About six months ago on this discussion group (PaddleWise) was the topic of night lights and headlamps. If you want more detail perhaps a review of past threads may be illuminating. j Michael Daly <michaeldaly_at_greatlakeskayaker.ca> wrote: Joseph Pylka wrote: > --Two additional suggestions... SOmeone gave me a Faraday Light which is > a white LED flashlight that's waterproof (and it is) and uses a magnet > through a coil to generate & store enough charge to run the LED. Just a word of caution. There are two versions of this. One is the "true" self-powered light, the other looks just like it but doesn't actually work by moving the magnet over the coil to generate a charge. Instead, it has a tiny lithium battery buried in the circuitry that powers the LED for a while. Once the battery dies, the flashlight is useless. The former are made by people with a desire to give you what you paid for (more or less); the latter are sold by scammers who lack morals of any sort. Same price. I'm not sure what to look for to tell them apart. The trustworthiness of the vendor may be a clue. BTW - someone commented on the difference between rechargeable AA and alkaline. Since LEDs run on about 3-3.6V, rechargeable batteries work fine. That's why most run on 3 batteries. Some have a voltage controller to set the proper voltage. Mine, a replacement LED for a (formerly incandescent) Princeton Tech headlamp, uses a step-up controller to provide 3.xV from 2AA batteries (2.4V or 3V depending on type). Unless the light maker specifically advises against rechargeables, you should be fine. Just watch for self-discharge in storage. If it's a light you want to leave with your gear and not think about, stick with alkaline. If you want it to be ready for a long time and under severe low temperature conditions, use AA lithium photo batteries. Mike --------------------------------- Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Jun 28 2007 - 16:10:05 PDT
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