Pink Floyd Pulse CD Box Set

[Empath]

That sounds like the LED on the package for a Logitech Optical mouse. I repackaged the the works in a small case and have been running the batteries for months. Radio Shack also sells a 2 AA cell blinking light. It's also been going for months.

 

[sotyakr]

I've also got the Pulse box set (one of my favorites, and not just for the flashing LED), but I forget how long the batteries held up. I think they lasted a few years.

 

[Saaby]

I've got the mouse and my box had NICE batteries in the blinky light (Duracell Advanded or whatever, the nice Duracell batteries) so I took them out and used them in something else. Took this unit to scout camp and stuck it in my tent to make location easy at night. Ran for a week (Would have run longer, took batteries out) on the cheapest AAs I could find in the house

 

[B@rt]

The batts lasted way too long!

I ended up storing the box out of sight as it was driving me nuts...
Pretty energy efficient though.

 

[DavidH]

Does anyone else have the Special box set of Pink Floyd Pulse with the flashing LED? My first battery lasted for 5 years, I'm now on the second one. I let it flash until it was totally dead. At the end, it was barely perceptible. It's still pretty bright after a couple of years on the new alkaline batteries. The box has an insert with a red flashing 5mm LED powered by 2 AA batteries.

 

[WaltH]

Yeah, I've got the pulse CD. I took the battery out after a couple years so I'd be sure not to have an alkaline meltdown. Very cool CD in more ways than one. Although I prefer their older stuff.

 

[The_LED_Museum]

I wonder if that flasher is based on the now-obsolete LM3909 monolithic LED flasher IC. Back in the 1970s, you could find them at Radio Shack and make an LED flasher (using the IC and I think a resistor and a 100uF cap) and it would flash an LED for more than a year on a single C cell. With the component values modified, it might even run for a year on an AA cell.

 

[Chris M.]

I do wonder if those ICs really are obsolete. I have two fake CCTV camera housings (one of which has a real camera inside now) that came with single-cell powered blinky LEDs using that very same IC (one had a D cell, one bought a few weeks later from a different store had a C cell). They were bought about 2 years ago but are still sold today, still with the blinky light to try and make it look more real-er. It`s possible that a vast mountain of them had been stockpiled though, and that the ICs are now not avaliable new.


The one that wasn`t retrofitted with a real cam (and steady burning LED powered off the DC supply), blinked non stop for about 18 months on just one c cell. It still blinks now and then too depending on the weather, so I wonder if it`s actually just corroded contacts preventing it from working most the time? It is getting kind of rusty round the edges now....