Anyone use a 9 volt battery "Pak Light"

Anyone use a 9 volt battery \"Pak Light\"

Looks great for portability (Such as camping) but how good is it? Anyone have experience with it?
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Re: Anyone use a 9 volt battery \"Pak Light\"

I haven't heard of a pak light but there is a Pal light that uses a 9v battery, here is one review of one model Pal survivor
There are some people that like them with I personally haven't got one and unless you are in love with the 9v format and all the *functions* there are other lights that cost the same or considerably less that don't have the extra *functions* but cheaper batteries with more capacity than the 9v.

Re: Anyone use a 9 volt battery \"Pak Light\"

Looks interesting. Run times look good, too.

Re: Anyone use a 9 volt battery \"Pak Light\"

"The Cousin of the Pak-Lite's Inventor [...] also uses Pak-Lite Flashlights." /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowlaugh.gif

Re: Anyone use a 9 volt battery \"Pak Light\"

white LEDs driven at nominal inputs only draw 20ma. The advantage in using a 9v battery is you have more headroom to drop until you hit the Vf of the LED. If it is resistored to protect it... as the voltage of the battery drops so does the current into the LED... thus increasing run time and dimming it more.

I would hope they use some sort of regulator to prevent excess dimming for those prices... if not I would suggest making your own 9v clip on light. You can buy the clip on from radio shack and order LEDs for about a buck each plus a few bucks shipping and put a resistor with it, maybe even a small switch. If you wanted to you could seal it all in epoxy.

Re: Anyone use a 9 volt battery \"Pak Light\"

I have not used this light, but I like the format of small lights that mount on top of the battery. There are a couple of 9 V lights out there, and I have seen one company that offers Li based 9V batteries with pretty good capacity.

With 2 LEDs in series, that puts the Vf at around 7V, and the 9V will sag to around 8V, so only 1 V is really lost to a resistor - not a bad concept.

I like the concept enough that I have been building a home made for my Xmas presents based on a Lux III and a 223 batery (Li 6 V made from 2 x 123). I will have to wait until after Xmas to see what the family reaction is to getting "another flashlight from Dad for Xmas" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Re: Anyone use a 9 volt battery \"Pak Light\"

I own, use, like and recommend this light.

Most folks seem to be really negative on it. Too expensive, too dim, too frail, too..... When I could get an answer out of the nay sayers (not often), they admit that they've never actually seen one....

It's a 'cottage industry' product, made by a family living off grid. Well made, first rate parts, IMO.

On low it's one mA. This means the 'factory' battery (Li nine volter normally found in smoke alarms) really will run 1200 hours. Honestly. And it honestly is a dim but useful level of light. On high it's 16 mA (per LED), very close in brightness to the Arc AAA or Infinity Ultra but with less artifacts due to the dual sources. Battery life will be closer to 1200/16 however. Vf at low is under six total, just a bit over it on high. Resistors are 150 ohms for high with an extra 3000 for low. On the 'factory' battery not only is the weight way down, runtime way up but the flat discharge voltage makes a regulator unnecessary. Indeed, IMO, a bad idea given the otherwise very simple, robust light. Performance on alkaline batteries is OK, of course. But on Li (or even NiMH) it's stellar.

BTW, they're tough. Mine's been through the wash twice now. It's easy to miss in the bottom of a pocket without the battery clipped on.....

Doug Owen

Re: Anyone use a 9 volt battery \"Pak Light\"

I think the biggest stumbling block to the light isn't as much the light but the high cost of 9v batteries. If 9v batteries were 50-75 cents for alkalines you would see people making 4LED lights driven by 9v cells but at $1.50 each (cheapest I can find local) you can get a 4pack of AAAs or AAs and pick up lights using them with multiple LEDs at target and walmart.

You could get order a 9.6V 200mah battery but you would have to make a charger to charge it faster than 12-15 hours.
That battery has more capacity than a AAA nimh and about as much as a 1500mah AA I calculate (at 1.25v nominal).

That and either a 4LED array or lux modestly underdriven may make a decent pocket light, you would have to make it encase the whole battery though because a clip on could fall off and short out on loose change or a pocket knife and weld your pocket to your leg.. OUCH!

Re: Anyone use a 9 volt battery \"Pak Light\"

I'd like to see them come down to the $15 price range! I've got a few "homemade" versions of this, but I do like their package as well as the hi/lo switch.

Anyone know of a source with great prices on them?

Re: Anyone use a 9 volt battery \"Pak Light\"

Here are some reviews by backpackers.

Backpack Gear Test

Mark