Unique vintage rechargeable flashlight from 1980's (with schematic)
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- Опубликовано: 30 ноя 2016
- A bit of electronic treasure from the past. I bought this unique little rechargeable flashlight from a long gone (and much missed) shop in Glasgow called RME. The RME stood for Radio, Mechanical and Electrical, and it was a surplus and salvage store based in Howard Street in Glasgow, Scotland.
What made this little flashlight appealing was that it was rechargeable directly from the 240V mains supply with a standard figure-8 style mains connector. I was very intrigued by how they had managed to fit a charging circuit inside such a small light. keep in mind that this was from the 1980's so it seemed a remarkable electronic feat.
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I recently found something similar to this. Its from a german company called AEG and from 1960. It uses a detachable head in which the tungsten lamp is which then reveals the SchuKo 240V connector.
It charges two 225 mA NiCd cells through a 250V AC 0,2 uF foil capacitor and a 300 Ohm inrush limiting resistor going to a FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIAH!!!.
Quite nice torch as well. Very high quality.
You could add a zener that would shunt the battery through the LED when it reaches full charge, it would not only prevent overcharge but would work as a battery charge indicator for when the battery is done charging.
NiMh and NiCd are fine charging indefinitely if the current is low enough. 1/10C is good for a 12 hour charge, 1/20C is fine for charging forever. The chemical reaction won't decompose at that low of a rate.
Great shop. I remember the bins of circuit board scrap that you could buy for scavenging parts from and drooling at the Heathkits that I couldn't afford.
Reminds me of a torch i have in my car, but that is sadly not re-chargeable, its a Polaroid disposable torch. From memory mine dates from around 1995/6, I believe it used the same battery that was in the Polaroid film packs, and amazingly enough for a 20 year old torch it still works, although it is starting to fade. I'll have to send it to Clive to do an autopsy on it.
Love when the note pad comes out
yeah Clive is always poised with that felt tip pen ready for a schematic
That's not a noepad, it's a non-volatile memory personal data assistant.
I wonder how interesting a video would be looking though the notepad. Clive could maybe try to figure out what past teardowns are with the schematics.
But I've noticed that he wastes a lot of paper, using only one side of the page... When it's actually very usable on the obverse side, as no ink shows through !!!
I love when something else comes out
BIG CLIVES VIDEOS GET YOUR MIND OUT THE GUTTER.
That's impressive that it still works! Good old NiCd batteries last forever if you take care of them.
Those look like 90mAh Varta DEAC cells; they do last well beyond any expectations! I have Pye radio batteries from the 70's using them that still work, as long as you keeping giving them the odd charge/discharge cycle. I had a rechargeable torch from the early 70's that had a capacitive dropper, rectifier and couple of NiCd cells. It had a plastic cap at the far end covering a pair of pins that fitted in a shaver adapter or outlet. There was no discharge resistor so it had a hasty habit of giving you a healthy belt if you touched the pins!
Alan Cordwell My dad had a similar torch. It had a removable cap that exposed a standard non-earthed EU plug. It had presumably a capacitive dropper, and a green rectangular LED to show it's plugged in. It didn't monitor the charge though. The cells died eventually. Never opened it up, it was glued shut and almost indestructible. It used a standard replaceable incandescent bulb.
Mine has (!) a resistor and a diode, no complex capacitive dropper... actually, another has a little LED that doubles when charging as a diode, but that is a couple of years younger (I guess the end of the 80's / beginning of the 90's).
Reminds me of the emergency torch in my 1992 BMW 520iSE (E34). It was the same size and had NiCd batteries. When not in use it docked in a charging slot in the glovebox. However, it charged from 12v DC. I see yours too has a good quality bulb, of the type used in medical laryngoscopes.
We are lucky to see 217 volts here, but after all we are 8 miles from Gatwick airport and don't even have a mobile service in the centre of our village!
small world, that puts you a max of 20 miles from me. How do :D
A neighboring town had a similar warehouse where you could buy anything from a 1/4 Watt resistor to a complete Naval shipboard radar set. Some of their larger items found their way on to Hollywood movie sets.
My grandmother had one of these, was always amazed by this tiny little thing that would take full mains voltage while pretty much everything else required a wall wart plugpack. Funny little things and very old-school.
It's only due to it trickle charging at very low current, and being built to a low price point. You "could" build something similar with higher charge current but the heat and power loss starts to become unacceptably high. I mean in an emergency it would work but isn't competitive as a retail product competing against other products in the modern market, and there might also be governmental restrictions on selling something like that today, considering (AFAIK) EU has pretty much mandated that wall wart power supplies be switching type instead of linear. I could be wrong on that, have not studied EU codes but am under that impression.
