**Item: **SawHorse Magnetic Telescoping Flashlight
Price: $4.99
Shipping Options: $5 Standard OR $9 Two-Day OR $12 One-Day
Condition: New
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Its hurricane season. Can.Not. Resist.
There have been soooo many times where this would have came in useful. Often times I have to hold the flashlight in my mouth while working in those hard to reach places.
This flashlight is sold under many brands, the most famous being As-Seen-on-TV’s Bell & Howell iScope. It’s often sold in a 2 pack for $19.95, i.e. HSN. I have a set and they have proved to be incredibly useful. Although the flashlight is relatively weak by today’s LED stndard, it does its job. I’ve used it in computer repairs, under-the-sink repairs, to look for things, etc. The real feature, hoever, are the two strong magnets at either end. The magnet on teh head is stronger than the one at the base, which makes sense, since you use the head to pick up stuff. Th ebase magnet is meant for mounting it onto metal surfaces. I have over 10 LED flashlights, with some hi-tech ones outputing 400+ lumens. Yet these were the ones we used the most when NYC was hit with that massive blackout caused by SuperStorm Sandy. That’s due to the magnetic mount which proved incredibly useful as we moved the light from kitchen to bedroom to bathroom. There was always a metal surface to mount the thing. Our dining area is located right below a metal jamb. We stuck two of these on the ceiling, extended the handles to its maximum length and it provided excellent illumination for the table. As for battery life, it is admittedly very short. Not only is the circuitry low tech and not very efficient by LED standards, but it also uses button batteries. That means that there isn’t a lot of juice to power the flashlight. However, you can get 100 button batteries on eBay for about $4 with free s/h.
And yes, they’re great for picking up needles and screws off the floor and behind furniture.
[QUOTE=lichme, post:4, topic:390149]
There have been soooo many times where this would have came in useful. Often times I have to hold the flashlight in my mouth while working in those hard to reach places.
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Consider gerring an LED headlamp. I have a low tech one from Garrity (from Woot!) and a high tech one from Weiita, and both have proven very useful. The rechargeable focusable Weiita claims an output of 500 lumens. I don’t know if that’s true but it does light up an entire room when directed toward the ceiling. You can find it for $16-$20. It’s great when you hands need to be free, especially since hte light automatically goes where you’re looking. That’s not true of handheld flashlights like this one. I’ve even used it as a book light to read in bed. And the bathtub. The Weiita claims to last 8hrs on low (180 umens).
The LR44 batteries kills it for me. Yeah, you can find some cheap LR44 batteries, but you get what you pay for. I’d be interested if it could use rechargeable NiMH AAA or AA sizes.
It gets stellar reviews over at Amazon, and it’s way cheaper here. Also the battery life claim is 16 hours on amazon. Button batteries are really cheap too if you ever need to replace. What the heck, I’m in for 3.
[QUOTE=amemait, post:7, topic:390149]
The LR44 batteries kills it for me. Yeah, you can find some cheap LR44 batteries, but you get what you pay for. I’d be interested if it could use rechargeable NiMH AAA or AA sizes.
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You can rig it to use any type of battery as long as the output is about 4.5V. That means you can even use the USB output of your computer. So yes, you can use 3X AA or AAA batteries but there won’t be any way to fit them in the flashlight. You’ll need to mount the batteries externally. For intermittent use, LR44 button batteries have not proven to be a problem. In fact, we only switched batteries twice in the 4 day SuperStorm Sandy blackout. Then again, I have to admit that I also used 4 other flashlights as well as candles. Regardless, if you only use these intermittently, you probably won’t have to switch batteries for months.
[QUOTE=vansmith, post:8, topic:390149]
It gets stellar reviews over at Amazon, and it’s way cheaper here. Also the battery life claim is 16 hours on amazon. Button batteries are really cheap too if you ever need to replace. What the heck, I’m in for 3.
16 hrs? Noooooooooo way… We only got about 1-2 hours of continuous usable light. And even at maximum brightness, it isn’t very bright. And it starts dimming after 20 mins or so. Interestingly, if you shut it off and let it rest, it becomes bright again. But for a shorter and shorter span each time.
