Good portable emergency light?

I fixed mine binning them...chinky junk

Any LED torch fitted with something like energiser lithium batteries will do. The batteries last for years if only used occasionally.

elderly females and 'rechargeable' anything are poor companions.

In message <rmh4l4$s55$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, Jethro_uk <jethro snipped-for-privacy@hotmailbin.com writes

That reminds me that I keep a wind up LED torch in the car. That works well, although perhaps not suitable for what may be arthritic hands.

It looks like they do a couple of versions but only one with Piezo ignition.

I think I have that in the form of a camping stove (or two).

As you say, the good thing(s) about those is the level of light and being 'always available' (subject to a stock of gas canisters etc).

Cheers, T i m

The latter.

Even if the batteries are f**ked, you can get light out of it.

I am *very* down on "rechargeable" anythings. They have a nasty habit of failing when actually needed.

Bill

Chinky junks are OK if you add an outboard.

Bill

This is an oft-repeated fallacy. A half decent intelligent charger won't do this. I have just tested an 8Ah lead-acid that's been on charge since August 2014 with breaks and discharge only when we've had power cuts, and it's fine. Comes out at 5Ah when discharged at 250mA which I think is good enough.

Obviously cheap chargers are a different kettle of fish entirely. I recently encountered a wall-wart style thing that had unconditional no-load voltage of 16.3V. It had killed a 12V lead-acid.

Bill

I keep my 2kW Honda in the house because I've found that if it's at 22C it starts immediately but if it's been in the shed in winter it's a bugger to start.

Bill

;-)

Especially if it's an old car engine with some scaffold pole for a prop shaft. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Over the years I've spent a fortune on so called intelligent chargers. All I have to show for it is a pile of failed rechargeables

How about UPS ? I gave up after having to buy a 3rd SLA battery for my UPS in 6 years. Never once actually used when the power failed, just sat there slowly ballooning.

Agreed, however, many batter chemistries 'don't like' being left at too high (and certainly not too low) state of charge when in storage (= standby for things like this).

eg, On my fancy iCharger (multi-chemistry / cell) battery charger on the lithium programs it has several 'Lithium's' along with charge, balance charge, fast charge, cycle (C>D or D>C), discharge, discharge+ (external load) and monitor (so you can monitor the cell voltage balance when being charged by something else) it has 'Storage', that will drop all the cells down to 3.7 volts (or whatever for that chemistry) and balance them all at that (it also has 'regenerative discharge' where it dumps the discharge load into a supply battery (saves having a 'wasteful' load [1]). ;-)

Yup, I have loads of lower capacity batteries that are still good for stuff.

One set of 6 x 18650's that should be around 2000mAh but are only 150 mAh aren't so good. ;-)

Quite. The last battery charger I bought, an Optimate 12/24V jobby was around £100 but when its looking after £400's worth of battery (2 x mobility scooter), that's not a bad investment IMHO.

Cheers, T i m

I'm not sure it would be superior to this: ;-)

Not to say what you linked to wouldn't be better in a light sense ... ;-)

I agree though that a head torch might be good for Mum when going between rooms in the dark, leaving both her hands free to hold on etc.

Cheers, T i m

Perzackerly most kit doesn't have any thing approaching an "intelligent charger". Constant current at some vague voltage if you're lucky.

The problem with many of them is that they aren't ... or are but are too high powered for the cells?

I have a couple of Ansmann 'Energy' chargers (AAA, AA, C, D and PP3) and 8 and a 16 and they are good, particularly good because they

Good but like all good things, not cheap:

And also because many 'consumer' rechargeable are cheap and nasty. ;-(

When I used to race RC electric cars we used to go for things like 'matched' Sanyo cells (where all the cells in a pack were matched for capacity / internal resistance etc) which mean the tended to last well as a pack, even when pushed very hard (rapid charging and very rapid discharging). That said, the more packs you had, the more rest you could give them between charges and the longer they would all last.

I have some Saft (another good name) 4Ah Ni-Cads that used to be in my radio when I was at BT for 5 years (and used daily and charged regularly) that up until quite recently were being used regularly and so working pretty well, and they are nearly 50 years old now!

I've not checked the battery in the UPS on the Mrs's PC recently but the last time we had a powerout it worked ok ... and that must be over

With a lot of these UPS's (her's is an APC) the charging voltage is set a bit high and whilst you might lose a bit of capacity setting it lower, the batteries last a lot longer.

Cheers, T i m

Yeah, the "always available" is good. I have some piercable cyclinders that where proably bought in the mid 1970's, What battery has a 45 year shelf life with no loss of stored energy?

Yeah. ;-)

I have some Colemans spirit here that I hope is still sufficiently spirity, ready should I need to press my Tilley lamp into action [1].

None that many could afford for a backup lamp I don't suppose. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Isn't "Colemans spirit" a refined petrol like fuel? Pretty sure Tilley lamps run off parrafin, some what less volatile and meths to preheat the lamp.

There doesn't look to be a very big bowl for the meths and it's quite a way from the burner. A lighter thing might make lighting the lamp quicker and easier.

Does it have a varible beam width? It's all well and good having a

Much rather have a wide and evenly light area of illumination.

Any option for standard dry cells? What do you do whilst it's recharging? Always assuming you have some means of recharging with out mains power available.