I just love NiCds...
In dumpster of recently closed electronic repair shop i have found discarded box of 24 unused, originally packaged, C-sized 1,8Ah NiCd Panasonic sintered electrode cells, dating 1988, and ALL of them are reading over 1,9Ah (at 2A c.c. discharge, 0,8V cutoff) capacity after a few charge/discharge cycles, having very low (and consistent across batch) internal resistance, and lower self discharge than temporary hi-current NiMh...
That is just some awsome oldschool chemistry/electronic in my view.
Man, what a comeback after 28 years of sleep, not a single shorted cell!!!
I really enjoy the teardowns, they are really informative and entertaining, greetings from Zimbabwe Africa
Hello Rhodesia
Same
Every time you mention RME I get a wave of nostalgia... and whenever I'm down by St Enoch's I always glance longingly along Howard Street as if somehow it would have magically returned.
I remember RME, lots of happy times spending pocket money in their.
1980's gadgets are more advanced than some would think today... there are some things on the market now in 2016 that haven't changed much since way back into the 1960's
you have to love when some small company makes something that is very ahead of its time, and then you find it again almost 30 years after its been manufactured and look at how simple it was to make by comparison to what gets made today.
a double cliffhanger episode. Interesting new video, and an announcement. I am on tenterhooks.
Clivehanger, surely?
INDEED
So weird... things that come into existence during my life being called vintage. :D (Born in 81! :D)
I'm glad you drew that switch as a.... Boiiiing!
Wow thats a revelation. Didn't even now it was possible to go that minimal.
Thats a nice old key torch, handy to find the key and lock on your front door.
Clive, do you remember the ones that were two watch batterys in a odd shaped case no bigger than your thumb, a lense bulb stuck out the front, it was on the key ring?
zx8401ztv
YES... We had them during school days in the '60s.
Anything simple is genius!
I have a re-chargeable glove-box torch of a similar design which was factory equipment in my 80's BMW. Its an "Acculux", simple design with a rechargeable cell and two holes at the base for charge pins which are in a special cubby in the glove-box. It uses a sort of double button cell style battery.
I'm restoring it at the moment. Giving it a good clean, new cell, scrubbing off the corrosion etc. :)
Acme there was one in my E34. It was a nice idea at the time.
Clive, RME, that really takes me back!!! Thanks for sharing. Joe.
I remember that they used to give you out small wicker baskets to put you multiple choices in as you browsed.
As a young person, I was privileged to get access to a basket, that many others where denied, manly be due to my constant consumerism.
This video mentioned about RME, it has has taken me back to fond memories
Thank you big Clive!
Love these vintage flashlight teardowns . Please make more videos on vintage flashlight.
Wow i remember flashlights like this!! You just brought back a little piece of nostalgia that i never knew was there!! Cheers Clive
Pitney-Bowes used to use those flat-pack 1.2v NiCd cells as memory backup in their faxes. Buying the "authentic" replacement cells was not cheap, so I used to simply cannibalise the old PP3 rechargeables, and use the individual stack elements as replacements. Worked just fine, and saved us a heap!
Seems like he loves this light, I mean I have a energy flashlight that you hand-crank that I adore
The stores here sell (well they did not sure if they still do) a little LED flashlight that plugs directly into the wall to charge. They are very bright when used but don't hold up long, I took one apart (been watching to much Big Clive!) and found it powered by one lr2032 cell and some components to handle the charge and such. We have had two of these now for over 5 years, they seem to hold up fairly well but are rarely turned on, only during power outrages so we can find the toilet in the dark. We don't need them as much as we used to, now that I have been building all these little circuits I find on RUclips using 18650's recovered out of old laptop batteries, and high output LED's, but the little lights do serve a purpose.
I had some a bit like that back in the late 60s/early 70s. They were German, made by AEG, and rather than the figure-8 charging socket, the bulb housing cap could be pulled off, revealing two standard European mains plug prongs. They had a big cylindrical NiCd inside and I think a capacitive dropper charging circuit.
Your so comfortable with mains it scares me. Playing like this is insane.
Left us on a cliffhanger there Clive!! Looking forward to seeing the next vid!!
A Clivehanger, no?
Clive you tease! Waiting with bated breath for the next episode!
I'm old enough to remember RME when it was at the south end of Stockwell Street. A magical emporium of electronic goodies.
I remember when RME was at the bottom of Stockwell St. I think it belonged to a Mr Jacobson? Bought tons of stuff from them, including loads of Fane 25 , 12 inch watt speakers.
