Last week during the release of my new F2 flashlight someone commented that they wished they spoke flashlight.
So lets learn to speak flashlight in this Tech Tuesday series!
Today we'll start with the raw basics of flashlight tech.
A flashlight has a battery (Duh
) that powers it. Any battery you can think of can be used to power a flashlight, with a few rules of course
Typically the positive end of the battery points toward the head of the light. When the switch is pushed it completes the circuit and the light comes on.
In metal flashlights the whole body of the light acts as a conductor (wire) so the switch needs to contact bare metal and there needs to be a path of metal to the electronics which control the LED. (Incandescent bulbs don't need electronics but I don't make lights that use those so I'm not going to talk about them)
Battery rules! You need enough voltage to run an LED. The Samsung LED's (emitter's) I use need about 2.9 volts to turn on. Your regular old Duracell alkaline AA battery only has 1.5V available. So you either need to stack them up to increase the voltage or work some trickery in the electronics to make them work.
That's why Lithium ion cells are so common in high end lights. They output 4ish volts so the electronics are relatively easy.
Next week, Battery's!!
Got anything you want to know about flashlights? Let me know in the comments and I'll add it to my Learn To Speak Flashlight list.