New Contributor , I think ...

[**DONOTDELETE**]

After reading over several post here , seems we've got some pretty cool ideas and modifications as well as new product ideas floating around .

Here's a few of my pipedreams .

1) - build a waterproof pocket LED light that uses only a momentary swith - the circuit closes and charges a memory capacitor that then discharges thru the LED lamp . I've used a 1 farad 5 volt cap and it will produce usable light for half a minute or so then continue to glow for several minutes more .

2) How about a nice self charging solar LED pocket lamp ? With so many solar powered pocket calculators on the market seems size is not a problem . No battery , no bulbs to replace .

3) Here's a quicky - take one of those cheap squeeze generator pocket lights and replace the lamp with a LED , a Zener diode to regulate voltage to charge a memory capacitor - bingo! a generator light that only needs a squeeze every couple of minutes instead of hand cramps from constant squeezing/or shaking !

I'm glad to see a bunch of home shop engineers to chat with ! Way cool .

BTW - I'm Ionlite , the inventor of the worlds first rechargable chemical glow stick . It's not being marketed yet :/

It's just a novelty item , but lights are fun toys too !

- later

 

[X-CalBR8]

Ionlite: That's an awesome idea about solar powered and hand powered LED lights. I've wondered for a long while, why not make a solar powered LED light, because a LED consumes so little power that it would be very feasible. I mean, I've seen solar powered watches for at least a decade now, so why not a solar powered LED? If it was designed with capacitors instead of rechargeable batteries, it would last a lifetime (till the solar panels deteriorate for sure). I've got a solar powered calculator that has served me well for over a decade. The hand powered led light with a similar capacitor-power-storage system would be just as good if not better. I've seen very tiny hand generators that would make the light only a tiny bit larger than a standard flashlight. These ideas are just the sort of thing that has been a personal dream of mine for years and if nobody else has marketed them before I get my electrical engineering degree finished, I will design and make them myself. Sure, lithium batteries will last a decade, but if world war 3 ever hits, I want something that will last, at least, for my lifetime without the dependency for commercial batteries. I know you are probably saying to yourselves that I'm crazy for even thinking about such things and that they could never happen to me, but I believe in being prepared. Any type of global, or country wide, disaster could make batteries unavailable. A comet hitting the earth, nuclear war, a plague that kills nearly everyone (Note: This one is very likely with the large, densely packed, population we have today), economic collapse, Et Al. These are all real possibilities, no matter how remote and I would like to be the one to be ready for them. I just believe that everyone should be self-sufficient in case the current "system" should fall apart for whatever reason. O.K. End of rant.

 

[Badbeams3]

Hi ionlite, you have some neat ideas. I had thought of a wind up light, sort of similar to your hand generator...twist the body up several times...inside of course would be a spring spining a small electric motor...In my dreams, it looks sort of like a two cell "C" Mag lite (led of course) and runs for an hour or two off 5 or 6 turns. It`s bright as hell...in my dreams.

Well anyway, welcome!

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

My dream is a waterproof flashlight that can recycle its emitted light into electrical energy going back to its batteries using a small sensor attach to the base of the LED lamp. A self-generating flashlight.

Welcome to the forums Ionlite!!

 

[X-CalBR8]

How about this for a wild idea? Since we are sharing off-the-wall ideas, put LEDs in your shoes and make them run on a generator that is powered by walking. Not something that is very probable to ever happen, but very possible to be done. Btw, I forgot to mention in my previous post, but welcome to the forum Ionlite. I very much enjoyed the ideas that you shared.

 

[Steelwolf]

Anyone have an idea of how much power those Seiko Kinetic watches can generate? It might actually be more feasible to put the LED light in a wrist band or watch. At least the light will be on your hand, where you can point it, and I'm sure those wristwatch generators that Seiko uses can put out quite a bit of power.

Hmmm.... going to start working on this idea. Watch out world!!

 

[lightlover]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by X-CalBR8:
.....we are sharing off-the-wall ideas, put LEDs in your shoes and make them run on a generator that is powered by walking. Not something that is very probable to ever happen, but very possible to be done. Btw.......welcome to the forum Ionlite. I very much enjoyed the ideas that you shared.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not so terribly off the wall X-CalBR8, I seem to recall a product of some kind that uses, or proposed to use, electrical energy generated by walking. It was built in to shoes, or worked through a pedometer or something. (OK, so that's truly vague !) I'll try to find the info again.

Maybe it was on CPForums ?

There are some links to solar-powered LED's (check the Restroom lights too !) and the Baygen battery/clockwork wind-up lights in the links I posted on http://www.candlepowerforums.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=12&t=000021&p=1.

Steelwolf, the Kinetic watch idea sounds interesting ......

Lite-Lover

BTW, Ionlite, Hi. Also -
I want to say you've joined a forum where members are constantly referring to interesting new lights, AND THEN, telling everyone to w-a-i-t for more info !

When can you say more about your deal ?

 

[RonM]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> A self-generating flashlight <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

2d - I guess yours is the photonic equivalent of the perpetual motion machine. Very funny

KenB - The spring driven system is an exellent concept. Good thinking man.

Ionlite - Welcome aboard. That's some great out of the box thinking.

This is gonna be a great thread to watch.

My concept is quite lame compared to what you guys have come up with. I simply want a moderately sized and inexpensive flashlight which has both an LED and halogen bulb. Switch on the halogen for lots of light. Go to the LED for longer battery life. Best of both worlds.