So funny something like this would show up on your channel, when I was a kid in the mid 1980s my grandfather had something very similar, mind you we lived in the Netherlands and I believe it came from a store called Kijkshop, which back then sold all sorts of gadgetry among other items. Our version had a plastic cap on the back that slid off to reveal a Dutch type two prong electrical plug and I am sure it did not have a red indicator led, but other than that a spitting image of this, interesting to see some of these things are still around and amazing the batteries held up this long
yes, they do. Sometimes use it... still the same battery but I had replaced the lamp (it burned down). Could replace it with a LED next time...
My grandparents used to have flashlights very similar to this in the early 90s but the prongs were directly on the side of the flashlight.
They would be plugged in at all times in nearly every outlet in the house and when the power went out they would turn on automatically.
They still make those, even ones with a bulb thread that function as a normal lamp, then turn on via batteries when the power goes out. Even has a telescopic handle for use as a flashlight.
Ease up on the 40 years thing, 1980's only 36 years ago (being 31 myself!!!)... :P
Cool little gadget that, wouldn't surprise me if new versions of the device started popping up soon now this one's been made public... :P
Looks very similar inside to the flashlights that used to come in the glovebox in BMWs.
interesting. I didn't know you could run a led off mains voltage. I'm learning loads from your videos. thank you.
Big Clive on Tour 2017!!!! That's the announcement! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's 4 o'Clock in the morning.... techno techno techno techno
Memories of going into that shop in Howard street with my gramps brilliant wee shop back in the day. same with the model dockyard on argyle street.
rme surplus supplies, loved that shop and it's prices. thanks for the reminder Clive
I'm still using nicad batteries from the late 80s, still working and still be charged up every week.
As for those old rechargeable torches " quite common in German cars at the time"
Some electrical shops back in the 80s sold pocket rechargeable torches, I remember buying one, it wasn't cheap about £10, equivalent to about £35 today
A oldie but a goodie..
Mains straight into the back of a thumb sized flashlight is just hilarious to me lol
I had a similar light as a child, with integrated Euro plug, you have a C7 contact.
The battery was destroyed after a year.
I miss it still, a light that always had full batteries ...
I can hear my old teacher screaming at what should have been drawn as a push-to-make switch. He didn't know very much, but he was very particular about what he did.
Clive you should get one of the cheep eBay 405 nm laser pointer to soak the glow in the dark material to show on the camera. Once you shine the laser on the glow in the dark stuff it should glow quite brightly for a short time. Just make sure you use the 405 nm laser pointer as if the laser wavelength is not smaller than the emitted light this will not work.
Very cute device.
I had a Braun rechargeable electric razor. And I was impressed with its input specs: 15 to 400 volts, AC/DC.
Essentially anything but lightning.
LOL, that's Weird
@@aptube6754
You know what they say, ‘they don’t make ‘em like they used to.’ It was early 1980s, when Braun meant something.
Thanks for sharing, Interesting stuff from the past :-)
I like the continental Europe Version of this lights more than your version.
Because the Continental Europe has a 2pin Euro plug with a cap on the other end.
When I was a kid I used to take apart and mess around with ni-cd 9V batteries that had 7 of those cells in it...I beleive they were 60-100mah cells. Funny seeing them again :D
My Mum the same model to put 50p in the in the meter for electricity. Oh the memories.
Ahh, the scrabble to find a 50p in the dark, that takes me back to 1983, when I was 3 :D
@@krashd You must be quite the "scrabble" expert now wouldn't you😂
I have a couple of russian made flashlights back when I was a kid, they was basically the same charge circuit from what I could remember, it had 3 Ni-Cd cells in it at a capacity of about 200-250mAh so yeah, the runtime was well under one hour even with a fully charged battery. I searched and searched to get one but couldn't find it. I have managed to get a modern version with led's and single cell that charges with a capacitive dropper but if you have the leds on and you plug it in, the boost chip for the led or even the leds burn because the inrush current of the capacitor, if you plug it in when the sine doesn't cross the zero point then it works but it burns at the peak of the sine wave. Anyway, enough rambling. Cheers :)
Uh, a cliffhanger. Or a Clivehanger, if you will.
Reminds me of afternoon between lectures at Strathclyde uni in the late 80s early 90s, trapsying around electronic, music, electrical and the odd little backend computer shop there was back then. Was the on the corner with Jamaica st ? I remember victor Morris on Argyll st - and just looked it up and it's still in business !!
