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HomeCooking & Food PrepCast Iron CookwareSolaDyne Radio and Flashlight |
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|  | | | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review: ( 2 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Nice design idea, but the build quality leaves something to be desired Oct 07, 2009
By Alfredo E. Torrejon
The main aspects of this product's design that I found impressive were:
1) The plastic lens in the flashlight focuses the beams of the three LEDs so that they converge into a single bright spot, no matter whether the objects to be illuminated are one foot away or across the room.
2) The built-in NiMH battery is user-replaceable (although locating a replacement may be somewhat of a challenge, as it is a miniature battery pack similar to what would be found in a cordless phone).
3) Standard, commonly used connectors are used throughout: the 4.5 volt "cell phone charger" output comes out of a 3/32 jack (tip positive) that the supplied phone charger cord plugs into; the 5-6V DC charger input comes in through a mini-USB connector. An adapter is supplied that converts the mini-USB input to a miniature coaxial power connector (center positive), allowing the flashlight to be charged from a "wall wart" or cigarette lighter adapter, provided that its output is 6V.
The radio is intended to receive local stations. Do not expect to do any extreme DXing with it or to pull in distant stations that are next door on the dial to nearby stations (the selectivity is mediocre on both bands, and on FM, the tuner's AFC will jump onto the stronger signal). If you want to enjoy music in stereo, get a Walkman (the radio is mono, although the headphone jack has been wired so that it can be used with stereo headphones or earbuds). These characteristics make the radio best suited to an emergency preparedness kit, for the purposes of hearing weather bulletins or other information. If you take this product camping in remote areas, you may find that the only stations you can hear reliably are 50,000 watt clear-channel AM stations after sunset (at least if you are in North America).
Things started to go awry with the radio about two months after I bought this product. The audio from the built-in speaker would ocassionally cut out. I opened the radio and discovered that the problem was due to a poorly soldered connection to the headphone jack. This was fixed by reflowing the solder with a pencil iron. I was also able to greatly improve the sensitivity at the high end of the AM dial by tweaking a trimmer capacitor. I was pleasantly surprised by the serviceability of this design (I thought that serviceable products were a thing of the past), but this does not make up for the fact that the quality of the soldering and of the tuner alignment were lousy.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
cool gadget May 27, 2009
By Deborah L. Shane
"peaprincess"
I got this for Mother's Day and it is pretty nifty. It won't replace a car stereo but it gets pretty good reception and kids love it. I don't know that it's worth the price, but it's great for the beach, and never needs batteries. The flashlight part of it is pretty bright.
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