably it'd take five minutes and no math to get an answer.

Someone ought to be doing this kind of thing routinely before long, there's obviously a need. This should feed back to the people doing the actual manufacturing, I think we can be fairly sure none of them are given a clue about the chemicals they're using, or the education to figure them out.

Nor is this a complaint against China in particular. There's one Chinese group tracking down water pollution sources. They find most of them are American and European multinationals who've sent their dirty processes to China, so they say.

Markets want information, and the information has to be freely available for markets to work.

 

[martytoo]

The smelly rubber that I have noticed from China is worst in the cheap personalized calculators that are given away as gifts by companies. This smells like sulfur to me and I always assumed that cheap petroleum products made with components that weren't properly desulfurized was the problem.


My flashlights however, when smelly just seem like the rubber isn't completely polymerized.

Either sulfur or unpolymerized rubber is not likely to cause trouble unless the user is allergic. (And one poster in this thread did indeed mention that he was allergic to a specific compound.)

 

[PeterScowcroft]

Side track here but how big was that chain?

For someone to die from lead toxicity from one chain link would be very very difficult unless the chain was like a motorbike chain and he died from choking!

People don't understand that lead doesn't kill so theremore in regards to mortality it is safe.


p.s. lead with cause serious brain damage especialy to the memory synapes leaving you around as usefull as a goldfish!

 

[TorchBoy]

It is the same with Jazz. It is not dead it just smells funny.

Is that a brand of deodorant? Or do you mean the music? :laughing:

A few months ago I bought a small torch from a local auction web site. The torch has a tail cap clickie that had a burnt smell so I did a web search and the best answer I found was something about how recycled rubber just has that smell. It didn't mention any particular chemicals or health risks, although of course it's always a good idea to wash hands before eating. :tinfoil: