Technical Editor Margery Conner's PowerSource streams the latest developments in electronic power design and related technologies. Follow Margery on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/margeryc.
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Blog
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Ultracapacitor/LED flashlight recharges in 90 seconds
Nov 12 2008 9:47AM | Permalink |Comments (13) |
As someone who’s sensitive to buying replacement battery packs for power equipment, I liked the idea of an ultracap-powered drill. And now there’s an ultracap-powered LED flashlight, the 5.11 tactical series Light for Life UC3.400 flashlight, which can power its three LEDs for 90 minutes on that 90-second charge. Its ultracaps are good for 50,000 charge cycles. The flashlight sells for $170; the manufacturer claims its 10-year trouble-free lifetime warrants the price.
Here are the flashlight specs:
“Key performance specifications for the UC3.400 include 270 lumens peak output, 90 lumens in standard mode, as well as a 270 lumen tactical strobe…
Click the button once and the light will operate for 60 minutes in standard mode (90 lumens) at which point it will reduce itself to a 25 lumen standby mode for an additional 30 minutes. This mode is effective to give adequate light for most applications. This is equivalent to most 2-D cell flashlights.
Press and hold the button for a 270 lumen peak mode for 15 minutes (again followed by 30 minutes of standby). This mode is effective when a burst is needed to light a large area or throw the beam a long distance.”
What is the shelf life of a fully-charged flashlight? From the website's blog: "There are no negative impacts to the ultracapacitor when it is left off of its charger. If left off the charger for a month, a flashlight could be used for 45 minutes of light or it could be fully charged in 45 seconds. If you left off the flashlight for a year, there would be 25% of the energy left. No negative memory effects or degradation would result. Similarly, if you left a battery to drain down to 50% of its capacity can reduce its life. If you left your flashlight off for 5 years, it would only take 90 seconds to recharge the flashlight to give you 90 minutes of run-time."
The UC3.400 uses technology licensed from Flashpoint Power Technology, which is the licensing arm of IVUS Energy Innovations. IVUS got its start several years ago researching ultracapacitors for use in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
Related entries in: Components, Hardware, Interconnect |
Reader Comments
at 11/12/2008 3:31:44 PM, Mr. Write said:
Did I read that correctly, $170!
Someone really doesn''t want to sell very many, do they?
I understand all the economics involved but for a flashlight to cost $170 retail it had better make breakfast too! (At least once a week for a year
at 11/13/2008 9:15:50 AM, Skeptico said:
$170.00 is way out of range. My bright 3-white-LED flash light which I bought from a dollar store takes 3 AAA batteries and lasted three plus years in a typical usage. Let''s say 3 AAA cost $5.00. $170.00 would give me 34 packs of 4 AAA and multiply by 2 years (instead of 3+ years) which in turn willl provide 78 years service. I think I wait till the price in $10.00 range
at 11/13/2008 10:30:37 AM, Engineer said:
It might be interesting to see how much of the $170 is license fees...
at 11/20/2008 2:33:03 PM, Rick said:
As it appears their marketing is directed at Police/Fire/EMS, guess who will be paying for these expense little toys!!
at 11/20/2008 2:34:35 PM, tony almeida said:
2yrs ago I bought off the street(!) a pair of those (ostensibly) shaky-lights, with the coil and magnet inside, and made sure they *did* light before forking over the 10bux for them. Turned out it was only a steel slug and unconnected 1-layer "coil" of wire, and the LED was powered with a pair of coin-cells in the head. Ah, well. What I did was wire up a "joule thief" (small cheap 1xstr boost converter) circuit to light up the LED from a pair of sub-C NiCd cells I had lying around, which fit the flashlight's body perfectly, and connected them through a 1N400x diode to a small coil I affixed to the opposite end. Now it charges the sub-Cs from my Sonicare(tm) charger! Just drop it in and let it go overnight.
