Teardown and Testing a "Hand-powered" LED Flashlight
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ต.ค. 2017
- In this video, we take a look inside a "hand-powered" (hand-cranked) LED flashlight, looking at how it generates the electricity from the generator. We also look at the AC voltage and frequency of the generator as well.
- วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Hello from Brazil. I want to thank you. My kid got one of this, I've tried to open to understand how it works, and broke the wires. I was having trouble exactly with the loosing wire in the switch. Was not able to make sense of it. With you video I was able to fix his gift! hahaha
😊I brought over a dozen of them from Amazon, I'm hoping my family appreciate them as a gift.
Neat basic idea. Could be improved in many ways. Add a supercap + joule thief, for starters, to make the light last longer after cranking. Put in a better generator (stronger magnets, more windings, axial flux), maybe a flywheel?, etc.
a supercap would be a nice addition if the ac is turned to dc that is
@@evronetwork A full bridge rectifier would do the trick, I think.
You would need special gears to use a flywheel, otherwise the hand pump would continue spinning 😵💫
A joule thief might be too much tbh, maybe it could extend battery life, but if we’re using super caps it’s prob a lil extra. Having a voltmeter analog dial for battery life might be cool, or a radio w/ earpiece, or maybe a voltage multiplier to make a spark for lighting fires would be cool too
I like that you placed the “jump to” time for the electrical testing part. That’s awesome.. I watched it all anyways 👍
Hello from Las Vegas! I'm actually laughing right now, because you actually answered 100% of my questions! I went searching for information about my flashlight, and after sifting through a bunch of websites and videos, which had jargon too complicated for an engineering-illiterate person like me, I stumbled upon your video. What is funny to me is that I have (not exaggerating) THE EXACT TYPE of flashlight as the one featured in this video! I received mine from the company I worked for as they distribute them as novelty gifts for their employees' birthdays. The only difference is that mine is not see-through; it's solid black with my employer's logo on it. I was curious about how it worked. Your video was very informative and went above and beyond to answer the questions I had! Thank you for posting it. It's always fun to learn new things!
It appears these just have regular short-life, non-rechargeable button batteries in them. Once the batteries are dead, you have to pump with your hand constantly to produce light. If you stop, the light stops. It's a scam. The company tries to pass them off as having rechargeable batteries, like hand-crank lights normally do.
Found 3 L1131 Button Cells which is non-rechargeable inside.
But this can be recharged in a specific setting I'm still searching for the answer why the battery just charge itself in that setting.
Crazy thing happened when I touched the two wires together and the lights went on! I detached everything from it but the two wires. I guess the white casing on the top has some charge I guess.
💀💀💀
Thank you, I broke apart my flashlight and this video showed how to fit it. :)
This is exactly what I was looking for. My grandson has one of these flashlights in his wilderness survival kids adventure kits and it quit working. I attempted to fix it yesterday but to no avail, I failed. I needed to know what those fine wires were and where they needed to actually go. And why all of the sudden the led lights quit working. Guess I need to check the batteries too. Ugh it is such a major pain in the behind to put back together...
So basically the generator only produce an electricity that we cannot store it up. The torch were power up by three button battery, and after the battery dies, you cannot recharge it using pump action?
I am 60, tried to make one, did not work, untill me friend told me, AC current, need a dieode, :), I used a dyno from a push bike, I wondered why the bulb flashed all the time, put a diode on me frount light and the flashing went, we all learn, even at my age :)
quite efficient vid bro, thanks
Is there a way to harvest the energy? Like loading power into a battery?
It’s be cool to have a chargeable portable battery so you can power your phone just by cranking a little thing
Beware the voltage, you need a regulator or something will burn.
I was thinking about that too!!
Good vedio bro u hav provided all d information.
I used to have a torch that had a wind up handle dynamo and a port to charge from a regular electric socket. Sadly I lost it and can't find them anymore.
What happen if you add capacitor on it to store energy? Can you make video for it? Thanks
Super bro
Very good video
I'm studying this for some unexplainable phenomenon during the experiment such as non-connecting(??? there is no connection to the battery if you switch to the hand crank right) recharging, thanks!
you can also replace the batteries with super capacitor. it will charge quickly
The batteries in the thing is a completely different circuit from the generator, hence it's not used for charging from the generator. The (disposable) battery directly lights the LEDs in the separate circuit, which is switched by a ... switch. Connecting up a capacitor to store the charge is an interesting idea :-)
I have the same thing, but only with different packaging
thanks bro
Where's the video where you show the schematic?
🎂🏝🎁🏝🎂🎈🎷wñg
I didn't get around to making it... I hope to do so some day! :-)
Did you do a follow up video? I’m really curious to learn why are the leds working with AC
I reckon it is why there are 2 led bulbs. Basically turning on and off alternately in a really fast sequence. I think..
