Old Fools Journal: Further feeding of my Lamp Fetish

February 4, 2009 Wednesday

I found this energizer flashlight some time after Hurricane Katrina and Rita in 2005 and I thought it would solve one of the problems of being without lights in a dark house. We have plenty of flashlights and other types of lanterns for power outages but what we needed was a light that could be on over night without needing massive amounts of battery cells. This seemed the answer. It has a single led in a reflector like a standard flashlight that will burn for several days but on top it had a very thin 3 inch florescent bulb that would burn for over a week. The only problem was that it was not even a little water resistant and the case This one opened and ejected the batteries just moving it from the desk to the work table.

is so poorly designed that the battery case pops open at the slightest provocation. Things like carrying it in your pocket, or moving it from one hand to the other or even just holding you mouth wrong.

The reflecting silver completely disappeared and the rubber hand grip rotted off within a year while carrying it in a car but that's OK because the batteries were always elsewhere and the battery cover was missing as well. The two others I have in the house faired a little better but at three years they are deteriorating. I am not impressed with Energizers quality control. For $14.00 plus tax I expect a little more
The red and black clipped wires are where the florescent tube was attached. The battery springs had major corrosion. I can make it work by applying voltage to the solder joints.

especially since they probably paid less that 50 cents for it. This one finally developed a bad case of corrosion internally and with no way to clean it up without destroying the case I put it in the “just in case” (junk) box. Thats the bad part. The good part is that I hung one of the others over my desk with some string for 5 days during the power outage associated with Hurricane Gustav and had plenty of bright white light.


This Little 7 inch 6 volt battery powered lamp came from the local Goodwill store for two bucks. It's good quality brass plate with a polished stainless reflector. It seems to be missing its base but that didn't bother me I can fix that. It was set up with a four cell internal AA battery box, switch and a screw in flashlight bulb. Immediately usable but I thought how nice it would be if I took the florescent tube from the Energizer and incorporated it in this housing I would have a desk lamp that would operated for a week on batteries and practically forever if hooked to my bus 12 volt system. So I did and it does.

Taking the Energizer flashlight apart completely destroyed the case as I expected however once it was apart and I could get to its innards to clean up the corrosion and connect power it worked fine. The battery terminals were buried so they could never be cleaned and what's more the connection corroded internally in the solder so that it was effectively an open circuit. I took the florescent tube out and installed it in the new lamp and I now have a nice little lamp perched on the edge of my desk. At night it is very effective in ligthing just a little of the mess when I just can't bear to look at the whole thing. I am going to need a big garbage sack whenever I clean that up.