Home Depot Deal Alerts & Discussion Thread

That’s pretty cool. Unfortunately, I already have more worklights than I know what to do with. Gotta restrain myself… :slight_smile:

So yeah, I ended up getting one. My self-restraint is very weak.

This is actually a pretty nice light. Somewhat large, but the magnets are strong enough to hang onto the fridge. The swiveling panels are useful. You can have both panels up, or only one panel up, so in effect you have 4 different light output levels available. Construction feels adequate for the price (not great), but sturdy enough.

With both panels up, parasitic drain is 0.17mA on alkalines and 0.12mA on NiMH. However, if you fold the panels, parasitic drain drops to 0.

On high, with alkalines, voltage sag is massive and drops like flies. If the starting light output truly is 500 lumen, it surely won’t last long at that level - it’ll start dropping right away, but I haven’t done a light output runtime test to see how bad it is.

Here are some rough initial current numbers I got, both panels up:

Alkaline NiMH
High 2A at 4V 2.3A at 4.35V
Low 0.75A at 5V 0.85A at 4.9V

All in all, I like it, but something tells me that if you need it as a work light, you’d better work fast. :slight_smile:

Home depots in the North East are clearing out all Maglites and Rayovac Indestructibles - currently about 25% off in the clearance sections.

Hilarious!
Weird about the parasitic drain going to zero when the panel is folded. Open in the ribbon or connecting wires or by design?

My guess is it’s by design since it acts as an on/off switch for each panel. When the light is on (main power switch on), folding the panel will turn that panel off. This must be a physical switch that acts similarly to unscrewing the tail cap on a flashlight, which is why you see parasitic drain disappear.

This is on high, both panels on. Down to about 20% of initial output after the first 5 minutes. Fairly steady after that.

EDIT1: Inserted an updated graph to include both Alkaline and NiMH. As you can see, output/run time curves are nearly identical for both, even though you get slightly higher overall light output on NiMH, but not by much.

At the 5 hour mark, output on Alkaline was down to around 10% of initial output, so that’s about what you’d expect based on the ANSI rating. The alkaline cells were at 1.08V right after I took them out, but bounced back up to 1.2V after resting for a while, so they could have still probably ran a few more hours at this low level.

EDIT 2: On NiMH, after the first 3.5 hours or so, the light output was still at around 20, but then started dropping fairly quickly, down to around 3 of initial output at 4h 20min, at which point I stopped the test as I did not want to over discharge the cells too far. They were at 0.95V +/- 0.05V. Since the NiMH cells produced a bit more output during the first 3-4 hours, they spent themselves quicker than alkalines. I noticed something similar with another 4xAA work like I tested before.

If you do decide to use NiMH cells in this light, make sure to keep an eye on it as it will most likely drain them to nothing if you don’t stop it.

Is it running on anduril?

Yeah, two andurils and a narsil with a side of biscotti. :slight_smile:

Out Of Stock at my local HD but 20 In Store 50 miles away………

I wonder how it fairs on NiMh’s (hint hint). Also - do you think it’s possible to run it from an 18650 (or multiples in parallel).

-Garry

Planning to do a NiMH runtime test after the alkaleak test ends (still running).

As far as running off a single Li-Ion cell, my guess is no because voltage will be too low to achieve full brightness. It might work but light output will be much lower, plus there is no space to install an 18650 cell, so it’d have to sit outside. Usually, 4xAA type lights are not good candidates for Li-Ion conversion.

Well, with a decent 18650 cell, providing 2A @ 4V should be no problem. Seems like the light is designed to suck the alkaline cells voltage down to 4V based on the current draw. The NiMh had higher voltage at test start because they can handle the current. Not seen one of these yet, but suspected that a 18650 cell would not fit.

I suppose it’s doable.

A single 18650 has comparable energy to 4 high capacity AA NiMH cells, so you’d have to build a battery pack consisting of several 18650 cells in order to extend run time.