[QUOTE=vansmith, post:8, topic:390149]
It gets stellar reviews over at Amazon, and it’s way cheaper here. Also the battery life claim is 16 hours on amazon. Button batteries are really cheap too if you ever need to replace. What the heck, I’m in for 3.
The utility of these lights has more to do with the magnets and telescopic gooseneck handle than the lights themselves. As flashlights, they’re really VERY mediocre.
A WARNING
Be very careful when using these around computers. The magnets can wipe out your hard drive (and floppy discs, for you old timers out there). It’a very tempting to use these to retrieve screws, etc, but avoid doing so unless the screw is far from the hard drive.
[QUOTE=sdc100, post:12, topic:390149]
It’a very tempting to use these to retrieve screws, etc, but avoid doing so unless the screw is far from the hard drive.
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I tend to use tape-wrapped screwdrivers or chopsticks for those tasks - much safer, especially since the magnet might land you between two things that shouldn’t be connected. Yeah, everything should be unplugged and discharged but…
As a magnetic pickup and extendable flashlight this unit is excellent. The magnets are very strong and work very well.
However, as a flashlight it’s frustratingly pathetic. If you’ve ever used one of those super cheap 9-LED aaa mini flashlights with a set of dying batteries in it just imagine that, but with a third of the LEDs and terrible light output. You can’t fault this flashlight for using LR44 batteries since there’s really no other way to get the form factor, but the LED design feels like it’s from 15 years ago. It’s so weak and terrible compared to other small, inexpensive LED flashlights.
It feels like this was designed in the early 90s when LED flashlights were first coming out and it has never been updated since. It’s a shame, with even a little reengineering of the LED unit this could be an amazing flashlight. As it is, it’s disappointing and hard to recommend.
This price is fantastic though, so maybe it might be worth it this time.
[QUOTE=bhiga, post:13, topic:390149]
I tend to use tape-wrapped screwdrivers or chopsticks for those tasks - much safer, especially since the magnet might land you between two things that shouldn’t be connected. Yeah, everything should be unplugged and discharged but…
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My computer is so dusty that no tape would remain sticky after entering the chasis. My desperate solution also involves chopsticks, but no tape. I simply put a small dab of Elmer’s glue on the chopstick and wait until it’s 90% dry. I then touch the glue to the screw
and wait another 10 mins or so for the glue to dry even more. By then, the screw is usually glued tightly enough to the chopstick to be lift easily/
[QUOTE=sdc100, post:10, topic:390149]
16 hrs? Noooooooooo way… We only got about 1-2 hours of continuous usable light. And even at maximum brightness, it isn’t very bright. And it starts dimming after 20 mins or so. Interestingly, if you shut it off and let it rest, it becomes bright again. But for a shorter and shorter span each time.
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I’d love to buy this if it didn’t use button batteries. They don’t last very long, and if you buy a pack of a hundred, they’ll be cheap junk that wear out even faster. Great concept but needs a brighter light and real batteries. Watch batteries don’t get the job done in flashlights.
I’ll add my voice to the chorus, I have an off brand of this little bugger. While it is useful, the button cells and ancient LED’s are very limiting. It’s nice to have in a toolbox (stuck on with the magnet) for a specific task within a larger project (where did that screw go, what is behind here, where is the other end of this wire?). Do not expect to use this light to provide lighting for anything that takes more than a few minutes.
Glen
[QUOTE=danlecompte, post:14, topic:390149]
As a magnetic pickup and extendable flashlight this unit is excellent. The magnets are very strong and work very well.
However, as a flashlight it’s frustratingly pathetic. If you’ve ever used one of those super cheap 9-LED aaa mini flashlights with a set of dying batteries in it just imagine that, but with a third of the LEDs and terrible light output. You can’t fault this flashlight for using LR44 batteries since there’s really no other way to get the form factor, but the LED design feels like it’s from 15 years ago. It’s so weak and terrible compared to other small, inexpensive LED flashlights.
