Hi, Ben, and list, I've gone through many of the $5 3-cell flashlights. The aluminum corrodes and the contacts fail and other nuisances, never mind that using rechargeables (my only batteries I use) makes it just another charger I'd have to get (I have one which will charge AAA and AA, but it's full of AAs at the moment!)
Has anyone found one of the really compact 3-cells which doesn't exhibit this annoying tendency? Meanwhile, in favor of the heavy Dcell maglite equivalents, http://www.dorcydirect.com/p-93-41-4269-160-lumens-6-watt-led-6-aaa.aspx > looks very attractive... L8R Skip, on the hard, stripping varnish and trying to buy a car... Morgan 461 #2 SV Flying Pig KI4MPC See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery ! Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog "Believe me, my young friend, there is *nothing*-absolutely nothing-half so much worth doing as simply messing, messing-about-in-boats; messing about in boats-or *with* boats. In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not." ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ben Okopnik" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 5:03 PM Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] LED flashlights > On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 03:57:32PM -0500, Philip wrote: >> While we are talking about LED's I'd like to share this. >> >> If you have an LED flashlight that uses three batteries, be aware that >> when the light goes out, only one of the batteries is flat. Check them >> with a volt meter and just replace the bad one. > > Just FYI: checking the newer "high-capacity" batteries with a volmeter > isn't all that useful: they maintain their voltage up until the very > end. The thing that I've found works best, if you don't have a dedicated > battery tester, is an ammeter set on high amperage and just *touched* to > the contacts (you're shorting the battery when you do this, so don't > _keep_ the probes on it!) The amount of juice in batteries is actually > quite amazing: fresh alkaline AAs will spike up to *7 amps*, while AAAs > will go up to about half that. > >> In the future, I will check the battery requirements for the flash >> light. It it's three (not in series) I'll let it be. > > You can't have 3 cells in parallel powering an LED flashlight: LEDs have > a "breakover" voltage that's somewhere just over 3v for the > high-intensity ones. Sorry to be sounding so disagreeable. :) > > Speaking of flashlights: I recently bought one (two of them, actually) > that I'm finally - after more than 20 years of looking - satisfied with, > brightness-wise. This LED gadget beats even the biggest Maglites and > most spotlights (!), punches through the rain better than anything else, > and is about 7"L x 1"D. I wish it was rubberized, but otherwise, it's > _fantastic_ - I can easily spotlight a stop sign three blocks away at > night. I've been using it for more than two months now, including the > "OOH, NEW GADGET!!!" break-in period, and haven't managed to run the AAA > batteries down yet. Oh, and it costs about $30. > > > They've got much brighter ones, too, but not for anything like that > price. > > > Ben > -- > OKOPNIK CONSULTING > Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business > Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming > 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik > _______________________________________________ > Liveaboard mailing list > [email protected] > To adjust your membership settings over the web > http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard > To subscribe send an email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ > > To search the archives > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > The Mailman Users Guide can be found here > http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
