White LED Keychain for $1 - Canadian! (US$0.8)

lak

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Found this at Dollarama, a Canadian Dollar shop. Not bad at C$1 (US$0.81); as bright as my other more expensive keychain LED lights. It's nice to be able to buy it locally, as paying for shipping really kills the deal for such a cheap item. Get it before it's all gone, as you never know if they would restock sold out items.



LEDKeychain_3.jpg
 

BayMoe

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Thanks for sharing Lak.
Where in Canada did you find those? If it's in Ontario, can you give me the location of the Dollarama you found it in? I'd like to grab a couple of those for me and my friends.

Alex
 

PocketBeam

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Sweet deal. This looks like the Campfire LED keychain lights. It doesn't have a lock on switch, so you have to keep pushing it. I remember paying ten bucks for the Campfire light, abotua year ago.

I bet these, or simular, will shortly show up in the US dollar stores.
 

lak

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[ QUOTE ]
BayMoe said:
Where in Canada did you find those? If it's in Ontario, can you give me the location of the Dollarama you found it in?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Alex, I found it in Woodside Square (Finch/McCowan) in Scarborough. The lights are located close to the batteries & headsets.
 

rwolff

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These sounded interesting, so I decided to dig deeper.

Woodside square (McCowan & Finch): someone had cleaned them out before I got there.
Markham & Lawrence: someone had cleaned them out before I got there.
Kennedy & Lawrence: As of 4:30 PM Sunday (after my shopping trip), they had 4 left.

From the packaging, it appears that these are intended to be a regular stock item (note "DOLLARAMA" in lower left corner of B&W side). For a "one-shot" deal, they wouldn't be likely to go for a "house brand" label. As for how well they perform, here's my mini-review:

These are your typical coin-cell momentary-only keychain lights, with a minor twist - you have to supply your own keychain (but there is a hole for mounting on a keyring). With nearly-fresh batteries (don't know how often it was "tested" in the store), it was visibly brighter than, and had a beam width similar to, a Dorcy 1xAAA LED with a nearly-fresh (less than 15 minutes use) alkaline. If you're looking for a dirt-cheap "throwaway" light (replacing the batteries, even with dollar store parts, would probably cost at least as much as a new light), these are the ones to get.

In a slightly more detailed examination, the LED drew 60 mA (in another thread, someone measured the Dorcy, and with a fresh battery it pushed more than 100 mA through the LED). Since this light was brighter than the Dorcy (although the Dorcy would have some loss due to its lens) at a lower current, it appears to have a more efficient LED than the Dorcy. Running on one coin cell ("stock" configuration has 2 in series), it drew about 2 mA, and produced a dim, though usable, light. Over the past month or so, I have checked local (Toronto) prices for high-brightness white LEDs, and they ranged from $1.50 to $3.00 each. The Dollarama LED flashlights, at $1.00 each, are the cheapest local source for high-brightness white LEDs that I have seen so far - and they throw in a pair of CR2016 Lithium cells with each LED purchased.

These flashlights reminded me of a Wayne&Shuster parody of a disposable razor ad - "the blade is junk, the handle is a superior musical instrument".
 

2dim

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Thanks for the mini-review...BTW, love your sig!

"You know you're a flashaholic when you read a letter from your girlfriend and wonder why she signed it with an undesirable Luxeon bin (SWAK)"
 

NigelBond

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I picked up a a couple of these from two local dollaramas. The first store only had one left, so i went to another store and got a couple more. Get this, some dumbass is actually stealing from a dollar store. At the second store, there were many packages that had been opened and had the light stollen. I think its a great deal, the lights are definitly brighter than my AAA dorcy. If i could get the head off my dorcy, i might even consider switching the led with one of these.
I also found at dollarama, a nicer blue led keychain. Its grey with a momentary push button. Uses the same 2016 batteries and actually has screws holding it together instead of just being snaped together like the white led ones. Comes in a hard clear plastic box bedded with neoprene like foam. Thats a whole lot of packaging for a buck if you ask me. It looks like these blue led ones might be old inventory that will not be replaced. Both stores that i went to had only one left.
 

BayMoe

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Darn, wish I had went there earlier. The entire rack that was supposed to be full of them were all sold out like what rwolff said. Oh well..
 

gpk

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Heads up to Montrealers!
Found these at a nearby dollar store in Montreal, on Mount-Royal & St-Laurent...
Not bad for a buck /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

rwolff

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[ QUOTE ]

I also found at dollarama, a nicer blue led keychain...It looks like these blue led ones might be old inventory that will not be replaced.


[/ QUOTE ]

Went to Lawrence&Kennedy today (Saturday). They had sold off the 4 I didn't buy, and had the space filled with the grey-cased blue ones (I bought one). When I asked one of the employees about the ones with the white LED (one of my 10 is on my car keyring), the response was "they're done". The part number on the blue LED models is 0201016, compared to 0201333 for the white LED model, so it appears that the blue LED model is from an earlier purchase. Note that another chain "Everything for a dollar" also has LED keyrings (assorted body and LED colours). At both Warden south of Eglinton (near WalMart) and Victoria Park & Eglinton (beside Bulk Barn), they had red, green, yellow, and blue LEDs, but no white - the back of the package listed the batteries used for green, blue, and white (2xCR2016) and red (1xCR2032), so that's another possible source (didn't buy any, so don't ask me for performance data).

As for the Dollarama blue LED model, it is about the same brightness as the white, but throws a larger circle of light with sharp edges (as opposed to the fuzzy edges of the white - understandable due to blurring by the phosphor).
 

lak

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Heads up for those who want to buy this light.
The White LED lights are now back in stock at Woodside Square Dollarama (Finch & McCowan). There are at least 100+ on the shelf, but I am sure it will clear out fairly quickly.
 

rwolff

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Another followup: roughly a month ago, I got contact information for someone in Dollarama's distribution system and e-mailed him feedback on the 2 types of LED keychain light (this was roughly a week before your post, so it's unlikely they'd have reacted in time for you to make your find). Didn't get (or expect) a reply, but yesterday I was at the Lawrence&Kennedy outlet and they had (note the past tense) 3 left of the good model (blue body/white LED). One thing I'd missed earlier was that what looks like a "snap-together" on the package actually holds a small split ring (easy to overlook when opening the package, and therefore lose the part). While it's too small to use as a keyring, it's perfect for a "change of plane" so the body of the light is parallel to the keyring rather than parallel to the heads of your keys.

Hopefully the folks at Dollarama will realize that the blue/white model sells out quickly while the silver/blue model hangs around for a long time, and continue to carry the one with the high turnover.
 
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