I got a couple of these Duracell lights in my sock for Christmas and was so impressed I had to get a couple more. 3 LED flashlight, red emergency strobe, AM/FM radio with retractable antenna and a port to charge cell phones etc all operated via a retractable hand crank, plus the adapter cables to fit almost any phone or other chargeable device using these connections. 1 min of crank time = 30 minutes of LED white light, 3 hours of strobe, 11 minutes of radio on normal volume or 1 minute of talk time depending on phone model. USB cables can also be used to charge the device by plugging into your computer. The Flashlight is surprisingly bright, and the radio is clear with a whole range of channels. Drawbacks?? I would not imagine they would stand up to being dropped on a hard surface and they are not water proof. This and the bulk would make them unsuitable for outdoor use, but during a blackout in the home they are perfectly suited. I now have 1 in my vehicle borne bug out kit and 3 in various locations through the house in case of power failures. Now I don’t have to worry about replacing all these batteries periodically and best of all a package of two of these lights with 2 sets of charging cables cost a total of 26 dollars. Pretty big bang for the buck.

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Look nice

You do realize there is a battery in these, you will just have to replace it with a soldering iron in a couple years when it wears out.

They'd only wear out in a couple of years with heavy use.

Or if left plugged in all the time or allowed to drain too low (cell reversal).

Well I think the issue is that if they are nicads, they will develop "memory" and will no long take a charge.

Dave

The correct term is "memory effect", when I used to simply say memory I was finally questioned as to why can't they just build them without memory so I'm careful to note that is just an effect that makes it appear as to have memory memory effect was pretty much taken care of after the first NiCads used by nasa in satelites.

NiCad's are the most tolerant of being constantly charged but that doesn't mean that a constant trickle charger is a good way to charge them. NiCad would probably be the easiest to put into something that might be left in to charge or have an on consistnet charge cycle like that from a solar or crank charger. NiMH is less tolerant and will go bad in just a couple years if used that way.

Self discharge is also an issue. Batteries sitting around will slowly drain over time and if they get too low polarity reversal can happen resulting in a bad cell in the pack.

To get the best battery life you really need a smart charger and a maintenance schedule. Thats why I don't like products like these, they are treating the batteries in the worst ways possible yet may be relied on in an emergency. many people will pull these kind of deviced out of their emergency kits only to find the batteries have gone bad and can barely hold a charge for longer than the crank is turned.

Wow folks. I had no idea that these things were so shady. I have never used anything like them before. Maybe I will reconsider my thinking on them. At any rate they have some uses. Considering the price, if I get a couple of years use just around the house with them they will have paid for themselves. They are by NO means my only source of emergency light.
Thanks for the info!!

the main thing I just try to caution people on is to not put these kind of tools away in a kit and expect them to work perfect 5 years later. The batteries will porbbaly eb bayond recovery from just sitting by then.
It just seems to me everyone is jumping on this crank fad so they don't have to worry about batteries but they still do. My suggestion is to buy a decent battery charger, decent batteries and tools/gear that use those batteries then check your gear at least twice a year or once a season change.
You should be checking your gear every so often anyway to rotate water and food and replace expired medication and supplies so its not any more effort to rotate out some primary batteries or top off some low self discharge NiMH's.
Rememeber also that a lot of the crank stuff uses NiCad batteries so don't toss them in the trash when they die, take them someplace to recycle the NiCad's properly.
Its a preference of mine to have things serviceable, I want electronics powered by AA batteries so I can re-charge them every few months then roatate them out in a few years. I have gear that last ten years or more that way.

I would also take a look and see if you can take the thing apart and if you can, go to a RC hobby store and buy some good nicad batteries and replace the battery pack that they come with. That's what I did when I got tired of the replacement pack that most cordless phones use and paying a lot for a battery pack that last a year and only an hour.. the one I built now lasts about 6 hours and cost about 10.00...

my 2 cents.

Dave

I actually have an eliminator 800 and a solar panel which works surprisingly well to recharge normal rechargeable batteries using only solar power. I don’t really need the hand cranked models but they sure seemed neat for the price. Maybe I just got caught up in the whole novelty of it all…..

Eugene,

What smart battery charger and brand of rechargable batteries would you recommend for mostly AA and AAA devices? I need to add some to my gear.

Thanks!

I'm with you on the AA strategy Eugene - but for most folks, isn't a hand crank NiCad that at least gives them power while they crank marginally better than a dead AA (or C or D) powered flashlight in the emergency kit? I can't tell you how many Red Cross kits I've looked at where the first time I pull the flashlight out its dead for lack of attention. Hand crank not as a panacea, but as an okay solution for kits that get stored and not maintained.

digikey or mouser, you can get packs spot welded together in whatever config you need when/if you do need to replace the packs. I've rebuilt a couple small cordless screwdrivers that way, still trying to find a quality AA powered one.

