best free power, windup led light

Ive purchased several shake it, free power led flashlights at a local flea
market, they seem to really work well for a single led. Ads claim the windup type lights are capable of running 3-5 leds and are much brighter.
Has anyone had any experience with one of these? Quality and light output seems to vary alot in this type stuff so Im looking for anyone who has compared the windup led lights to other lights. Or any reccomendations on
which model to buy.

I recently purchased a sample of a windup as a trade show was ending and the manufacturer's rep didn't want to take it home. The brand is Benex. It has three LED's, and you can select either the center one or all three. The windup is a handle about 3.5 inches long that folds into the bottom.

The LED's are very white and bright. I have not really tested it enough to get a good feel for how long they run without windup. The switch clicks feel very positive and I would say overall quality matches, say, my Dorcy AAA. There are nice rubber grips on the sides. The battery is sealed lead acid. I don't know how long it takes to self-dischage, but it has held its charge for a month now as the light sat unused.

The winding handle makes a satisfying level of noise. I wind it reasonably fast, but the factory rep wound it like a demon, and it did not fly apart. Durability is anybody's guess. They had a model with a radio, and another that would charge your cell phone, but it did not work with my particular Motorola phone.

The beam was a little disappointing, since I wanted a flood. It is a tight round spot, with very little spill. When you light all three LEDs the spot doesn't grow much, but of course it does get considerably brighter and the throw is better.

This is a much better light than my other generator light, a Russian army squeeze model. The Russian light tires you hand and puts out very little light compared to this one. It also has no buffer battery, so if you don't keep the dynamo going the light dies. On the other hand, since it has no battery to discharge it can be left untouched for years and will work when you pick it up.

All in all, the Benex is a decent disaster light for the second year, after you run out of batteries and your solar chargers are not working because the meteor has kicked up so much dust. Not too sure why I need it other than that.

Photos:










Beam shape with one led lit.


Beam shape with 3 led's lit.

Yeah...this is a good light. I got one as a gift from Brookstone.

WHen the batteries are fully charged/cranked the output of these are exactly what you'd expect from comparable 1 and 3 LED flashlights. The 1 LED is about as bright as the Dorcy 1AAA, and the 3LED is a little dimmer than the PrincetonTec Attitude 3LED. I don't know what size battery is in there, but the box says it uses a rechargeable lithium battery.

They stay close to full brightness for about 2 minutes and then slowly taper off to a dimmer light. I'd say you've got usable light for about 10 minutes before you have to crank again.

I prefer these to the shake lights because you can crank the light without having to turning the light off, or away from the subject.

I came across a crank light at my Lowes today in the flashlight section. This light was a bit different from some other crank lights I'm used to. The first time I tried it, a red led came on above the switch. The instructions say that it indicates the light needs to be charged. Anyway, the light has 3 white LEDs on the front and two red ones on each side of the bezel.

Anyway, the package was made so you could try the crank out. I gave it a few turns and clicked the switch. The first click, all three white leds on the front came on. Second turned it off. Third caused both the red leds on the sides and the main leds to strobe. Then off again and start from the beginning.

After 1 min running at flashlight mode, the low power led came on and the main light went out a few seconds later. I turned it off and cranked it for a good min then tried it again. I think it will last about 15 mins on one min of cranking but I'm not sure. I already forgot what the brand name was and what else was written on the package.

I have a wind-up almost identical to that Benex one of Sprocketman's. The first thing I noticed was that you have to charge it for about ten minutes to get maximum voltage from the cell (it's brighter whilst winding it otherwise), but after that, It's pretty good. The rechargeable cell is actually only a small lithium coin cell, soldered to the board (I opened it up to look!), so it soesn't have unbelievable runtime, but it's pretty good. The mechanism is a lot quieter after I put some (more) grease on it, and looks like it should be fairly durable.

I have another one with a 6 V output socket and three switchable levels: that one has five 5 mm LEDs behind a plastic window with a moulded lens for each LED. It projects a pretty decent focussed beam (though full of artefacts, dust, scratches, etc.!) but it's basically very similar to the other--same lithium coin cell.

All of the ones I've seen here in the UK are about the same quality, brightness, runtime, etc. Much better than the shakelights IMHO!

I picked up another of these at Walgreens in Tucson for $15. No brand name on the light itself. Brought it home and replaced the center led with a Nichia CS. Lo and behold, no difference! Turns out the other led's are CS too, or if not they are exactly the same construction and internal component dimensions, and to my eye they are the same brightness.

With all three leds lit I get about the same output as a single Dorcy AAA with a Nichia CS in it. As AKWJ noted, the internal cell is 3.6v, so the Dorcy must be overdriving its single led more than that. This one has a normal beam with a wide spot surrounded by useful spill. My first light has lenses in front of the leds that really concentrate the beam into a very tight spot. It has great throw for this type of light but almost no useful spill. I don't think a photo will help distinguish them, but may try one.

Saw a pack of two of these at Costco in Tucson for $20. Didn't get a chance to look a them carefully.

I wonder if there is protection against overcharging the li-on button cell. If not, you could crank it to death. The internal gears are nylon-type plastic, running on steel pins that just slot into raised anchors in the plastic case. Assuming the electronics hold up, I guess the gears would be the determinant in how long the light would last. But it's no fun cranking anyway, and most of us will never use it enough to wear things out.

Sprocketman:

This is like a coincidence... I recently got a Motorola hand-crank charger (LINK to manufacturer) for cheap. Your Benex light looks 90% identical to that product:



I am in the process of modifying it to look like your light. The Motorola device did not come with any modules, so I have to figure out how I could get power from it. Inside the unit is a 3-cell pack of 1100mAH NiMH batteries, hooked up a circuit board that connects to the dynamo/alternator.

