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| PRODUCT NEWS |
05 / 12 / 05 |
Brilliant without batteries |  | | |
Long nights, short days, everything dull and gloomy, doesn't it drive you crazy? Well no, because you know it's going to end. And you can't appreciate spring and summer properly unless you have something to contrast it with. But gismos and gadgets don't know that, do they? Which is why it's even more frustrating when something decides to go pear-shaped, usually after dark at 4.30. And when it does, that's invariably when the batteries on your normally trusty torch decide they've had enough.
Unacceptable right? Well how about this idea that the battery companies have been sitting on for ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS - the Faraday torch that needs no batteries at all.
Smart lad, Michael Faraday. Not only did he succeed Sir Humphrey Davy (the genius who invented the revolutionary Davy safety lamp for miners) as professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution in 1833 - he came up with this way-out theory that light, heat, electricity and magnetism are all inter-related.
The proof was in his induction loop, which amazingly seemed to generate electricity out of nothing. Look ma, no hands - and no batteries either. Actually, the idea was dead simple, or should that be dead clever? It works by moving a magnet within the loops of a copper coil. The field of the magnet interferes with the coil and generates electricity. In fact the generator in your car works exactly the same way - so when you're driving, you're not using the battery at all.
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The small Faraday torch. About seven inches long, from around £10.
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So why has it taken so long to put this idea into a torch? Who knows? And the battery manufacturers aren't saying anything. But hey, it's really brilliant when you're out checking moorings on a slippery, frosty night and your batteries have decided to quit. Well, gone for a loop, really.
You see, you can now get Faraday torches pretty well anywhere. And hooked up with modern low voltage, high intensity LED technology, they're absolutely brilliant. And they never need batteries. How do they work? All you do is pick up the torch and give it a good shake. That causes the magnet inside to rock back and forth through the induction coil, which charges up a capacitor. And the capacitor lights up the high intensity LED array with enough power to be visible up to a mile away.
All that light at one throw! That ought to shake up the battery companies a bit. Well yes, except they're too busy coming up with equally amazing ideas - like pulling big power out of little sources, and ways to chuck our dependence on fossil fuels back into history. So don't knock them, they're working on it.
But in the meantime get yourself one of these really brilliant Faraday torches. There are small ones from around ten pounds, to the big jobs at around thirty. And just so you can see the technology working, they're transparent. You can watch the magnet pumping back and forth as you shake.
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The big Faraday torch. Around eleven inches long and sells for thirty quid.
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As you can imagine of course, it does take a bit of elbow-grease to get them going properly. For first use, you need to shake it up for around three minutes - not hard, but as energetically as you might shift dumbbells in the gym. After that you'll need around 45 seconds of shaking to get yourself five minutes or so. But hey, its cold - and you need the exercise to get the circulation going again. This means just possibly the marketing boys are missing a trick. They could sell these things as 'exercise torches' - with a promo video and two-colour fashion leotard... Let's not go there.
What else? Oh, you dropped it in the water? They've thought of that too, because it's waterproof. And shockproof too, so it's pretty well indestructible. And while it might not give you the duration you need for any of the longer activities you want a light for, it's one heck of a good idea for emergency back-up, with several of them stowed away in strategic places. Because yes, for sure you do that already - and how many times has that come back at you because the batteries have gone out of date?
Do yourself a favour. Get one. Put it on your Christmas present list. Or get two. Give one to the mother-in-law. You've got something to be jolly about.
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