MAHA from thomas distributing for chargers. they may look expensive but comparing something like the $40 c401fs to the $30 charger I bought from walmart they are not that much more and the little 401 has rejuvinated batteries the 30 walmart quality charger had left for dead.
I've standardized on sanyo eneloop, have two sets for every piece of important gear, one to use while the other is charging.

IF a cell gets too low to reverse polarity then the hand crank won't do any good. Or if the cell leaks acid onto the PCB from being overcharged or sitting too long then the crank won't help either.

I hear ya. Good quality nicads are night and day different than the cheap Chinese/Asia Knockoffs...

Dave

Oh, they have their use. The concerns that have been voiced apply to ANY kind of rechargable battery, in all honesty.

What I'd really like to see is someone making these with a capacitor that could actually power it for a usable amount of time. A lot fewer issues with long term storage, so long as it isn't stored charged.

Not really, a good charger negates a lot of the issues and the new low self discharge NiMH batteries fix just about all the rest. The big issue with these products is they are designed and marketed as to be stored away in an emergency kit without needing any battery maintenance which is false and that their chargers are not good chargers so they don't help the problem any.

Where did you pick those up? crank or no crank they look like great multitaskers and I think that I might pick up a couple too.

Although I had a good collection of NiMH (AA and AAA) batteries, I too have decided to standardize on Eneloops.



I bought Eneloops before Christmas and so far after heavy use in the cameras and mp3 players, I am impressed with them. They were on sale last week so I bought a few more.

With the regular NiMH batteries, they do self-drain fairly quick. I checked the Eneloops right out of the package with a voltmeter and they were only down 200 mh which is quite good as there is no way to determine how long they sat on the shelf before they were purchased.

I have one package of the Eneloops that I topped up the charge on. They are my test set as I want to determine how much voltage drop there is after 30, 60, 90 days.

As for charging the Eneloops, any NiMH battery charger will work...there is no need to waste your $$$ on a "Eneloops specific" charger.

I've had eneloops for over a year and have been buying those $7.99 for 4 packs. I've paid more than that for traditional NiMH batteries in the past.

While you don't need an eneloop charger, i still try to steer people towards a good charger, i.e. none of the 15 minite ones, none of the ones from walmart or radio shack which shorten the lifespan of the batteries by non properly following all the charging specs.

For any people interested, they were purchased at COSTCO wholesale. (Not sure if this is a U.S or Canadian only chain) But being Duracell I am sure you could find them in a lot of stores. I still have a whole slew of rechargeable batteries and chargers which are compatible with my solar panel charger. I believe in redundancy when it comes to any important item. These lights will simply supplement what I already have for blackouts but they were never intended to replace any item. Besides my gas generator, I have an eliminator 800 with solar panel, A couple of Gerber camp lanterns (battery operated) a bunch of Flashlights including a surefire combat light and the e2e, 4 browning black ice LED head lamps, a Coleman Lantern (naphtha) and about 6 cases of light sticks and then about 100 arctic survival candles (Canadian Army issue) so as you can see I will not be without light in a blackout. These crank lights do have use for me in that in a blackout I will use them first and save my of more valuable batteries for when they are needed. Although I can use my solar panel to recharge the batteries for a lot of my lights it does take considerable time even when rotating the sets. As a supplement to my existing lights, I still think they are worth the money.

Good ole' Costco. There is a Costco in the US but it's been my experience that they have completely different selection...though that selection changes so fast I'm sure there's some overlap given enough time.

I'll have to check them out!

here is a good article/review of them.

http://www.stefanv.com/electronics/sanyo_eneloop.html

Dave

In theory, yes. I've seen some built-in systems that were great, but I haven't seen a consumer system that I was happy with yet. In all fairness, I haven't had a chance to work with the newer Sanyos, but even those will have a limit. Any rechargeable battery will eventually reach a point it can't be recharged.

But I do agree- there should be something on them about the batteries needing some TLC to be reliable.

I picked up a pair of these flashlights today. I'm pretty impressed considering they work out to be just under $9 each.

I was especially happy with the quality of the radio. Loud, has a built in telescopic antenna, AM and FM, and it started working with just a few cranks straight out of the box. My only beef with the radio is that the entire frequency range is tuned within a 1/2 turn of the knob...a little tricky to get the AM stations perfect.

The LEDs could be brighter but it gets the job done. One's going in my car kit and the other is going by the bedside table ready for the next power outage.

As a note, the BJs warehouse store near me (competitor to Costco) has a similar product from a company I don't recognize (MegaBrite). They were $19 for a 2-pack, and they had NOAA radio in addition to AM/FM and flashlight. No ability to charge other devices. The quality seemed OK, except for the NOAA band which was very difficult to tune and use, so they are not bad for the price. Interestingly, the directions actually suggested cranking them for about a minute every three months, which should help keep the batteries healthy longer.