There are 4 terminals to connect to the modules. I wonder if I could connect 4.5V DC to the terminals to charge the batteries.

To make the light module, I believe I will need to use some plastic filling material (epoxy perhaps?).

I have searched around the net but no one has documented any hacking of such device. There must be someway to make this work...

Wow, BEpsilon, that cell phone charger has a lot more battery than any of the other windups reported on so far. If the manufacturer has any design sense you will not be able to charge it through the cell phone terminals, since that would equate to connecting a cell phone and draining its battery.

I have looked at my wind up light, with the puny little Li-on button cell, to see what I might do about beefing up the battery, but there is so little room in the case that it will be a real challenge.

The best bet for me would probably be another Li-on, since I want to leave this thing in a cabin where it might not be wound for months.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
.
.

I ordered this one:
http://www.axshop.com/details.aspx/sku-853/

Still waiting for it to arrive.

so changing the led might not equal the work?

Another point: the batteries inside may die sometimes (especially as the light will not be used regularly), so how about changing to Gold Cap Capacitors?
Exensive, right, but how about overall lifetime of these?
(I have a 3.3 F in my bike, it powers a red Luxeon for several minutes bright light, then up to 10 Mins of dimishing light)

This was mentioned in another thread about a similar model crank light sold at Costco: as this model uses Li-ion batteries, it is not a good candidate for an emergency light. The Li-ion batteries will deteriorate after 3 or so years whether they are used or not, so you can't just store one of these away and expect to work when you need it.

Also, at least the Costco lights had an issue with turning the crank when the LED's were on. This somehow damaged the light.

I received a DuraPro crank light as a Christmas gift. It has 3 led's and ran 50 minutes until it began to dim. The light has the typical bluish tint, is not particularly bright but will do in a pinch. Good light for kids, no batteries to run down. Not a good light for an emergency kit because it needs to be run at least every three months. Review & photo here: http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/durapro_crank.htm

I also got the DuraPRO handcrank light for Christmas (2 pack)

I got concerned about the quality when I read the review here about how the light doesn't hold a charge after the 1st charging cycle, so I ran both lights until they were fairly dim. This took about an hour. I then cranked both lights for 1 minute and turned them on again. Sure enough, now the lights only lasted about 5 minutes before they started getting dim! I cranked them again with the same result.

Totally worthless lights. The battery only holds a good charge the 1st time the light is cranked! And to crank for 1 minute for 5 minutes of light is really annoying. I'm drop-kicking these puppies. Too bad I can't take them back to Costco. I don't want to hurt the feelings of the person who gave them to me and ask for a receipt.

don't know if it's the best, but here's a freeplay windup

SuperNinja said:

I ordered this one:
http://www.axshop.com/details.aspx/sku-853/

Still waiting for it to arrive.

Click to expand...

i got one just like that, i didnt really need one, but it had 5 leds, and quite high output for charging.
it had in it 3 small Ni-Mhy batteries, that would hold a fair ammount of time.
works great? the crank itself might not last for 20 hours of cranking, but it ran a very sufficient ammount of time with all 5 leds, after a lot of cranking.

i got it on e-bay so cheap, that i couldnt resist, it is impractical for charging a seperated battery EXCEPT for emergency , but the light part of it was just fine, as far as 5 x 5mm leds go. i think the leds were of the cheaper type.

it is reasonable sized, and fairly light in weight, cranking was relative to the longer crank type units (i tried) on it the handle is shorter, so cranking is with less leverage. with less leverage, the movement is shorter, with harder movement.

i do not think there is ANY li-ion battery in it, just ni-mhys that will run the light for a long time after crank charging them, and a ouput that is capacitored that will charge a li-ion, the lights will also run while your charging the output , but they disconnect from the ni-mhy when you plug in the output adapter.
the ni-mhy must disconnect to charge a external after all, because it would need to achieve a higher voltage.

SuperNinja said:

I ordered this one:
http://www.axshop.com/details.aspx/sku-853/

Still waiting for it to arrive.

Click to expand...

Ok, my windup LED flashlight/cellphone charger finally came today.

It came already charged, and as far as "batteryless" (crank or shake lights) go, it puts out a lot more light than I was expecting it to.
I only have prior experience with a couple shake lights, and those were a VERY big dissapointment.

This crank light EASILY blows away the shake lights I have tried, and is substantially cheaper than the shake lights I have seen that were sold locally.

Things I liked about this crank light:

Bright, long lasting light.
Can turn on 1,2,3,4 or all 5 LEDs at a time.
Can charge some cell phones.
Wrist strap and cell phone charging cable included.

This is the smallest size "batteryless" LED flashlight I have ever seen, and so far it is still far brighter, more functional, and cheaper than the more expensive shake lights I have seen.


Things that I didn't like about this light:

The loop in the strap/lanyard is just barely big enough to allow the average sized hand to fit through it.








At $8.49, I can't seen this one being beaten from a price/performance standpoint in the near future.



I am testing it right now for runtime, to see how long it will last with all 5 LEDs burning.
Hopefully, this will still be a great light even after the inital charge is depleted, when I have to start charging it myself.

1st update:
Ok, the 5 LEDs have been burning bright for over 2 hours (on the initial factory charge), but now I can see 1 of the LEDs is starting to decrease slightly in brightness.

2nd update:
At around 2 hours and 30 minutes, 1 LED has almost no light, and the remaining 4 LEDs put out just enough light to walk around in a dark room.

3rd update:
I cranked the light for about 1 minute, and all 5 LEDs are back to their original brightness. After being on for about 3 minutes, I can see 1 LED dropping in brightness very slightly.

cy, give us a run down on your Freeplay.

Bill