 

[Ant]

hi X-CalBR8 , the guy who made the baygen flashlight (from the UK) has also made a generator that fits inside the shoe to charge up a mobile phone , if it can charge a phone then a led whould be no problem ,,, its still a prototype at the momemt


Ant

 

[RonM]

Here's a link to a solar powered LED flashlight. Solar LED

 

[X-CalBR8]

RonM: That's good thinking and I'm sure it can be easily done because Surefire has a light that uses 2 bulbs quite nicely. Only in the Surefire's case, the options are bright and super bright instead of LED and Halogen. I'm also a big fan of Halogen because of it's efficiency, and of course it goes without saying how efficient LEDs are. It would be the best of both worlds. Maybe you could do a mod on that Surefire and just put in the bulbs you wanted. Maybe you could put in a LEDCORP bulb for the LED part and just go to Wal-Mart or anywhere else to find a Halogen bulb to put in it. Sounds like a good mod. If you ever get the chance to give it a try, let us know how it turns out. I think I would like to try a different body than the Surefire though because Lithium 123's are way too expensive around here right now. I would already own a Surefire E2 if that wasn't the case.

 

[RonM]

Here's a starting point for the generator flashlight. DynaLite

 

[X-CalBR8]

Ant: Generators in the shoes is an idea that definitely could work (it's already been done by people before, in fact), but the thing is, would anybody really spring for such a wacky idea? The biggest downside that I can see in this would be, whatever the generator powered would also have to be located in the shoes, because I don't know of too many people that would be very fond of having a wire run up their leg all day. Hehe.

 

[lightlover]

Thanks Ant, I checked and found -
"Trevor Baylis ...... his latest invention and why he wants to set up an Academy of Inventors." http://www.quis.co.uk/Baylis.htm

We Brits are proud of our eccentric inventors !

lite-lover

 

[Ant]

some more info on the shoe ,,,, Trevor Baylis OBE

 

[X-CalBR8]

RonM: That's a pretty cool solar powered light that you linked to, but it has the same huge weakness that all other solar powered lights, that I've seen, have. It uses NiCad batteries, which means that in like 2 or 3 years (sometimes even less) that it would die a battery death, which defeats the purpose of having an emergency light that would keep for long periods and not rely on batteries that may not be available when there is a huge emergency. I can't wait till the days of cheap rechargeable Lithiums. At least that would give you a 10-year shelf life, at the very least. I still liked Ionlite's idea of having special capacitors store the energy much better though because the capacitors would last practically forever just like the LEDs would and you would never have to worry about batteries going bad, then leaking, and ruining the device and whatever may be close to it. Rechargeable batteries go bad in 2-3 years and when they do, they are bad to leak in your emergency kit doing a lot of damage. It just seems to me that there could be a much better alternative to using batteries on such a low power drain device such as LEDs. Perhaps hand power is the better way to go on this sort of project. I've seen radios advertised that on 30 seconds of cranking they would run a radio for like an hour, so just think how long you could run an LED on that much juice, all night? You could theoretically build a device that could give useable light, on a day to day basis, for a lifetime on parts that are obtainable today! Imagine a light that has no batteries to go bad, doesn't depend on the electrical system for power, and has a LED bulb that, when used at low power, would last a lifetime. Ahh… There would be one of my lifelong dreams come true.

 

[Free]

Hey Ron,

What about the Streamlight Syclone??

I think that this is sort of what you were looking for. It doesn't have a Halogen bulb but I have one of these and it is pretty cool.
http://www.streamlight.com/syc1.htm

 

[Badbeams3]

Here`s a silly idea for solar...mount the panel on the top of a safari or cowboy hat... with a Petzel type led light. Great for those long distance journey`s across the desert or trips in sunny places I never take

 

[X-CalBR8]

That page about the inventor Trevor Baylis was very interesting reading. It is so true what he said about inventors not getting the recognition they deserve until after they are dead. Come to think of it, the same can be said of artist and several other professions that aren't part of the mainstream, work all day in a factory doing one stupid thing, go home, go to bed, wake up, repeat, sort of life that most people are forced to live these days. Now days a small inventor can't make any kind of good living for himself because there is always a huge corporation, full of lawyers, somewhere, that will say they already have a patent on whatever it is that you invented and sue you into the ground over it. Even if you are in the right, in the current system of courts and lawyers, it doesn't matter because, whoever has the most $$ and the most lawyers will almost always win. If you don't believe me just look at the case of Bill Gates and Microsoft for a prime example. Almost all technology he used to build his empire (one of the largest empires in the world today) was blatantly stolen from Xerox and Apple, but who had the most money and lawyers to defend his case, and you have but to look to see who came out on top. Many people don't realize this, but Xerox invented the mouse, but they didn't have enough money to defend themselves properly like Gates did. The Graphical User Interface was also stolen. I could write a book on how many times this sort of thing has happened. I believe this is why there is such a huge need to reform our current patent and copyright system or run the risk of only a hand full of huge corporations owning the entire planet! Just look around, this is close to happening already. Anyway, I know I'm a bit off the subject, but it was just something that I felt needed saying.

 

[Free]

Ionlite said he invented a rechargeable chemical glow stick. How about a chemical glow stick that recharges in the sunlight. If a chemical combination was found that would charge up in the same way that glow in the dark paint does now only much brighter and longer lasting. You could put it in the sun and it would run all night. Sort of an advanced electrolumenescence (sp?)