Spring Powered

[Clouddancer]

RAD, Why does anyone still use NiCads anymore anyway with NMHs available? My thought is that eliminating the whole battery component altogether would be a huge improvement. My guess is that you would have to give up somewhat the compact light saber nature of standard flashlight bodies. But that doesn't seem to necessarily mean bulky. I would bet the Freeplay Pro with that detachable lamp uses a fairly sizeable spring. Perhaps Freeplay would sell them as a seperate component to modders? I just think the idea of high effciency intensity combined with complete independance from batteries would be very cool. I'm still looking.

By the way, what is a "supercap"?

 

[B@rt]

The Sherpa uses a "non-removable rechargeable Ni-MH battery pack, 3.6V, 1000mAh."

You can still find the spring powered model, the Freeplay 2020 for $45.-

 

[Clouddancer]

Thanks B@rt .

 

[Steelwolf]

Supercap = super capacitor. Any one of the various capacitors developed for high storage capacity. e.g. capacitors usually have storage capacitors measured in micro or pico farads (even if they are thousands of microfarads, that is still very little). Supercaps are usually 0.5F or 1F. They were developed to provide tiny amounts of power to keep volatile memory alive in case of power failure or battery changes or other such situations.

BTW, there are also capacitors that will store up to 200 Farads (NOT microfarads!) but those are not so commonly available.

 

[radellaf]

There used to be a Baygen spring powered flashlight but they've discontinued it. All the new ones I can find, save perhaps that radio with the light on a cord, rely on damn rechargeable batteries.

A useless design, since when you need it, the NiCds aren't going to take a charge any more. Pisses me off.

A crank and a supercap would be nice, and smaller than the clockwork mechanism.

 

[Clouddancer]

Ah. Okay, thanks Steelwolf. I just saw the blue LED Inova X2 at a local Discovery store. Looks pretty good for ready made. Inova X2

I see now why the Freeplay and others have short run time for the lamp on just the spring power. For compactness it uses the double ended wimpier version of a coil spring design. Ran across a Chinese manufacturer of small constant power coil springs. Maybe we can fix that or cannibalize the Freeplay generator and build my own.

 

[Clouddancer]

(edit*** have no idea what's wrong with the URL function here.)

 

[Icebreak]

That's an Inova X5. Lots of people like it but I don't think that's what you are looking for.

 

[JJHitt]

Originally posted by Chris T:
FWIW my Grundig crank radio with the built in light gives about 5 seconds of light for a minute of cranking. (...) Maybe someday I'll open it up and rplace the bulb (same as the mini maglight) with a LED.

Chris

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I've done this. Stuck a 5mm white nichia directly into the bi-pin socket. No resistor, no soldering. Works fine. If anything, it's underdriven.

But I wonder if your batteries are healthy... I got several minutes of "usable" light out of the incandescent from a short cranking.

On a side note: the Grundig FR-200 is a resonably good radio. The FreePlay on the other hand is a joke. Sensitivity is rarely a issue with radios (selectivity is), but the FreePlay is downright deaf.

(Oh bother... I think I'm off topic)