Chineese tools getting better

Because the importer is party to fraud, which is a crime. The gummint doesn't want us dealing directly (and decisively) with crime and criminals. so they can bloody well get busy at doing what they say they're doing for us as they collect our taxes for doing it.

Ones that work and do what they say. They run a single white LED at a glimmer for a short time, with brightness comparable to the little keychain LED lights with a couple of watch batteries in them.

I wouldn't say you're an idiot, but you clearly didn't think it thru.

"First principles" don't exclude shake power from producing light at all. They might exclude producing as much light as you want for as long as you want, but you'd need to quantify that for your objection to have any basis.

If you push 1 lb thru 12 inches, you do about 1.35 Joules of work. If you do this twice per second for 10 seconds, you've done (and presumably stored) about 27Joules which is 27 watt-seconds. A white LED running at 20 mA (rated current for some) draws about 70 milliwatts. Neglecting inefficiences (which are certainly not negligable), that white LED would run for 387 seconds. At only 25% conversion and storage efficiency it'd still run for 96 seconds. A white LED running at 20mA is bright enough to be useful for some tasks, though a glimmer compared to say a MiniMag or a Luxeon.

Exactly, which is why I just use the little key chain LED light with the watch battery at a fraction of the cost, size and weight and the lithium batteries in them last years anyway.

The windup clock spring / generator type flashlights are more complicated and have more components to potentially break, but they are at least capable of providing "real" light from mechanical energy input.

Pete C.

None of this means much.

The work input and the electrical efficiency don't count. The only work that counts is the electromotive resistance of the magnet vs coil. Wanking those flashlights requires a few watts of meat power, but it almost all goes into fruitlessly accelerating and decelerating your arm and the flashlight, which is to say, heating yourself.

The employment of inertial reversal is spectacularly stupid. It's hard to imagine a worse system for coupling muscle-motive force to electromotive force. Maybe duct-taping a rotary generator to your head and doing the Twist. The theoretically optimum output must rise to all of 10s of milliwatts if you can keep yourself grimacing in an agony of orgasmic reciprocation.

Sure. And they actually work well enough for the application.

Shake lights have been part of the survivalists took kit for years, along with the russian squeeze lights

Gunner

"If I'm going to reach out to the the Democrats then I need a third hand.There's no way I'm letting go of my wallet or my gun while they're around."

"Democrat. In the dictionary it's right after demobilize and right before demode` (out of fashion).

-Buddy Jordan 2001

LOL!!!

"If I'm going to reach out to the the Democrats then I need a third hand.There's no way I'm letting go of my wallet or my gun while they're around."

"Democrat. In the dictionary it's right after demobilize and right before demode` (out of fashion).

-Buddy Jordan 2001

Bill

to contact me, do not reply to this message, instead correct this address and use it

will iam_ b_ No ble at msn daught com

I have a little incandesent flashlight with the squeeze grip that spins up a gyro. I've used it for years camping if nothing better was found in the camping box.

I bet shaking a magnet to power a led takes even less mechanical input. BTW, is it a battery or a supercap in those new fangled flashlights?

Wes S

Costco has a flashlight with a crank and 3 white LEDs. Case style sucks, looks like a miniature spaceship model for a cheesy SciFi movie. But it only takes a few seconds cranking to generate light. Better, these things will hold a charge for weeks. Most annoying issue besides the styling is there's a flashing mode between ON and OFF. It's supposed to be for emergencies, but I find it most annoying.

These run about $20 for a package of 2.

Jon

Gunner, the first time I saw a 'squeeze' light was in Austria at the age of

1. BTW, that was in 1949. When my wife mentioned about 6 years ago that she saw one at a store, I HAD TO HAVE IT!!! Almost identical to what I had remembered, and all of these years I thought that maybe I was nuts and just had faulty memory.

Ayup. Good stuff most of em. Ive several of the better Russian manufactured lights. Come in handy at times, with no batteries to worry about leaking, or going bad over time.

Gunner

"If I'm going to reach out to the the Democrats then I need a third hand.There's no way I'm letting go of my wallet or my gun while they're around."

"Democrat. In the dictionary it's right after demobilize and right before demode` (out of fashion).

-Buddy Jordan 2001

I've had one of the Russian ones for about 20 years (or more). Also hve a couple shake-lights (pretty poor Chinese LED type - you get a sore arm before you get much light) and a new chinese squeeze-lite with led that works VERY WELL, for a $9 canadian pricetag.