BLF EM1....blf designed emergency light...

How do you safely charge multiple AA NiMH cells inside a flashlight?

You just use multiple small 1A buck converters to charge each of the AA cells individually.

Unlike with most of our lithium-ion lights, charging 4x cells with USB is quite easy.

But how do you do that if they’re already connected in series?

You just use an internal charger.

You do isolated DC-DC converters.

They aren’t too expensive to implement in large bulk quantities for a flashlight.

Remember low temperature considerations for emergency lights. Nimh does pretty good, but a lot of people in my area will only use lithium primaries in real outdoor emergency things.

There are going to be “really stupid people” issues with batteries. The flashlight has to come with either sealed access for the batteries or no batteries and a warning that do not charge unless you install rechargeable batteries. Prefer the first one. Seal them and only let people like us with a method to get around it.

Did I mention really stupid people? They plague humanity.

I’m contacting Sonfir.

I know a thing or twelve about manufacturing and marketing.

To a small company, this could be something that puts their brand on the map. After all, the enthusiast market is maybe a fraction of a percent to a mass market flashlight like the one we are suggesting. I can see the potential of millions of units.

I’ll help them conceptually, but I’m not going to do their legwork. The only thing I want from them is a knock out group buy for our members.

I’m retired and I’m enjoying being lazy…. :slight_smile:

Interesting idea.

I like the idea of NiMh batteries because of the longevity of holding the charge.

And….Sofirn got the first email.

Let’s see if they are interested.

A red light in the tail would make it safer for walking down unlit country roads at night. Rather than strobe modes, how about just a single flash every second or two, as a locator beacon (can get slower as the batteries die). Does it need 1000 lumen? Surely 500 lumen is adequate if its for emergency and not a light-all throw further flashlight.

I would say with lower lumens you need more throw to have a useful light source. It isn’t hard to get ~1000lm from a 4xAA light these days. That milestone was reached years ago and with new LED technology it is getting even better. But, I wouldn’t be opposed to a muggle mode that only goes to 500lm and is the default mode from the factory. That way, only more advanced users would ever see ~1000lm with the accompanying short(er) run time.

I’m debating what is more important….a magnet on the tail or lanyard loops and led.

I can’t see how to get a flat tail AND led AND magnet AND lanyard loops. That’s one busy tail……

The magnet looks like the first sacrifice.

Well, if you design it like the old SRK lights, the lanyard loops are on the sides. That might even be a selling point, since a lot of people are familiar with SRK style lights and I don’t know if it has ever been done in a 4xAA size before. :wink:

Agree.

An emergency light should be a flooder. Or very soft hot spot with easy spread into flood. It won’t help much if the light has a blinding hotspot while trying to fix a flat or lighting under the car hood.

An emergency light should be measured in hours runtime, not which planet it can reach for an SOS.

I use the tn4a as a base sample.

Strobe(1150 lumens/150 minutes),

Turbo(1150 lumens /56 minutes),

High(550 lumens / 150 minutes),

Medium(139 lumens / 14 hrs),

Low(15 lumens / 93 hrs),

Moonlight(0.5lumens/80 days).

In theory, 500 lumens for 3 hours and 140 lumens for 93 hours looks very good for an emergency light.

150 lumens is enough to change a tire or look under the hood or fix something close up. 500 is better looking for long lost relatives under the crawl space or lighting on a forest walkabout.

1200 lumen capacity with thermal activated step down will confuse muggles.

“I was trying to blind my neighbors and the light power changed. My light is broken.”

Don’t take it away, just make it a three quick click access. First and normal access, low, medium, high.

Link? Or pics?

Definitely think that a built in lanyard loops are useful. Particularly to boat people or someone who wants to tie down a light to something for extended use. Like camping?

This probably doesn’t matter and isn’t doable, but generally when I think about an emergency light that I’d want to get/give to my wife/friend/muggle person, they are directly “wall pluggable” and recharge that way.

Like I said, I expect this to not be doable, but I thought I’d toss it out there

Interesting but….

Waterproof and accessible 120 volt plug is…….concerning. Bring that concern to death level with European 240 volt plugs,

Plus there is a need to force muggles to ventilate the light when charging.

USB use is common across the planet.

There’s one in the picture of three flashlights at the top of the Home page. BLF Home :partying_face:

Okay, taking a step back, I’m not quite sure what situation this’d be for. Get stuck in a car, get a flat tire, etc.? Why not just put on the 4-ways?

I don’t carry it in my car anymore, but I used to carry one of those 2×AA bike-taillights, just 3 bright red LEDs inside that you could push a button to select constant-on, blink, pingpong, other patterns. Whole dealy was about as big as a pack of smokes. Ie, go to Bike Planet or whatever, pick up one for 10bux. Neoprene gasket, pry-off / push-on, simple. Came with a belt-clip and I think it also had a fridge-magnet type thingy for sticking to stuff.

Lighting up the area around a flat tire, well, there’s always a… ta daaa!… flashlight, or better yet headlight. Or the wonderful Nitefox UW360 which is made for this kinda thing. I got 2 of ’em.

Got a powerbank? Get one of those 6-LED doodads that just poke into a usb jack. Instant light. Super convenient.

And I just got one of those AA lights that has the slip-on glowy diffuser cap. Hell if I can remember what it was. (Looked it up, Aidler A7 or something. Played with it, pretty nice, does the job.)

And let’s not overlook the 4-ways. Kinda comes with the car…

Okay, if you spin out 3×, bash into a few trees, pinball across the road a few times, and have no lights left intact on the car anymore, sure, you’d need something else. Might as well just carry one of those silly-looking amber blinkylights to stick to the roof of the car.

So… what need is the emergency light supposed to address? I’m just wondering if it’s a solution looking for a problem.

Car blinkers vs a 500 lumen flashlight 30 feet behind the car and lighting up the entire car and everyone around it.

Which gets more attention of sleepy truck drivers?

Plus blinkers are single small points, a entire car is…an entire car. Easier to get perspective of size and location in the dark.

40 bucks well spent.

Of course it’s not limited to just car emergencies. Or any kind of uses.

.

BTW….I ride. First thing I do with my bikes is mount much better lights. A massive led tail light like those on truck trailers AND and larger plate light that lights up the ground behind me AND extra side lights on the front. You can’t miss me being there…so you can miss me when I’m there.