Bell & Howell Lightbar
In my tests, fully charged, the output could remain at high intensity (as bright as the light could get on LOW setting) for about 2 - 2.5 hours at which time the light slowly begins to dim.
Here’s an approximate chart of how the light performed after a full charge
Lumens
0 to 2.5 hours 500-600
2.5 to 3 hours 450
3 to 4 hours 350
4-5 to 5 hours 200
5 to 6 hours 125
6 to 7 hours 75
7 to 9 hours 65
9 to 10 hours 50
10 to 12 hours 40
So this light is good for a solid 2 hours of approximately 500-600 lumens. At 6 hours, the lightbar was still producing light, but only at about 100 lumens. At 7 hours the light was down to about 70 lumens. I’m not sure the light would make it 12 hours but if you consider that in a power outage, even 70 lumens is very helpful compared to total darkness, then you can see that the light would be very good in an emergency such as a power outage because any light is better than no light at all and 7 hours of light is a good long time. Mine was still putting out enough light to be very helpful in a power outage at 7 hours. I stopped my test at 7 hours. I think it would have gone on for at least another hour or two with enough light to be useful in a power outage at night even though the light output was minimal at maybe 70 lumens (enough to dimly light a 15 x 18 room so that you can see and avoid total darkness).
It’s very convenient to recharge this light and you just plug it into an AC wall outlet. It would have been great if the charging indicator light which is RED, would either change to green or at least go off when the unit is fully charged but it doesn’t. It stays red as long as it’s plugged in.
If the design was such that you could turn off half the LEDs, that would have gone a long way into making the light last for a lot longer but there is no way to do that as delivered. Just high and low. By the way, fully charged HI setting is about 500-600 lumens and LOW is about 400-500 lumens. There is not much difference in the Hi and Low settings.
I bought two which brought the price down to $14.00 each. That made them a very good (imo) deal for the light output and duration. I don’t know the quality of the batteries so the true value of this lightbar will depend on how long the batteries and LEDS actually last. Only time will tell that.
As far as customer service, I can say that one of my lightbars arrived broken and the company was surprisingly accommodating and quickly sent out a replacement. Customer service was as good as I could expect….or better.
I would recommend this light. For the money, even if you buy just one at $19.95 delivered, it is a reasonably good deal and will give you very good light for about 2 hours and reasonably good light for at least another 5-7 hours for a total of at least approximately 9 hours if for example your power goes out.
Here are the electronics.
D882 Transistors (qty 2)
220uf 25v (capacitor)
CBB22225J400V
Here are the batteries
They are 4.25v fully charged and there are two of them