Actually, dog walking is the one situation where I was thinking a shake light could actually be worth it. I see that you think the same way. If you walk your dog in pre-dawn/night conditions, day after day, then that's a decent amount of time where you need a bit of light. Enough light to see the poop to pick, enough light to warn bicyclists and motorists of your presence, and enough to keep from walking off the side of an embankment. You're moving around anyway, so shaking the light isn't much of an extra burden. Wonderful! Now, if I only owned a dog...

The shake lights are more a novelty than anything else. You simply can't get a high enough emf to generate without making the magnet/coil oversized. Something akin to swinging a baseball bat-sized tube.

On the other hand, the crank jobs have improved considerably. I started out with one of those Xenon bulbed 5 lb crank jobs, which was okay, but not what I wanted to be toting around inside a cave, just too darned big. Then I got one of those Grundig radio/lights with the crank. I found that replacing the akaline AAs was more convenient than cranking the gyro every 5-10 minutes.

Then I happened on a pair of crank handhelds at Costco that looked like the new model phaser guns from Star Trek-TNG. I decided to give them a try, and was impressed with how long the three primary LEDs ran on a 2 minute crank-up. The pair accompanied me to Baghdad, one by my bedside for those mad scrambles to the bunker, the other in my BOB. I used the one by my bed regularly, gave it a two minute crank once a week, and never had a problem. It got tossed around, stepped on, dropped in the toilet (clean water fortunately), and dropped on the deck often. It never broke, the case never cracked, it never failed to provide light, and if the charge was going away, I could give it ten quick cranks and have full light again for a couple minutes. That was the best $29.95 I've spent on lighting in quite a while. You won't get that kind of performance from a shaker. Three LEDs is enough light to get around inside a lave tube with, which is a demanding environment for adequate lighting.

Shake light : interesting to teach a few physic/electricity facts to kids.
As others have said, the output is rather feeble, but you can find uses for such a light. + new models are more powerful.
Caution : strong magnetic fields....

Crank light : I have one in my 72h (or more) kit, along with battery LED lights and spare lithium batteries. I don't use it, it stays in the kit. IIRC the output level was not very bright, but much brighter than the shake light. + the run time was much better too.
OTOH, I use a crank powered radio every day (that's my daily physical exercise... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />). 30 sec cranking gives about 20-30 minutes radio (not too loud), depending on the time of day/weather as it also includes a small solar panel.
Seems to work fine ; nothing broken up to now.

For Christmas I got a Chinese-made version of the shake light. It's pretty bright, and still has it's charge now. The body is clear plastic, which I guess could be a help...but it's also a burden. I used it on a dark night to walk to my brother's house, and I found the glare from the flashlight body distracting enough to finally keep the body itself concealed in my jacket sleeve so that I could focus on the beam itself!

Why not wrap it with electrical tape or duct tape and that way you will have some if needed?

Thought of the same idea. We must have great minds! <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Ahh...great Idea!

-KP

I have a similar flashlight to the one you described, but I'm not sure if it's the same one.

I wanted a backup that didn't rely on batteries in case I ever found myself in a LTS situation or in case I had depleted my entire stockpile of batteries for use with my primary light.

Thus far this crank flashlight; called The Illuminator, Wind 'N Go, Dynabrite, Dynalight, etcetera (depending on place of purchase and if they are indeed the same light); has performed better than I expected.

Mind you my experience with flashlights is limited, and I haven't used any other crank charge flash lights to give a comparison...

The light has both 1 LED and 3 LED modes depending on the number of times the button is pressed, has a crank that folds over into the body and is locked in place by a magnet, and is both water resistant and shock resistant.

In a test I got about 20 minutes of bright to moderate light in the 3 LED mode after only 2 minutes of cranking. The flashlight continued to provide light for another 40 minutes albeit at a constantly diminishing intensity. It probably could have provided light for longer than that hour, but frankly I became bored of walking around the house in the dark trying to determine if I could still navigate using the light as it continued to diminish. At an hour of total run time, it was still fairly easy to get around with.

Please note my test was hardly scientific... LOL

I haven't tried out a shake light myself, so I can't compare the two.

Also, I saw a similar model that included a cord to charge cell phones with.

Allow me my 2c worth.....Isee a pretty good use for the shake light....my 6 year old. In recent power outage situations, it would have kept him immeasurably contented to "have something to do". Don't get me wrong...he has stuff to do and he does have his own other flashlights...some incandesant-most LED. The shake light gives him some 'entertaining' way to provide light.

The one shake light I tried was at a fire scene. One of the FF had one and I was pretty impressed with its output. I still won't go giving up on my other lights though!

How about some photos so we can see exactly what everybody is talking about? Thanks for the info, but I don't think that I will get good results from "Do you carry flashlights that look like phasers?