LED flashlight / USB Drive combo idea!

A friend of mine, actually the person who showed me the Photon Microlights, thought of this idea and I thought it would be a nice one. I know something similiar already exists, but here's what he was thinking which neither of us have found yet:

Flash drives usually have an LED indicator light already, why not add on to that and make it a flashlight as well?

Photon Microlight sized LED flashlight combined a mini flash drive with a rechargable battery. The thickness can be a little thicker, but not too thick. USB flash drives can be incredibly small. The recharging, of course, will be done via USB.

I'm not so fond of batteries that are not replaceable, but I'm throwing in the idea that it could be a replaceable rechargable battery.

I know this isn't a terribly exciting idea, but what do you guys think?

sounds cool, just make sure you somehow protect voltage feedback from getting back to the usb part. it may drain the battery. maybe a switch or small circut? with the width of most usb drives, u should be able to use 2 5mm white leds... should produce a fair amount of light

Sounds cool! I've already got a USB LED light...being able to remove it and carry it around would be a nice extra

I'm sure I've seen the USB LED flashlight done before... not so sure about the combo.

Yep. http://www.everythingusb.com/news/index/6380.htm

s002cjs said:

Sounds cool! I've already got a USB LED light...being able to remove it and carry it around would be a nice extra

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I'm not sure if this would work, but my Creative MuVo TxFM uses a seperate battery adapter to power the MP3 player through the USB plug. I don't know if it would power a light, but the adapters alone are sold on the Creative website. IIRC, they are around $10.

The adapter will deliver power to such a device but then you'd have to create something like the MuVo flash drive module to slide into the adapter with a USB A connector. However, the idea that Deww presents is certainly achievable using a USB connection, and could be used to charge some pretty high powered flashlights, not just power a low-powered one.

As evidenced by the Creative MP3 and video players, the power from a USB port delivering 5V@400-500 mAh is adequate to charge a lithium ion battery in about the same amount of time as some battery chargers. One example that I can think of in the Creative line is the Zen Touch which has a 3.6V 2000 mAh LIon battery in it. There's no reason why something like a SL Strion, which also uses a 2000mAh LIon battery (they're all 3.6V per cell, regardless of what they put on the spec sheet) couldn't be charged off of a USB port. Needless to say, lights that demand less power or have lower capacity LIon batteries, could be more easily accommodated. If one were so inclined, a USB cable could probably even be made up to power the DSD chargers.

BTW, since you brought up Creative MP3 players, there is an undocumented feature in their Zen Nano and Zen Nano Plus (previously know as the MuVo N200) flash memory based players, you can power the player through the USB connection, without a battery.

DonShock said:

I'm not sure if this would work, but my Creative MuVo TxFM uses a seperate battery adapter to power the MP3 player through the USB plug. I don't know if it would power a light, but the adapters alone are sold on the Creative website. IIRC, they are around $10.

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