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Scott thought he was buying one of those fancy "shake-to-recharge" flashlights, but it was actually a cheap knock off with hidden batteries, he writes - "This is a blog post of my recent purchasing of a dynamo powered flashlight, which I later realized was completely fake and a piece of garbage (as are most things in the 99¢ store)." - Link.
Tales from the 99¢ store
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 12, 2006 08:50 PM
Electronics |
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Is that real copper wire or faked? Copper is selling for about $3.50/lb. Even an ounce is worth about twenty cents. Also the batteries are useful. In fact several parts look useful to a maker, so even though it's a fraud you are probably, in a literal sense, getting your money's worth.
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just one cr2032 is worth a few $$.
also, since most metal recyclers wont accept anything that small (or atleast none of the recyclers in victoria will accept less that 500lbs if you want any money for it.)
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I understand you can't recycle it as is, but copper is intrinsically valuable. So if it is real copper I would say the buyer got a fair deal at worst.
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Speaking of which, why is it you can get cheap chinese toys with batteries that cost less than a dollar but when you need to replace the batteries at your local radio shack the cost for the replacement batteries is $5 or more. Is there a good cheap source of these small watch batteries (in reasonable quantities)? Seems like someone should buy these toys up and resell the batteries on eBay or something.
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For 99c that is a decent deal.
and dont ever buy the real shake lights as they are just useless. Especially in an emergency.
Unless of course you want to strip them for parts :)
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When you buy those batteries in the US, you're being ripped of. CRxxxx cells cost in the 25 cent range when you buy 50 from any of several china based web stores.
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Which $.99 store? I must have more! My GF paid a lot more than $.99 for the 2 we have.
The 2 of these that we have seem to be a third type. They have a fairly large capacitor, and still run off the batteries. Shaking the light on the one with the dead batteries makes it light as long as the magnet (or slug) is moving. (.1sec?)
Obviously these need larger batteries and brighter LEDs! Now I have to find one of my 110,000 MCD LEDS!
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Wow, what a lot of work to fake something...
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