Big Clive, if you shine a blacklight on to the glow material it will essentially "supercharge" the material therefore it should be more than visible on camera.
oh!! as a kid I had one of those with a eu plug. one of my first flash lights.
I had a very similar flashlight in the 80s. But you could expand the plug (2 simple pins for German socket) with a slide;)
We've had similar flash lights in the 80s, but with a cap in the end and a EU plug connector beneath it, so you could shove the thing directly into a wall socket. Internally, they were probably the exact same thing (although I remember them having a small sliding switch which stayed on when you slid it into the on position). But for some reason, they never worked right, the batteries went bad too quickly and then it lasted only for a couple minutes until going dark...
I remember in the mid 80s my dad bought a torch like that.
It was only slightly different in that it on the back had a removable plastic cap underneath wich was a (European style round pin) mains plug. No figure-8 socket.
You simplly plugged the whole flashlight into a mains outlet.
My mother had a BMW M3 E30 that had a light that looked similar in shape and plugged into a slot in the glove box to charge.
this just reminded me of that due to its shape.
I'm sure these are same type of torch provided in quite a lot of older BMWs! My old 1997 740i had one and so does my 2000 318ci have one. Made by the same company but they charge through a dock in the glovebox. They are also modified to fit in with a BMW interior better.
The circuitry is also very very similar!
Although the voltage is set to 230V in whole EU, it has quite a large tolerance so none of the countries had to change their actual grid voltages with it. BTW 219V here in Tallinn Estonia.
Right, it is 230 V +/-6% in most of Europe, except UK, where it is +10%/-6% of 230 V: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity#Voltage_levels
But soon it will be all of the EU with +/-6% ;)
You can add "joule thief" circuit instead of adding extra cell and resistor. It is pretty small, and should fit in case.
Yes
These videos really make me wish I'd gone into electrical engineering. :(
it's never too late
This is really more to do with electronics engineering.
I have a water heater timer from the 1980's made by Reliance Electric that has a circuit somewhat like this. The motor was made in France and has a 555 timer chip on it. The battery was a NiCad but it finally failed spewing it's content onto the charge components. The two resistors looked burned so I contacted the company and I was surprised that two engineers came back with the values. Simple circuit in that it uses two diodes two resisters off of a 240 volt mains. I replaced the button cell NiCad with a much larger rectangular NiMh cell from some pack I took to bits. It has been doing just fine even when I cut the power off to it on a two week holiday the clock keeps going. This carry over feature is very nice and the longevity has been more than expected. That repair must be 8 years old by now?
Howard Street is still full of wee technical shops, mostly guitar-related and DJ-related.
Now we wait for the next video.
This torch reminds me of the ones that were fitted to 80's and 90's BMWs in the glovebox
Hi, bc....
This brought back memories of late 60s - early 70s when I was very involved with radio controlled model aircraft, the smaller the better being the trend for me. Rechargeable NiCd batteries were in their infancy for this obsession and I purchased some mains units that contained DEACs, branded NiCd cells. (Seemingly I later found, made in Germany) The mains units used capacitors to limit the charge current. Possibly dangerous after component failure. Whipped the cells out and served my purpose very well.
Thought this might have relevance re:- your 56k resistor unit. Also - low constant charge for NiCd cells were thought to form dendrites (shorting structures) in the cells?
Best wishes and
Cheers.
Paul F.
Pretty neat. Under normal circumstances, a transformer and rectifier circuit is used. For compactness, a resistor and diode does the job. I don't think there is a transformer in a cellphone charger. I could be wrong on that, but because of the size, I think there wouldn't be one.
Cell phone chargers do have a transformer but are able to use a very tiny one due to being switching power supplies working at high KHz frequency. You will (practically) always find a transformer in a regulated output power supply, with the modern cell phone type being regulated to 5.0V-ish to be compatible with USB aux. charging methods.
Australia is also supposed to be transitioning into complying with European standards when it comes to mains voltage, however my outlets at home are still at roughly 250v. It is surely a concern of the past anyway with almost all power supplies accepting 100-250v.
Are they going to change the colour code too? Here in the UK we were forced to swap from red, yellow and blue phases with a black neutral to brown, black and grey phases with a blue neutral. As you might guess, swapping a phase and neutral colour resulted in the predictable accidents.
