Shake light experiment

I got hold of a shake light and am currently trying an experiment with it.
I have left it on in the garage till it drains, then I will give it about 10 shakes to see how long it will last.
Does anyone know if this will damage the unit or not?
seems all the lights I tried had a charge and would light up so I couldn't find one that was dead alredy.
Wanted to see if it really is as they say.

I picked up a NightStar CS a while ago from Target liking the idea of no batteries. This particular brand (Applied Innovative Technologies Inc.) uses a capacitor to store the generated electricity. One of the bonus' is that leaving the light for long periods discharged causes no damage.

On the negative side, self-discharge is only a few days until it is required that the light be shaken to provide light. It's not nearly as useful as I had hoped for.

Welcome Theatre Booth Guy, techies rule!

Theatre Booth Guy said:

I picked up a NightStar CS a while ago from Target liking the idea of no batteries. This particular brand (Applied Innovative Technologies Inc.) uses a capacitor to store the generated electricity. One of the bonus' is that leaving the light for long periods discharged causes no damage..

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Glad to hear that, wondering if I will have the patience to go that long now.

Theatre Booth Guy said:

On the negative side, self-discharge is only a few days until it is required that the light be shaken to provide light. It's not nearly as useful as I had hoped for.

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Only a few days? Not enough? Well, that is long enough for me, imho.

Checked mine and it is not the same make (flea market fare). Only useful info on box it "made in China" and a small logo (white circle with a green arrow, kinda like recycle symbol) that has "Der Grune Punkt" under it.

Wonder if it will perform the same. Output hasn't seemed to change in the last two hours since starting.

I've done similar experiments with my shake light and it still works fine. One thing that you'll find is that once it's completely dead, it'll take quite a few shakes (more than 10) to get it charge it back to usable status. Even at what i would consider a maximum charge (arms got tire of shaking it), the cheapo keychain light from lighthound was brighter and more useful...

If it does infact use a cap then you coudl go in there and discharge it yourself. But that might not be too good for the light. Or for you if you screwed up the discharge tool.

I've done similar to my Night Star shake light and it still works, had it for two years now

i want to take one of those to the local hardware store and throw it in the paint mixer! that would own

:lolsign:

I'm curious about these shake lights. What would you say is this comparable with in terms of its light output? Brightness-wise and is the light white?

CHC said:

I'm curious about these shake lights. What would you say is this comparable with in terms of its light output? Brightness-wise and is the light white?

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I have a Forever Flashlight (by Excalibur). The beam has virtually no sidespill as it's heavily focused by the lens, but it's a fairly wide beam. At its brightest (which doesn't last long) it is a bit weaker than the Gladius on its lowest setting, but has a wider hot-spot (I don't have anything else to compare it with at that low level). The tint is decidedly blue.

The output is useable/useful but only for short range applications in very low light conditions (ie with dark adapted vision).

Given options such as a Gladius which can run for approx 400 hrs at low, or a Pak-Lite that will do 1,200 hours on low (with lithium batt) I don't use the shaker at all, and find it hard to imagine circumstances when I would.

Maybe other brands are more effective.

Andrew

All the proper shakelights use a capacitor, usually 1F. Unless there is a 22F cap there (which you should be able to see easily as it would be the size of a C-cell), you should be able to drain the capacitor in 10min-15min.

Flea market, "made in China" POS, usually try to fool the customer with a CR2032 or similar cell in there. It actually can't recharge properly. You could shake till your arms fell off and it would still not light up.

That said, if there is a capacitor in there, you can run it through a million full discharge/recharge cycles and it would still come back for more.

Capacitors will only be killed by excessively high voltages, and in the case of electrolytic caps (such as the abovementioned 1F and 22F capacitors), excessively high temperatures (usually 85degC to 105degC). High voltages would cause arcing across the charge faces, burning it and slowly degrading the useable area, or completely shorting it. High temperatures will boil off the electrolyte.

In my case, I have a Nightstar original shakelight and a home made 1F hand-pumped generator light. Both have survived multiple charge and discharge cycles and even survived in the car through over 5 Perth summers. They still run about 10mins after a full recharge.

