Faradeus : self-charging flashlight

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.

[quote=Enderman]

Ok, ok. English isn’t my native language (which is clear) and I don’t know exactly all needed technical terms in this language.
I mean that Li-pol battery doesn’t have liquid electrolyte.

[quote=Anna_Landik]

That doesn’t really matter, it’s still as dangerous as regular li-ion cells and keeping it in a vehicle that could get to –30C or +70C is a bad idea.

Another issue is that lipos lose 20% capacity after a few hundred cycles (up to about 500 cycles for the highest quality ones), so a flashlight which needs to be recharged every 60 minutes isn’t going to last very long.
If the flashlight is used for an hour every day it would drop to 80% capacity in less than two years.

It seems like this product is just for a “once-in-a-while” type of use, not something for everyday work.

A couple of 18650 batteries will give you the same energy that would take hundreds of thousands of shakes to generate in a shake light. You’re just never going to shake it that much. Certainly not in the 5-year time-span that the internal battery lasts in the shake light.

A single 18650 light (such as a Zebralight or other efficient light) will give you almost 100 hours of run-time at 20 lumens.

You’d shake yourself to death before you’d generated that much energy from a shake-light.

If you want an emergency light, get a real flashlight and decent battery for it. Even a AA will do fine.

This shake-light might be a fun toy, but it’s not going to be practical for emergencies.

Actually, I can see this being a sort of keychain light, if small enough. No need to worry about coin cells, alkaleaks, etc. Just give it a coupla shakes to be able to light up a keyhole, grubble through a purse, etc.

Limited niche, but still probably quite handy if marketed as such.

I can’t imagine this to be an edc flashlight.

You’re absolutely correct.

Can’t make it efficient and very small at the same time. I need many coil turns and big magnets to generate energy.

Well, it’s far too big for a keychain light, but I get your point. Still, a small 1xAA light with a Energizer Lithium cell in it, will provide about 24 hours of light at 20 lumens. And, the battery will last for 10 years or more, double the length of time that the internal shake-light battery will last. And work better in the cold, etc. You’re just never going to shake the light enough to generate what even a single AA cell provides.

I guess I’m the guinea pig then. I’ve had multiple flashlights with lithium cells in both our cars for years with temps ranging from 0 to 100 degrees with no ill effects.

Most men have a lot of experience doing this motion already should be no issue for the average male to charge this light lol

I think it depends on how long the battery sits at very high temperatures. I think there’s more worry about leaving lithium-ion cells in hot cars than is warranted.

It is true that long-term storage at hot temperatures will degrade lithium-ion cells much more rapidly than room-temperature, especially when stored at full-charge.

However, your car does not stay hot all the time. It doesn’t even stay hot most of the time, even in hot climates. It’s not hot at night, and it’s not hot in the morning. It’s also not hot unless you park in the sun. Oh, and it’s not hot on cloudy days. Nor is it hot all winter, and most of the fall/spring. And it’s not hot when you’re driving.

I suspect most people’s cars are hot less than 10% of the time. So, over the course of a year, it probably equates to less than a month in “hot storage”. That’s not great for your battery, but it’s not going to kill it anytime soon.

Sounds reasonable WITL. Our cars do sit outside in the open all year and in the summer get plenty hot for several hours a day.

Didn’t mean to derail the thread. I apologize and carry on.

P.S. Seems like Anna_Landik’s covering all bases with this and it does look interesting.

—all you have to do is add a little solar unit and the reg ones will go forever til the li ion dies

wle