What would be in a 9 or so year old crank flashlight like this?

motor, gears, nicad battery (or maybe a supercap), leds, a diode or two, a couple of resistors. it takes 60 seconds to open one.

bulb, battery, dynamo, maybe a pcb if it blinks or has other functionality than on/off. nothing that interesting.

>>1092269
And I wouldn't be able to discern what is what. I'm thinking of ghetto rigging it into something much larger and brighter, something like a miniature mounted spotlight. And I've never made anything, before. Seems like fun.

I have the same one in my garage. It sucks.

>>1092276
Mine doesn't hold charge for even a minute. So, why not ghetto rig it into something else. It could be fun.

>>1092263

I happen to have (had) two of those EXACT lights and, yes, I took it apart.

They're exactly what you'd expect. The crank drives a geartrain that turns a cheap DC motor acting as a dynamo. That's fed into a PCB containing voltage regulation, battery charging, a shit-tier lithium coin cell, and little else.

As with anything mechanical produced cheaply en masse, the geartrain (the only thing possibly worthwhile) and dynamo is too highly integrated into the flashlight body to warrant the hassle of removal/rebuilding. The only easy way to do it is to just leave the thing intact and run wires off the dynamo. Looks like shit and works like shit, but, if you've got nothing else you can use, it works in a pinch.

File: vintage palm hand crank flashlight.jpg (25KB, 450x337px) Image search: [Google]

25KB, 450x337px

>>1092286
>Mine doesn't hold charge for even a minute. So, why not ghetto rig it into something else. It could be fun.

you might be able to replace the batteries. mine had three 1.2V nicads that were about 1/2 long each. this is definitely not a standard size, but i replaced them with normal nicads from a wireless phone by taping the battery outside the shell.

in any case, even if the battery is completely dead, it's still good to have a light that'll always light for emergencies. in fact some of the early models were just a a dynamo connected directly to a lamp. you had to keep squeezing to get light.