Yes, the colour change was made some time ago (not positive when, but possibly decades ago). I suppose part of the reason was so colourblind people could distinguish between the colours. Red/green colorblindness is common and mixing those up would not have been good. Another reason would be to distinguish between low voltage DC wiring and mains wiring. it makes sense, just the transition isn't always smooth.
youtubkeeper In Denmark there were multiple color schemes for the incoming 3 phase mains until settling on the EU scheme. The use of the stripe is because the primary colors were already reserved:
1. Purple - Easily mistaken for others.
2. Blue - Neutral
3. Green - Part of green/yellow PE
4. Yellow - Part of green/yellow PE.
5. Orange - Available but easily mistaken for others
6. Red - Available but some historic uses.
The voltage range for most EEA countries is 230 +10% -6%, that's 216 - 253, the UK is in that range as is the IoM which generally follows the UK and has arrangements within the EEA to share free movement of goods (but not people or services) so hopefully anything thnat does not blow up in the UK will be OK in the IoM too! :)
Pifco made something like this in the late 60s, it used nicad cells, you charged it via a two pin plug built in, you need a shaver adapter to work it. Acculux also made such rechargeable torches. As for nicads I'm still using old Ever Ready ones, some sadly will die due to crystal build up, they can suffer what is known as memory loss, sometimes the crystals can be melted by using a car battery charging the battery for ten seconds, I have revived many a nicad doing this. You can still get nicads on eBay but I find plenty at car boot sales, I also use the original Ever Ready chargers to. The voltage of a typical D cell instead of being 1.5v with nicads it's 1.2v so there not that good in things with a high currant drain, they won't last as long, Rayovac did an Alkaline rechargeable but not tried these yet, Alkaline batteries use potassium hydroxide as the electrolyte, zinc carbons are amonium chloride, the first types were wet cells known as Leclanche, a glass jar full of amonium chloride, sal Amoniac. A pourus pot filled with manganese dioxide as a depolerizer, carbon rod positive center, negative pole was a zinc rod. Zinc carbon batteries today work on the same principle except the electrolyte is a jelly.
+bigclivedotcom I had some similar-ish torches of late 1970s vintage with the difference that instead of having the C7 mains connector, you pulled off a rear cap from the body revealing an European-style two pin plug for putting the torch straight into a socket. They had a single large button NiCd inside as I recall, and I think they were AEG branded.
I had one of these!
04:30 love that sound effect
"Woing"
I had a Duracell aa flip type light about same time , thanks again for the age reminder. ! old jeez thanks
Kind of cool.
I would try a resistor or diode in parallel with the switch.
~3v over the batteries while charging. With a diode the white LED would run at something like 2.4 volt while charging.
Hi Clive, the measured mains voltage could technically be just in spec :)
230V +6%/-10% results in 207 - 243,8 Volt
Because your meter did display 244 Volt this could be at or below 243,8 Volt
:)
wow... I remember that my parents had a very similar lamp. it could plug directly into the socket, no lead necessary.
I love this torch! I'd rather have this than led keyring torches
Same
Ahhh.. RME, Concord Electronics (later Marshals Electronics), Jimmy Glasford's (Williams Models)... and Browns of Edinburgh... all sadly long gone. I probably still have some items from RME in the dustier recesses of the junk bins of my component boxes. RME's stock could only ever be described as somewhat random. I have no idea how they managed to stay in business as long as they did.
Looking forward to your announcement in the next video!
Hey Clive, I have a 2005 BMW car that has a similar flashlight to that one, but it plugs into the 12v system in the glove compartment. Thought I'd mention this for interesting/boring purposes.
Imagine if they still made these.
I had this exact TORCH.
My grandpa had something something very similar except its a lot newer, it had folding prongs hanging off the back though instead of a figure of 8
good old days
It might interest you to know that many if not all bmw cars came with a similar little torch with a built in charger dock since at least the early 90's
We called it the Toy Shop :-)
they had a light like this in all the old BMWs
Very cool. So what's the purpose of the ordinary diode when you already have the LED there? Do LEDs allow too much reverse current at that voltage?
LEDs will not tolerate a reverse voltage. Even though cheap products often don't rectify AC before applying it to an LED, more than a few volts is not a good idea.
I've learned something new - thanks!
Yes, LEDs are typically rated to a reverse voltage of only 5. It isn't a good idea to use an LED as a rectifier (especially the Gallium Nitride type), but I have an older set of Christmas lights that uses all of the LEDs in series and it rectifies that way.
same batteries were used in old central heating timers for memory backups but these had 3 cells in series made by Maxwell
If you wish to visit a store like RME, there's one like this in Tokyo: Tokyo Rajio.
I had similar, but instead of socket for a cable it was already fitted with... how do you call it - plug? It was plugged directly to the wall (220V at that time!) and operated in same manner. Innovative (imho) for 1980's ...
Nice,aight.