If you want *bright*, though, 28bux at Target will net you a 134lm River Rock brand compact flashlight that runs for 60hrs from a pair of C cells. Got one, love it enough to go get another as a spare.
at 11/20/2008 2:47:05 PM, ErnieM said:
At $170 a copy they will only sell a handful without a discount contract from the Police or the military or some other “we need it no matter the price” and user. I sure ain’t gonna get one to find kitty when she sneaks outside at night.
Their website does offer “free shipping on orders over $35” which is easily obtained.
However, with deliveries are not scheduled until 2009 so we can expect knockoffs to hit the market before theirs does.
at 11/20/2008 3:16:30 PM, Jim Horn said:
Folks, you''re likely not the market. I enjoy my $1.99 single AA LED flashlight a lot.
However, if you use a flashlight *every night* for a living, even D cell flashlight batteries are going to cost. As does the time spent buying, inventorying,
changing, disposing (hazardous waste) them in a commercial or public safety situation. Since this flashlight charges in 90 seconds(!), it avoids all that. For police, fire and other such jobs, $170 for this is actually a bargain. For them, something that just works - for years and years - is invaluable.
So, why so expensive? Do the math - even if you use chintzy 20mA LEDs, 70 minutes of 20mA * 4VDC is over a kilojoule of energy. Store that much in ultracapacitors, add the charger, the LED constant current control, the state machine to select modes (probably a small microcontroller), a custom case and reflector, and know that sales will be small enough to amortize the ROI as being a significant part of the cost. Oh - and do it for $170.
I''d rather not - these folks *did* do their homework. But just like many other higher end professional tools, it''s out of my price range. Sigh.
at 11/20/2008 11:23:33 PM, ELH said:
I believe they've broken the record of $/lumen-hours with this one. For those of you interested in savings if you're using flashlights a lot, see the link below:
www.afrotechmods.com/reallycheap/batteries/batts.htm
at 11/20/2008 11:31:50 PM, Naveed Alam said:
Waiting for the days when cell phones will be charged in such a small time.
at 11/21/2008 12:17:33 AM, Forward thinking said:
$170 is a lot for a torch, but not a lot for a very viable piece of new technology.
The developers have thought about the 'run down' behaviour and the demand for quick charge from users.
At 270Lumen it is a lot brighter than any other LED torch I have seen !
Maybe I won't buy one yet, but the idea is very forward.
at 11/21/2008 9:40:58 AM, tony almeida said:
Typically, the LEDs would be 3W units for a 90lm output, in this case I'd suggest 1W each from 3 LEDs. So for a 60min (1hr) runtime, that translates to 3WH of energy stored. The converter to power the LEDs should be reasonably efficient (~90%), so let's assume negligible losses in charging and conversion. To fully charge the ultracap in 1.5min (1/40hr), that means a 120W charge-rate. Since it's an ultracap and not a battery, it's incredibly easy to meter out a full charge. Use constant-current to even out the load over time on the charger and line, then simply stop charging when the (linearly-rising) voltage on the ultracap hits its maximum preset value. The real innovation is packing sufficient storage into a small-enough space to fit the flashlight's body. And they wouldn't be "chintzy 20mA LEDs", but rather 350mA for 1W units, and 1.05A for 3W units. :) Also, newer more efficient LEDs would belt out closer to 130lm (Luxeon?), not 90lm as somewhat older and more mainstream LEDs would.
at 11/21/2008 12:37:28 PM, Frosty said:
Seems everyone here is focusing on the technology and cost of this device. For me, I use a flashlight only when we have a big storm and the power goes out... great for the first 90 minutes, but then I need a recharge and have to plug it into a wall socket (I presume)...not going to do me much good at that point... This thing should come with a buzzer that alerts you to when there's about 5 minutes of light left so I can then search for my other flashlights and batteries :-)
.
at 12/28/2008 10:28:57 AM, Martin said:
$170 is an outrageous price!
Bought a 9-white-LED flashlight at the 99cent store. It uses 3AAA batteries, is cylindrical, about 3" long, ultrabright and ultralight. Loved it so much, I went back to the store, bought 10 more, and gave them out as gifts. DIDO, the $170 flashlight probably directed at Police/Fire/EMS
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