(Written by Watson “Watt Sun”\u00a0 Apr 24, ’05 – this was long before you could buy a cheap LED flashlight at the corner store.)<\/p>\n
W<\/strong>hen I first started making my white LED flashlights, I made some with four cell battery holders because I couldn’t get any three cell holders.\u00a0 Also I bought several regular 4 AA cell flashlights and converted the lamp to three LEDs.\u00a0 In both cases, I made a dummy battery to replace the fourth cell, so they would run on three alkaline cells or 4.5V.\u00a0 The dummy battery in many cases was a piece of half inch wood dowel with screws in each end and a shorting wire between.\u00a0 I also made them from a 6-32 screw 2″ long with nylon washers on the ends.<\/p>\n Later, I got this ‘brilliant’ idea that I could save money by replacing the three AA alkalines with four Ni-MH rechargeable cells.\u00a0 So I removed the dummy cell and put four cheapo AA Ni-MH cells in their place.\u00a0 These generally cost under ten dollars for four cells, sometimes less if I bought them with a charger on sale.\u00a0 Many of the sets of four AAs were from my digital camera, for which I buy a new set every year or less after a dozen or two recharges.\u00a0 I just figure that it’s prudent to keep a fresh set or two in the camera, and use the older sets for the flashlights.<\/p>\n I left several of these flashlights around the house in areas like the closet or cupboards to take a quick look in the dark corners.\u00a0 They stay there for weeks at a time without getting used, with a minute or two use on occasion.\u00a0 I’ve noticed that they all suffer from the one bugaboo of rechargeables, the loss of capacity over a few months’ time.\u00a0 I recharge them every few months and even though they get used little, they need a recharge a few months later.\u00a0 And it’s plainly obvious: they put out little light when they get discharged.<\/p>\n I could go back to the three alkalines without any problem.\u00a0 This would save having to recharge them every few months.\u00a0 One reason I hesitate to do this is because I’ve found that the alkalines often leak when stored a long time, especially during the warm summer months.\u00a0 I’ve never had a Ni-MH leak, but I’m not saying it can’t happen.\u00a0 So I’m trading the inconvenience of having to recharge for the reduction of damage to the flashlights.<\/p>\n I’ve purchased some plastic battery storage boxes to hold the spare sets of AA cells once they’re recharged.\u00a0 I’ve had to tape a label on the front to write the recharge date, so I know when it’s time to recharge them after a few months.\u00a0 If I don’t, then I end up with almost dead batteries more often than not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Written by Watson “Watt Sun”\u00a0 Apr 24, ’05 – this was long before you could buy a cheap LED flashlight at the corner store.) When I first started making my white LED flashlights, I made some with four cell battery holders because I couldn’t get any three cell holders.\u00a0 Also I bought several regular 4 <\/p>\n (Read More…)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7177"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7499,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7177\/revisions\/7499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}