I picked one of the work lights up today and checked it out really quick. I saw the same 2A on high with the fresh alkaline batteries. I connected a laptop pull pair charged to about 3.7V, got 1.1A on high, 0.35A on medium. I’m charging it up to 4.2v to see what we get then. Long leads and the meter certainly lower the current some.

Update

The laptop pull pair charged to 4.0v open circuit, they deliver 1.5A on high, 0.5A on low. Also tried a 21700 cell salvaged from the recycle bin rated at 40A, voltage a bit above 4.0V, it also delivers 1.5A with the light on high. Finally charged a nearly new Samsung 30Q to the full 4.2V, by far the lowest ESR cell I have, 1.66A on high. Guessing the alkalines at start must be closer to 4.5V than 4V, or the current from the 30Q test would have matched or exceed that of the alkalines. Anywho, a fun bit of testing.

So, I measured the voltage across the alkalines, 4.3V and 2A of current into the light. That’s what I guessed. Sure seems like the light is directly across the batteries in the high mode.

I picked up a Rayovac Sportsman lantern yesterday on clearance for $6.33, from $24.99. Maybe good for the kids, keep them from swiping your LT1?

For some reason I didn’t believe this data, so I had to try to duplicate it. I don’t have a lumen measurement device, but I do have a DVM. I figured the current would be roughly proportional to the lumens. I only tested with eneloops, not alkalines.

Well, guess what. The initial current when I started was 2.9A. At 5 minutes, the current had dropped to 0.62A, or about 20%. The current stayed at roughly 0.62A for the next few minutes while I measured the voltage across the cells under load, 5.12V.

I’ll trust the data now for the alkaline cells. Fun test.

Ok, this Husky shop light has some very interesting characteristics. I ran the same test with a pair of laptop pulls. Before turning the light on, they were at 4.08V. Right after the light went on, down to 3.98V, and 1.42A into the light. The current and voltage dropped for the first couple of minutes, then the cells voltage started to go back up, and the current continued to drop. The current stopped dropping at 5 minutes, at 0.33A, or about 20% of the starting current. The cells can clearly provide more current, but the light just won’t have it. Something in the light heats up, or there is some silly circuit in it that reduces current over the first 5 minutes. Now I’m tempted to open it up and see. I tried the other day but removing the 4 screws on the back didn’t seem to free it up for opening.

At 15 minutes, the cells are still at 4.00V, and the current is still at 0.33A.
25 minutes, the cells are at 3.98V, the current is at 0.32A. Now begins the slow decay, but too slow for tonight.

Yup, something is funky there for sure. Like some turbo timer of sorts. Keep us posted on what you find out.

I ran it a couple more times this morning, same sort of behavior. I was noticing the current and light intensity seem to drop in steps. Small steps, but the current will hold for 10ish seconds at some level, then make a discrete drop and stabilize, and so on. I could see small steps in the light output also, like my LT1 does in sunset mode. Some sort of timer circuit in there or sure, whether its analog or digital I don’t know yet. Testing with the laptop cells keeps the input voltage stable so it easier to observe. with these two laptop cells, and the present 0.3A, it would run there for 10+ hours easy. I’m doing it in chunks as I can’t just be around for that long.

I had one of my Ryobi 18 volt batteries die a month ago. Another last week. Both were 63 months old. So I went online looking at new ones. I also briefly entertained the idea of rebuilding the packs but decided against that. Anyhow, after searching around on the HD website I found an interesting sale. HD has what they are calling a free tool sale. Buy a two pack of the 3 AH batteries with a charger and a bag and get a tool; Six different deals. It’s not really a free tool, but close, as you get the 2 batteries, charger and bag and the tool, but the price varies from $99 to $129 for the package. Still if you need or want one of those 6 tools it is a great price. I had dropped my jigsaw a while back and got the better model along with the batteries I wanted for about the amount I was going to spend on the batteries.

https://www.homedepot.com/collection/Tools/RYOBI-Free-Tool-Promotion/Family-312120639?omsid=308056104