Faradeus : self-charging flashlight

Here’s an idea, make an inductive docking station to charge it up usually. You have the coil already, it just needs another one in the dock, like an electric toothbrush.

Like the emergency torches that you can buy already. Some of them switch on automatically if the mains power goes.

Interesting project indeed.

One thing i’m worried about is i’ll never use it… unless i ran out of every other possible light source, including a lighter or matches. And then, years after, i fear the Li-Po battery will be dead from aging when i finally need it. How long will the battery last unused? In most situations i’d rather carry a couple AA lights and spare batteries rather then this somewhat big light.

Still, if i was stuck in a remote cabin for days and was out of every other power source, i’d be glad to have it.

Eternal flashlight? Will it be serviceable to change parts or upgrade it?

Considering this shake-me light dimension i’m sure some 3D printed add-on/sleeve could easily turn it into an eco adult toy… Love is energy! :heart_eyes: Don’t forget to remove the add-on before going out with your light during a blackout though… :person_facepalming:

Li-po battery will start degrade after 5 years but supercap is almost eternal. It has capacity for 2 minutes of light.

If you have at least basic skills - why not?

If a lithium battery is left attached to a circuit for extended periods of time, even if the circuit is off, it will slowly discharge and drop below minimum capacity causing permanent damage.
Hopefully the flashlight has a physical battery disconnect or that lithium cell will be dead long before 5 years pass.

It is physically disconnected with button with fixed positions.

That’s a good point. Hopefully the parasitic drain is very low. It could be very low; I have a Zebralight that has a parasitic drain of only 2.4uA. That would last for decades, depending on the size of the battery (it’s probably something like 300mAh).

How long do glow sticks last in storage? It seems that a bunch of those might make for useful emergency light, when every other light source is dead. They’re about 10 cents each on Amazon. But if they only last a few years before the chemical breaks down, then that’s not much use.

Or a road flare. Good for light, and scaring away bears and wolves and zombies.

Korean girls try Shake Weight (ENG Sub)

Korean girls try Shake Weight (ENG Sub)

That’s so awesome! Good luck with the sale, fantastic little project, thanks for sharing it. Put it up on Candlepower as well.

Here’s another idea, make it reverse, i.e. pulse the coil to make the magnet shake. Good vibrations …

Sorry about being the cynic here but I have yet to see a Kickstarter project that I would put a dime toward. Sometimes it just that they are a solution in search of a non-existent problem, sometimes they are an overly complicated solution for a very simple problem, and often the eventual price is way out of line with the value received. Sometimes it is even a well known company that doesn’t want to put their own funds toward R&D but go the the public instead. I admit that I don’t purposely go to Kickstarter but have followed a number of links to the site.

I tried at least two Faraday lights that I picked up cheaply at garage sales or second hand stores. Both were conventional flashlights with LED bulbs. The most recent one actually had two lithium ion batteries in it but they were two rechargeable 40 mAh button cells. I have no idea how long it would power the light before needing to be recharged as I gave it away. It did put out a decent amount of light. The most annoying thing was the slide made the flashlight unbalanced, much heavier at one end than at the other. When I want a flashlight, I use a cheap XML-T6 LED flashlight which sell for less than $8 and is powered by a single 18650 battery. Cheap, lightweight, bright, rugged, and feels right in my hand. The flashlight, two high quality Panasonic batteries, and the charger were way under $25. If I want something small it is the 100 lumen chip-on-board key chain light that operates on three AAA batteries. It is lightweight, compact, runs for hours on one set of cheap carbon batteries and cost me about $2.

Why not?
Normal people see us who have more than 2 flashlights is weird :smiley:

Why need flashlight in big city? why need flashlight if we have electric power sources? why need more than 1 battery

I think with this flashlight we never forget to charger battery anymore.

Walk around, and you charger faradeus :slight_smile:

Good :slight_smile:

I got clickbaited into this thread thinking that someone has come up with a “self charging flashlight”. But by “self” it clearly meant you charge it yourself, literally.

Maybe I was hoping to see a flashlight that converted WiFi and celullar signal into DC current. Perhaps it would take one month to charge 100mAh, but it charges itself.

I had a hand crank emergency light and at the time the concept seemed to be nice, but given the size of the unit one could’ve fit batteries that provided 200+ hrs of light. Ask any search and rescue personnel and they would rather take a ready to use light with long runtime than a “infinite runtime” light that requires physical user input.

This might come in handy in a long term survival situation, but one has to consider if it’s worth wasting your energy in exchange of illumination.

Sorry but as many have stated above this is another solution to a non-existing problem, real innovation is not about selling “here’s why you need this”.

if this works it would be the perfect light for the glove box!

Guys, this project is not about inventing something HUGE (though I have some ideas about real SELF charging power-source). This is a small camapign focused on making classic flashlight on modern quality components.
As I’ve shown on model in video - several shakes and you already have a light.

Lithium in a glovebox isn’t a great idea.
Plenty of threads about the temperature changes inside cars and why alkaline/nimh is what people use to keep in a vehicle.

You’re talking about Li-ion, Li-pol is absolutely another pair of shoes.

I’m talking about all lithium batteries. Lipo is a type of lithium ion battery.

Lipo packs are the same thing as a cylindrical lithium cell except with a slightly different name because of the pouch format.
If anything it is more dangerous because it does not have a metal outer shield.

Real polymer-electrolyte batteries don’t exist in the consumer market.
I would have expected someone designing a flashlight to be aware of the different types of battery technologies that exist and don’t exist…

A flashlight that lose 96% of it’s capacity after 5 years sounds more like disposable rather then eternal. Not different from all the consumer electronics we get these days. I strongly suggest the battery should be easy to replace, which implies using some standard format like CR123 or AA.

From the prototype pictures on your project page, there does not seem to be any kind of circuit board with electronic components, except for the rectifier bridge. Are you planning some kind of charging circuit for the battery and a driver for the led, or is it going to be all on direct drive?

[quote=patmurris]

[quote=Anna_Landik]

Change the battery after 5 years. What’s the problem?

It will be replaceable.

Simple driver is inside. It stabilizes current to achieve same brightness on most % of charge.