$1 Police LED Flashlight - Test and Teardown

Test and teardown of a super cheap $1 "Police" LED flashlight. It runs on one AA 1.5V battery. It says 3W and 2000lm, but this would imply 667 lm/w efficiency (!!!). The world's best LED has only about 160 lm/w. The actual power drawn from the battery is about 0.375W (250mA). It contains just a single standard 5mm LED that's usually rated for 20-30mA, but it is driven at about 100mA (!!!). It uses a boost (step up) inverter with an inductor and a 3-pin chip to drive the LED. Running an LED at 4x its designed current, this flashlight is just a piece of rubbish. It's not really worth the $1. The 2$ one is far better.

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