Member Comments

I have the unbranded Dynamo and solar torch / radio shown in your article. It has sat on a sunny window sill for two years and still goes OK. I find the radio audio very poor, but we live in small town NZ. The torch uses an incandescent bulb which is rather dull and uses the small power supply rather quick. I consider it more of a toy than a serious bit of emergency equipment.

We have a torch which appears to be the same as the one from Mitre 10 but with a different brand and bought (more cheaply)from Bunnings. Initially it would not hold a charge for very long but has improved considerably with use. It seems that the battery has to be "formed" of "reformed" before it reaches its full capacity.

I got a Benex from Dick Smiths over 3 years ago. It quickly charges in around 1 to 2 minutes of winding and is quite bright. It also keeps a charge for a reasonable time between uses. Very happy with it.

We have had one of these from NZ Nature for about 3 years now. We use it as our kitchen radio and probably have it on for about 2 hours at least a day for news programmes mostly where the quality of sound does not need to be as high as for music. We have never had it run down on us. In between uses we simply put it on the windowsill. We're looking at getting a second one now especially given your review of the other 2 more expensive options.

I suspect the slow mains-AC charge on the Digitech is due to a slow 50 or 100mA DC charge to keep the recharge circuitry simple but also keep things safe if a user leaves it charging too long. It's not unusual to wait 12-16 hours to charge something like this at such low currents.

Higher currents would charge much faster of course, but then you enter the realm of "do not charge while unattended" and "do not overcharge" or else incur the cost of more expensive recharging circuitry.