AA Flashlights - "Cockroach" / "Vampire" / "Drain-me-till-I'm-empty"

How about something like the maratac aa? Mine just arrived so maybe after I get my fill of fiddling with it I’ll pop a fresh lsd nimh cell in and do a low mode runtime test

Looking forward to your report

Thank you buck91! In case you can do it, I’ll be glad to hear your results! The Maratac is not as cheap as other lights mentioned but in case it proves to be a “vampire” light, I may check on that :wink:
Thanks again!

No sweat, looking forward to finding out myself. I feel like low is t very low with a fresh cell but maybe it tapers nicely.

When going on a holiday my wife puts a lot of stuff like E-toothbrush etc. in her suitcase.
As well as an alarm clock and an emergency radio that we never use at home.
But in stead of taking with her some spare batteries, she puts fresh batteries in all these devices.
So I have a box full of used AA batteries, ranging from almost depleted to almost full.
And the only device in our house that runs on AA batteries is the kitchen clock.
I’m looking for a light like this myself to burn away the energy that’s still left in those batteries.
The alternative is bringing useful expensive energy to the recycling.

PS. circuits/drivers like the ones we are looking for are also called: Joule Thief.

Besides the importance of having a light like this for whenever it is needed, that was precisely one of my intentions too, to drain the almost depleted cells I have laying around! I have a bag full of batteries to put to recycle. I’d prefer to drain them before doing that.

And thanks for the info about the driver’s “name” ! Makes sense it is a “thief” :wink:

That’s what I use my bobofett light for (the Inland). If I go to the can at night, I’ll tailstand it so that with its faint glow from an otherwise dead alkaleak, I’ll have juuuust enough light to navigate my way back.

Do gotta watch ’em, as once the alkaleak does what they do best, you gotta scrub the light’s innards to undo the mess.

When mum uses those crappy triple-AAA lights, I end up with a pile of ’em at 1.1V or so. So I’ll wrap the ass end of the cell with Al foil as a drip-tray, toss a small ball of Al-foil to make up the difference in height, and use that ’til it won’t light up anymore, making sure to keep the light shiny-side-up.

And again, I can’t stress this enough… when the cells get that dead, is when they’re most prone to leak their caustic bile all over your light’s innards.

I cut got a length of PVC tube which’d fit AAs and AAAs, where I was planning to stack 3-4 cells, and run ’em down DDing an LED star. Brighter light, who cares if they leak if I give ’em a foil-wrap anyway, and use bare wire as contacts (corroded? snip! problem solved…).

Whichever cell’s weakest and/or leaking, pop it out and replace with another. Rinse, repeat.

It’s a play on words, viz, “jewel thief”, only “joule” as in energy vs “jewel” as in gems.

Starting Maratac AA titanium Nichia 219B Rev 2 test now. Amaloop 1900mah on Low mode (maratac rates this at 5 lumens for 75 hours).

Thanks :wink:
Let’s see when it ends :wink:

I got some 3AA plastic holders with the 9v type connectors attached from Radio Shack and built some of these to drain my weak batteries:

Motion Sensitive Piss Light

Using amber LEDs, good for not interrupting sleep, and demanding lower voltage I think than white LEDs.

Kills those alkaline cells dead, dead, dead.

Also works fine on depleted 9v cells down to three or four volts.

I always wanted to get something like a cup or ring, use Al foil as the floor for the negative ends, more Al foil with something squishy behind it to make contact with an assload of parallelled alkaleaks, just to get the lowest resistance to fire up a JT circuit right down to a fractional-volt. Maybe a bypass cap to act as a stiffener. Then, let the whole damned pile leak over themselves and each other, and toss the whole bunch after.

That would make a pretty good nightlight. One cell at 0.8V would sag pretty badly under even that miniscule load, but 10-15 cells in parallel? :laughing:

Burn off a whole bunch overnight, lighting up a walkway, a “don’t block the driveway, hoser!” sign, whatever.

Gerber Infinity Ultra is a guaranteed vampire - I have several as proof, and a few still in sealed pkgs.


Features
Ultra-bright white LED has 30-foot range.
Patented circuitry boosts battery time and brightness.
100-hr burn time, 25-hr peak brightness.
5mm LED delivers 100,000-hr operating life.
crush-proof aluminum body with anodized finish.
Water-proof to 30 feet and completely weather resistant.
Rotary tailcap twist switch. Rear lanyard hole in tail cap cone…
Weighs 2.2 ounces with battery. 3.215 inches long.
metal detachable pocket clip.
Lifetime limited warranty from Gerber Legendary Blades.

The type M series are rugged military-grade versions.
M series lights have a military-grade hard-anodize finish.
Double o-rings and sealed circuit board ignore wetness.

I have a Nitecore MT22A. I like it a lot. It gets lots of use. 3 modes, 1 lumen, 45 lumen, and 260 lument, 180 hours on low, 18 hours on mid, and 2 hours and 15 minutes on high. AA only, no 14500 for this light. Gave on to the neighbor kid. He uses it in his pool all the time. Thing just keeps on working. He has had it through the washer and dryer. It’s still working.

16 Aug 2135hrs:

Well just got home from a walk and breakfast at the neighborhood eatery and its dead. Cycling the twisty will get the LED to flash on and fade out immediately. I’m wondering if somehow I grabbed a partially/mostly drained battery! I will recharge and repeat soon!

OK, test two starting. Same cells, AmazonBasics “amaloop” 1900mah Made in Japan. Different individual cell, topped up on a Sony dv/dt smart 1x4 channel charger immediately prior to beginning test. Modes look the same as before. We will see if this lasts any longer.

Hmm this is like my situation too. But like Lightbringer says, discharging them all the way makes them leak, which is not worth the effort / environmental impact to keep cleaning up. So I’m thinking of those exposed plastic trays which are much easier to clean.

I was going to suggest this, but don’t know how low they can discharge to. Mine is the first CMG version.

Dang, almost the same results! As of 0600 this morning light was out when I woke up. Going to reach out to county comm and see if they think it’s a bad light or not.

@buck91, two things. CountyComm is notorious for putting much longer run times than reality in their product descriptions. Second, a non rechargable alkaline battery should last 50% longer or more due to greater capacity at that current level. BTW, are you able to measure the current with a meter?