Five dollar challenge

[David]

Found it, third post down.

http://sepboard.us/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=46&p=705#p705

[David]

FrogLeggs 160-Lumen LED Miniature Flashlight available at Lowes.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/FrogLeggs-160- ... 1000572417

[Bob]

oooh - cool. Gotta remember that at Lowes next trip

[David]

oooh - cool. Gotta remember that at Lowes next trip

Usually in the impulse section at the register.

[xxo]

The Derma safe razor knife is another good sub $5 item:



They make a saw version, but I made my own by attaching a couple of jig saw blades to the handles:





I keep it in my altoids kit:

[David]

[David]

I've had and used the Sipik/SK68 for years. For the price it's an excellent flashlight and they've seen a lot of use at our house. About 80ish lumens with an AA battery and up to 300 on a 14500 battery.

And if you lose it, reach into the drawer and grab another because they are inexpensive enough to stock up on. Although like with many things the price has gone up. At one time you could get them for as low as 99 cents for a Sipik clone (SK68).

[bdcochran]

1. Thanks to all for mentioning the Sipik sk68. It takes a single AA battery or a 14500 rechargeable.

I am down to my last few, having gifted away about 20 to relatives and friends in one mode. Today I researched.
a. much harder to find one mode. If you hand a multimode flashlight to a person who is NOT used to a multimode for the first time after shtf, you may have a problem, so I stick to single mode.

b. Sipik has been undercut in price so much that the viable alternative is Ultrafire sk68. Finding the units in bulk would be a problem. So, having given away to my core people, I am not going to be buying any more.

2. My primary and old single 18650 battery light is the Sipik sk98. This is also the battery used in computers/Black and Decker dust bags/now in solar lights with REPLACEABLE 18650 batteries. This year I am giving to relatives low end chargers and no name single battery lights that I have experimented with over the last 5 years. There are great chargers that handle multiple batteries and automatically turnoff. Those chargers are not the ones I am giving away!

3. An observation on marketing and rechargeable batteries based upon my limited experience during the shutdown. I am not going to mention the brand names or size of batteries, but they were and are quality batteries in the literature.
a. I had the time to charge completely new batteries from the wrap as well as batteries that had been charged once and also batteries from game cameras.
b. I had a few batteries fail straight from the wrap. Not from the same lot. Just three.
c. None of the batteries from the game cameras were failing or failed to recharge.
d. despite the marketing that new batteries left in the wrap continued to hold a solid charge for years, I was not satisfied with the indicated charges or capacity on some of the new batteries.
e. I charged a great number of new batteries. I am sure that they will last. However, I now better understand why 1500 or so recharging cycles are marketed. The capacity goes down a bit quickly(in my estimation) when the batteries are not used. Sometimes, a year later, I felt the need to recharge a battery that had been charged and not used.

[Mac66]

Don't know if these are original SK68s or knockoffs /different brands. 5 for $14.99 on Amazon, a little over $3/each

[David]

Don't know if these are original SK68s or knockoffs /different brands. 5 for $14.99 on Amazon, a little over $3/each

That's about the best price I'm seeing right now. Ebay used to have them as low as 99 cents. Not anymore. I can't believe these lights have suddenly been 'discovered' with increased demand. They've been around for a decade. I'm guessing shipping costs are driving the prices up, particularly from China which is where all these are made anyway.

Although outside the scope of this thread's challenge, for the price of some of these Sipik and SK clone lights I'd rather have a Convoy S2+.