wind-up radios/torches etc

quickstepqueen

^^^^^^^^

VardreRFC

I swear by 'shake' Torches, bought mine from Ebay for £3. Thirty seconds of shaking gives over 5 minuites of resonable light. There are no batteries it works off magnetic induction.

The only downside is the laughs you get when you tell people about it, and do the hand actions ;}

gromituk

These "shake" torches will have some sort of energy storage device inside them - either a rechargeable battery or s "supercapacitor". They don't store energy in a coil of wire.

Seakay

Liney wrote:

I heard the wind-up phone charger is just that a wind-up! It doesn't work or takes several hours just to show the charging symbol in the phones screen. Has anyone got one of these?
I know you can get a solar-powered charger for your iPods - are they any good anyone?

I've got a wind up phone charger for emergencies. Is does work but you wouldn't want to have to use it all the time.

hardpressed

I'm thinking of getting one to keep in the car, has anyone got one, do they work. Or would the wind up torch be better. I don't want to be caught out with a torch with a flat battery again.

Any good deal anywhere on these?

pollys

We have the wind-up torches they are brilliant. My son took his to cub camp last week and the leader was very impressed he said it was the best torch they had on camp. Not cheap at £29.99 but it has been well used for camping, sleepovers etc

pboae

Definitely the wind up ones. The other ones where you squeeze the handle or shake it, are rubbish.

LizEstelle

I ran a thread on this one a week or so ago. Someone suggested that the shake-it-up 'kinetic torch' thing is a con - that there's actually a small battery inside!

No idea if they're right or not but the wind up torch I've just bought is great.

kittiwoz

We used to have a little dynamo torch (where you squeeze the handle) for when we went camping in case we wanted to go to the toilet block in the night. It certainly worked and I remember it as being quite good but I don't suppose it was blindingly bright but enough to find your way without tripping over.

sophie_maxwell

LizEstelle wrote:

I ran a thread on this one a week or so ago. Someone suggested that the shake-it-up 'kinetic torch' thing is a con - that there's actually a small battery inside!

No idea if they're right or not but the wind up torch I've just bought is great.

I've got one of these and even if I don't shake it for a week or so it still is normal intensity. Normal intensity isn't great though but ok for not tripping over stuff!