Shake Flashlights are a Joke

The latest fad has been these flashlights that you shake to charge. They contain a coil and magnet which charges a capacitor and lights the LED. Well, they do work, but to keep the led bright you have to shake them almost constantly.

I know many of you have played with them in the stores and say they stay bright forever. WRONG...... These flashlights which are sold as batteryless, actually contain 2 flat disk batteries. Thats why you never have to shake them when new.

I dismantled one, and found the batteries. I removed the batteries and they work without the batteries as long as they are shook almost constantly. They stay on for over an hour after being shook, but the light is so dim it's useless, and a match is brighter.

Once again we as consumers, are being deceived by the advertisers.

Reply to
maradcliff
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A good buddy bought 2 at the rodgers ohio flea market. You did way better than he did.

His flashlight worked off those 2 batteries but they went dead, and shaking didnt work:(

It turned out the thing that shakes wasnt magnetic, which is needed for charging and the little board was bad. My buddy is a retired electronics engineer and found them interesting....

There have een other reports too, from tampa of the complete junk type.

one could put D cells in that unit and with the LEDs small current draw have light for days.

so you did good at least it wasnt pure junk...

Reply to
hallerb

Are you sure there were not capacitors?

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

There may be some shake lights made that really work, but the 2 I have seen taken apart had 2 small batteries in them. The markings on the batteries were standard battery types. The 'magnets' in them were not even real magnets. They would not attract any metal. The lights would burn about a day without shaking and never light again.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

I took one apart, and the flat disks were large hearing aid batteries. Both wires from the shaker coil were soldered into the same hole of an unstuffed PC board which might have charged the batteries charged if it had been correctly assembled.

Nick

Reply to
nicksanspam

There are some fakes which do run off a couple button cells. Shake thing is just snake oil advertising.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I have only seen one and it appeared to be real. The run time varied up to about 15 minutes after shaking and would come back up when shaken. It sounds like some of them out there are not the real thing. Frankly I don't have a lot of interest in the real thing as the battery powered units should run long enough for any of my uses. I have several battery lights around the house and they all still work and I don't think I have replaced a battery in over five years.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

Reply to
Craven Morehead

I have seen three types of these "genlights". One is obviously fake as it is powered by two coin cells, has no magnet and no components on the circuit board. Batteries seem to have poor capacity.

One has 2 rechargeable cells and does in fact charge the cells when shaken. It has magnetic slide and board is populated.

One has a large capacitor charged by the shaken magnet. The board is populated.

May be other types but these three are in the markets. Both the latter types work fairly well as an emergency light source.

Reply to
Mr.E

It's in good shape because it was painted. Paint it again.

Reply to
Tom The Great

They are button cells.

Reply to
Travis Jordan

| I have seen three types of these "genlights". | One is obviously fake as it is powered by two coin cells, has no | magnet and no components on the circuit board. Batteries seem to have | poor capacity. | | One has 2 rechargeable cells and does in fact charge the cells when | shaken. It has magnetic slide and board is populated. | | One has a large capacitor charged by the shaken magnet. The board is | populated. | | May be other types but these three are in the markets. Both the latter | types work fairly well as an emergency light source.

Walgreens had a $5 "sale" on these a few weeks ago. There was a whole shelf full of assorted types, many of which were just broken. Of those that worked, most were the type with two coin cells. Some, however, had a single HiMH battery (I'm trusting that they didn't fake the label on the battery) and a correctly wired bridge rectifier actually connected to the coil... plus a real magnet. I bought one of these. Of course, the battery is charged so it's hard to say whether it works. If it doesn't charge once it runs down maybe I'll try replacing the battery with a super cap, assuming the coil is indeed putting out voltage.

Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com

Reply to
Dan Lanciani

The electrical energy available from that much shaking is insufficient to charge a battery or run a flashlight. The ones I've seen such as at Wal- Mart are hoaxes powered by alkaline button cells.

Reply to
Richard J Kinch

I dunno about the shaking ones, but the one I've got that runs off a hand-crank works pretty well.

Reply to
Goedjn

definetely batteries, my friend did a autopsey on one, standard button hearing aid batteries. my friend put the batteries in a battery tester they checked out nearly fully charged

the better emergency flashlight has a crank for charging.

Reply to
hallerb

Yes, they are batteries, (button type) in fact it says "lithium battery CR2032 3V" on them.

At least I have a real magnet in mine, and likes to snag all the nails and screws that end up in my pocket. And, as I said, the shaking does light the LED to full brightness, but only for 10 or 15 seconds without the batteries. Then the light remains dimly lit for another half hour or less. There is a capacitor in there which charges from the shaking.

I dont think lithium batteries are chargable (but I could be wrong). Either way, without the batteries, almost constant shaking is needed to maintain a bright light.

Mark

Reply to
maradcliff

I've seen 3 shake flashlights, on one the capacitor is 1F (1 Farad), the second it's hard to tell but looks like .5F, the third (a small one) has .1F. There are no batteries in any of them.

That small one is essentially useless.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

I have one of those. It's a radio too.

Now when I hear a radio show where they say "wind up your radios". I'll be able to.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Shake flashlights are a fad. "Hey, look! I'm the first on my block to get one!" Know what I mean?

W : )

Reply to
Wordsmith

I have seen two dollar stores in the western suburbs of Philadelphia selling $2 shake flashlights. The packages were different. In both cases the magnet was fake, the coil was shorted, and the circuit board had no energy storage device other than non-rechargeable "coin" batteries.

Meanwhile, I have heard of $2 shake flashlights that are not fake, although I wonder how well they actually work.

Meanwhile, higher price shake flashlights do work, although many to most are not that bright and don't maintain their brightness for long. Some have both batteries and the shake-generator stuff. One that was on display at a local hardware store so that people could try it out did not work well, needing to be constantly shaken to provide any decent light that was still less than that of a typical LED "keychain" light.

It appears to me that the $30-$40 units at Target are pretty decent, although they still have only one low-power LED and I expect them to underperform a 2-AA size Mag Light.

Now for some review links in the "LED Museum" / "Punishment Zone" site,

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- a "Diamond" unit

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- a "Nightstar" unit

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- a dollar store fake

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- a dollar store fake

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

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