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(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Sep 15th 2004 10:44am





Flashlight For A Variety Of Batteries

from the useful dept

Sometimes it's the simplest ideas that make a lot of sense. As people in Florida have been stocking up on batteries for their flashlights, it reminds you how you always need to make sure you have the right batteries around for your flashlights. They all seem to take different size batteries, and people always end up with random spare D or C batteries they don't know what to do with. One company is trying to solve that problem by creating a flashlight that will work with AA, C and D cell batteries with the flick of a switch. They claim the flashlight will show just as much light with any of the options, but the weaker batteries won't last as long.

6 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Mix?

    identicon
    Mikester, Sep 15th, 2004 @ 2:04pm

    I wonder if you can mix batteries. I usually have one AA and one C,D, etc. It would be nice to be able to mix any spare battery, not just pairs of spares.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: Mix?

    identicon
    crystalattice, Sep 15th, 2004 @ 2:54pm

    When I lived in Japan, I found a pretty cool kit. It came w/ 2 AA batteries, but it had adapters you put the batteries in, allowing you to use the AA's in place of C's and D's. Plus they were rechargable and it came w/ the recharger.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Same brightness

    identicon
    Brian, Sep 15th, 2004 @ 3:05pm

    And the reason that the light will show the same brightness regardless of whether you use an AA, C or D cell is that AA, C and D cells all have exactly the same voltage - exactly the same. They have varying capacity, though, which is why the little AA won't last as long as the big D when each is trying to do the same job.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    High-powered flashlights?

    identicon
    dorpus, Sep 15th, 2004 @ 4:28pm

    Winter is approaching, and I will be doing a lot of walking on campus. Can someone suggest a high-powered flashlight with equal or better specs, below $100 than this?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Re: Mix?

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Sep 16th, 2004 @ 9:52am

    Go ahead and mix them. What'll happen is the AA will go dead before the C, but it won't damage anything.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    So what?

    identicon
    Ed, Sep 17th, 2004 @ 12:39am

    "It is literally sliced bread for our category" -- some Energizer marketroid.

    Literally? You can spread peanut butter on it and eat it for lunch?

    Battery adapter sleeves have been around for years. As others have mentioned, there's nothing technologically interesting about using an AA in place of a D cell because they're both the same voltage.

    Any time I read hype-laden press releases masquerading as articles about utterly mundane developments I can't help but think of this article from The Onion.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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