About a decade ago a local pharmacy had a clearance sale of smoke detectors at only UK 99p each - so I bought quite a few. Unfortunately they seemed to lose their sensitivity after a few months (maybe because I was a heavy smoker at the time) - meanwhile the landlord decided to install rechargeable mains smoke alarms to all their properties, so I was left with a quantity of good quality batteries, battery clips, very loud piezo sounders & LEDs that had only cos 99p per set.
Maybe he's the weirdo that pees in the mailbox at the end of the street.
We have junk stores around here too. I have a package of 9 i think it was of CR2032's for under 2 bucks. And they also have a variety pack of coin cells for that price, too.
The CR2032's work great for my key fob that seems to like eating cells for my Jeep. It has a keyless entry and ignition system.
Jamie
File the solder lugs off a couple of holders and seal the stumps over with epoxy and you have a couple of spare battery keepers you can carry among your loose change.
All the three-cell flashlights I see use AAA batteries -- not interested. The Gerber might have used a "Joule Theif" circuit to achieve its longevity, I don't know, but the retail packaging actually stated 100 hours. I think I changed batteries in it twice before someone decided they couldn't afford to leave it alone.
It's difficult to assess how an individual product drives its LED. Usually they press the device in its housing with an interference fit so it isn't so easy to extract and examine.
Regards,
Uncle Steve
-- There should be a special word in the English language to identify people who create problems and then turn around and offer up their own tailor-made bogus non-solutions designed to completely avoid the root causes of the situation under consideration. 'Traitor' might be a good choice, but lacks the requisite specificity. One of the problems with contemporary English is it lacks many such words that would otherwise categorically identify certain kinds of person, place, or thing -- making it difficult or impossible to think analytically about such objects. These shortcomings of the English lexicon are representative of Orwellian linguistics at work in the real world.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.