It feels like this was designed in the early 90s when LED flashlights were first coming out and it has never been updated since. It’s a shame, with even a little reengineering of the LED unit this could be an amazing flashlight. As it is, it’s disappointing and hard to recommend.
This price is fantastic though, so maybe it might be worth it this time.
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From all the posts - it seems this is designed or at least most useful as a magnetic pick-up tool that has a light to help you locate what you’re trying to find/pick-up.
[QUOTE=danlecompte, post:14, topic:390149]
It feels like this was designed in the early 90s when LED flashlights were first coming out and it has never been updated since. It’s a shame, with even a little reengineering of the LED unit this could be an amazing flashlight.
[/quote]
As a flashaholic and an electrical engineer, I must disagree. At the sort of currents these coin cells deliver, the difference between modern power LEDs and these 5mm LEDs is a factor of two or perhaps three. This means, with appropriate electronics, you could get twice the light output for the same runtime, or the same output for twice the runtime. And we’re talking replacing three LEDs that may be a dime each with 1 LED that may be a dollar each, so it doesn’t seem like it would add much to the cost.
But there’s two catches – first, the pattern of light the LEDs generate, and second, that modern LEDs gain their efficiency partly by having lower voltage.
For the pattern of light, it’s simple – 5mm LEDs have a built-in lens, focusing the output to perhaps 20 degrees or so (you can order them in various beam widths), so you slap them behind a clear window, and you’ve got a usable flashlight beam. Power LEDs generally have a lambertian or nearly lambertian distribution, which in layman’s terms means the distribute light through an entire hemisphere, with most of it in a 120 degree (or so) cone – spreading the light thinner makes it dimmer, so for most applications you need to add a reflector or focusing lens of some sort to concentrate it into a beam of 10 to 20 degrees. That means adding a component (optic of whatever sort) and usually pushing the LED further into the head to get it at the focal point, which might require a redesign of the housing.
To understand the second catch, know that a big part of what makes a button-cell/5mm LED flashlights so cheap and common is that the internal resistance of the batteries is enough to control the current to the LEDs. It’s not elegant, and you get quirks like the (relatively) high brightness each time you turn it on, fading out as the surface charge is used, as sdc100 noted, but it is dirt cheap.
Now the catch is, when you replace the LEDs with modern, lower voltage LEDs, the greater voltage difference between the LED and the battery stack causes more current to flow, making it more than twice as bright for less runtime. IMO, that’s not at all a good thing – you want one or both parameters to increase, and neither to decrease – and to avoid it you need to either add several more components (requiring a good deal more space, combining with the first catch this definitely results in a housing redesign) to regulate the current, or take the simple solution of using one fewer battery – leaving it about as dim as the original, with runtime a little longer, but it’s only using 3/4 the batteries to do it. While this is a win for efficiency, customers look at “brightness” and “battery life”, not “brightness * battery life / number of batteries”, so it barely looks any better as a product.
Really, in designs like this, the coin cells and LEDs have some nifty synergy, and you can’t really win without upgrading them both, which of course you can’t readily do without compromising the magnetic stickability.
At this point… I should point out there are other battery options, completely unpalatable to the normal customer, that a flashaholic might try to improve one of these with no housing changes. Going from four 357 cells to a 10180 rechargeable Li-ion (one 10180 costs as much as this whole light. Any of the few chargers that A. will charge a 10180, and B. will not destroy it in the process, cost even more.) leaves me 2-3mm in the battery compartment, so I may be able to cram a regulator in there… Swapping in an XP-G or even XM-L LED, with the shallowest optics I can find… I may or may not succeed, but there’s just a chance I’ll turn a $5 light into a slightly better $20 dollar plus hours of time light, which is what a hobby’s all about, yeah? In for 3!
Just bought this and I am happy with it. If there is one thing I would change it is the fact that it won’t stay in one place while it is extended. The top of the flashlight is too heavy and it refuses to stay put and gravity pulls it to a downward position. Other than that little issue I love it and the price is very right 