Uploaded February 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I bought this cheap flashlight at the gas station next to me for $6.99 and it's one of the ones you plug in the wall and thinking of bigclivedotcom I took it apart and it had a very cheap circuit inside. I was not impressed at all and declared it unsafe so I hacked on a USB lead for safe charging. It does charge but not on some power banks like the ones that come on when something is plugged in. The ones where you press a button to activate seem to work. I removed all the mains circuitry and tied on the USB to two points on the board. There is a diode in line so power can't go back into the source. It was already on the board.
I bought this cheap flashlight at the gas station next to me for $6.99 and it's one of the ones you plug in the wall and thinking of bigclivedotcom I took it apart and it had a very cheap circuit inside. I was not impressed at all and declared it unsafe so I hacked on a USB lead for safe charging. It does charge but not on some power banks like the ones that come on when something is plugged in. The ones where you press a button to activate seem to work. I removed all the mains circuitry and tied on the USB to two points on the board. There is a diode in line so power can't go back into the source. It was already on the board.