ATM Wrote:

Given options such as a Gladius which can run for approx 400 hrs at low, or a Pak-Lite that will do 1,200 hours on low (with lithium batt) I don't use the shaker at all, and find it hard to imagine circumstances when I would.

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Ah. I have the circumstance where you would (well at least I would) gladly own a shakelight. I have four children, 6, 8, 9 and 11, and we enjoy camping. I'm quite tired of replacing batteries in their flashlights and am purchasing them shakelights. (And there's no way I'm putting a Gladius in their hands. )

The ShakeLight that visit me tonight has 3x1.2V tiny NiMH battery-pack, long run-time but will self-discharge and probably fail if left sitting uncharged any long period. I've wondered about some sort of inductive base like the old wireless charging electric tooth-brushes had, that would be kinda slick, even for one with a real capacitor. As to ones with 2032 batteries...there are some rechargeable versions of those cells used for those scrolling LED name-badges {see eBay}. For kids camping I'd suggest the Dorcy 1AAA from Walmart, usually $5.94 and that takes a LONG time to run it down dead!! I mod them with 8mm 1/2 watt 13-lumen LEDs, but for a kid maybe leave it stock for 7x the run_time. As in another thread, a crank-light is easier to charge and some can select from flashing to 1-5 LED illumination, I get them at the drug-store $14.95, or eBay, or the probably now defunct AXSHOP.COM.

One of these will put most of those shake lights to shame.

edit: It's the same light as mentioned in the post above this one.

http://www.longlight.com/en/s_pro/pro_4000.php


lightwave

hundreds of hours of runtime off alkaline batteries, more output than any shakelight, super durable, need I say more?

mdocod said:

http://www.longlight.com/en/s_pro/pro_4000.php


lightwave

hundreds of hours of runtime off alkaline batteries, more output than any shakelight, super durable, need I say more?

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That is a better flashlight, but it's not a good comparison. They are in different classes.

1. It costs a lot more
2. It's much larger
3. It's not "batteryless"

webley445 said:

Checked mine and it is not the same make (flea market fare). Only useful info on box it "made in China" and a small logo (white circle with a green arrow, kinda like recycle symbol) that has "Der Grune Punkt" under it.

Wonder if it will perform the same. Output hasn't seemed to change in the last two hours since starting.

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If output hasn't changed within that period of time, chances are that it has two CR2032 coin cells instead of a supercap. The "magnet" might not actually BE a magnet; rather it may simply be an inert steel slug. And the wires from the coil may be connected to one another on the circuit board the batteries are mounted on.
See these two web pages of mine for shining (cough, sputter, sound of a toliet flushing) examples of this.

CHC said:

I'm curious about these shake lights. What would you say is this comparable with in terms of its light output? Brightness-wise and is the light white?

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I just got one of the cheap magnetic induction "shake" flashlights with an order from AXShop. I believe the packaging called it a "Forever Flashlight". When I removed it from the package, the switch was in the ON position so I'm sure it doesn't cheat and use coin cells to work. It is a somewhat cheaply constructed light with a clear plastic body that allows you to watch the magnet moving back and forth between the coils when you shake it.

My experience is similar to Andrew's: The tint is rather blue. The beam is very focused by a lens and has little sidespill. At its brightest (which lasts a few minutes) it is weaker than my Picolight (a tiny keychain light about the size of a large vitamin pill, see this thread here for a picture). The best I can say about the shake light's output is "better than nothing". I'd much rather use my Picolight or my two-stage Pak-Lite since I have a seemingly unlimited supply of partially used 9V batteries from smoke detectors. However the shake light was worth the 90 cents that I paid for it, simply as a novelty and as a demonstration of the principle of magnetic induction.

Has anybody tried changing the LED in one of these cheap shake lights? I'd be curious how it would perform with a better LED such as a JELED 50k or a Nichia CS.

vortechs said:

I just got one of the cheap magnetic induction "shake" flashlights with an order from AXShop. I believe the packaging called it a "Forever Flashlight". When I removed it from the package, the switch was in the ON position so I'm sure it doesn't cheat and use coin cells to work.

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Good to hear that at least theirs have chargers that work as intended.
I also have one of their 90 cent shake lights on the way. I might try putting in a 40K led in it, if it is too dim.