My guess is some sort of bridge rectifier.
@@trythisj I didn't even think of that. That makes it kind of self rectifying.
LEDs can work on AC but they will flicker because they only conduct during the positive cycle of the AC. During the negative cycle they're off and not conducting. On DC there's a constant positive voltage so the LEDs don't flicker, Hope this helps
Yep. That's exactly the case. The LEDs are on only during half-cycle of the AC current. And the LEDs are both in the same direction, so that both LEDs can be lit when the batteries are powering them (or else you'd only have one LED light when powered via DC.)
Thank you for making this video. It's something I've wanted to look into for a while and you saved me a bunch of time and effort. I'm wondering what kind of amperage it's putting out. I didn't read the comments yet so my apologies if its already been asked.
I was supposed to make a follow-up video that looked into those kind of things. Sadly I didn't get around to it... Some day! :-)
@@coobird Great you are still here like a year ago
Long ago i have two of these flash lights in 2005
Wow! I didn't realize these have been available from that long ago!
We used to have it in India in 2007
We had these in Canada in 2007, except they used two CR2032 or CR2016 button cells (can't remember exactly which ones.) They were not rechargeable, as you can tell by the "CR" designation. It is almost impossible to find rechargeable button cells. So your flashlight will work off the batteries until they die, and then - it's just cranking that will keep it lit. Plus the wires and the gears are very cheap. If you want a reliable crank flashlight, get a Soviet Zhuchok (little beetle) flashlight. Bakelite body, thick gears made of durable plastic, and a metal cranking handle. We've had one of these in my family for decades, and it just kept on working! There are videos about replacing the incandescent lightbulb with an LED drop-in, and adding capacitors to keep it lit even after you stop cranking.
Very interesting video. The stator seems to have eight poles .The magnet rotates within these poles. How many poles does the magnet have?`The generator produces alternating current and leds operate only on direct current and that could only mean that the leds light up during the positive half cycle of rotation of the magnet. Leds have a reverse voltage of around 5 volts so the generator should not produce voltage more that 5 or the leds would burn out. My only questiong relates to the number of poles that the magnet should have or does have. Thank you for an answer.
I don't have the flash light handy right now, so I can't give you the answer about the number of poles, but you are right about the LED lighting up only half the time -- in fact, I was supposed to make a follow up video showing that the LEDs are indeed turning on and off very quickly since it's getting AC current.
It does have 8 poles! If you put the magnet under some iron filings its almost like an octogon with 8 dipoles :)
@@coobird as the AC voltage from the generator is 1 volt higher then the LED's 5 volt operating voltage, wouldnt it be a good idea to put a full bridge rectifier in there? The LED's would receive DC so they'd light up 100% of the time of the generation cycle and the diodes of the FBR would drop the voltage a bit (maybe around 4.5-5 volts) so it would also prevent the LED's from possibly burning out.
@@someoneontheinternetuvenev6268 yes let's have a more efficient one
can you use capacitor to replace the batteries?
That's an interesting idea :)
Try to check how the nail clipper work 😅
Led light is light emitting diode so the genetor can light the led
कितना दाम है ?
Negative or positive, find almost the same model on amazon on sale.
Like the only differences I see is color
It's quite possible and I wouldn't be surprised that similar/same items would be available elsewhere -- there's gotta be a reason why it's so low cost. (Mass produced, and not just for one seller but OEMed for many different sellers.)
@coobird's lab Where's the subsequent video to this one? I can't find it looking throught your uploaded videos on your channel. Would you happen to have a link to it?
nooooo where is the second part T-T
Where is the schematic video?
Remove the battery, and keep the cranking goes on , seems really tiring 🤣🤣🤣 only usable when emergency no light I think 🤣🤣🤣
i try to heat my house using mechanical generator powering my electric heating thank you for the info
Well that sounds fantastic please let us know how you made out were you able to actually use the mechanical to create heat thanks a lot good luck
SPOLER: There is no second part of the video
Hi! How do i fix the flashlight if the thin wires got disconnected?
Usually the wires break at a solder point. Re-solder it back. This unit is using an analog power supply. Crude yes, but works Running an AC source (handle dynamo) in to some diodes L.E.Diode (rectifier) and you have wavy dc but enough to do the job. The batteries are in the circuit til they go dead, I suspect and then it's all hand crank for a source voltage.
Hand power potential we have in general is how much energy we got by food for better health alkaline food for alkaline batteries
😂😂😂😂😂😂
No the channel is dead there is no second episode where are you are you doing alright?
It's 200rs now🤣🤣
Cheap version of Nissan dynamo torch
A very cheap one indeed ;-)
that design of that thing is totally flawed. the gear up is totally senseless. they could have used a spring instead and then just load the spring and use the release to accelerate the generator. this way you dont have to worry about gears.