Niteize ZipLit stayed lit 1+ year nonstop, but is now discontinued - Lemmy.World

Several years back I reviewed this tiny zipper pull light: https://lemmy.world/post/2163520 [https://lemmy.world/post/2163520] I stuck one of them into a mesh pouch where I carry stuff like toothpaste, and more than a year ago (IDK exactly when) it turned on by accident. It has stayed lit ever since, though by now the glow level is completely useless for illumination and barely viable as a locator. As someone in Bored Of The Rings said of the parody version of Gandalf’s staff lighting up in Khazad-dûm, it’s about half as bright as a dead firefly. I finally just got around to replacing the battery with one of a pack that I got on ebay (link in the original post). I also notice that the light itself is discontinued now, oh well. It does seem to me that it turns on by accident too easily. I might stick down the on-off flange with a bit of tape to prevent this. The original vendor blurb just said 24 hours of light so I might use up a battery to test that, or maybe for a week. It might be ok as a short term alternative to a tritium marker for that much time. I would say in its current state it’s way dimmer than a tritium marker whose tritium isn’t nearly depleted. It also seems to me that at under 3 grams, this is maybe the most extreme ultralight headlamp out there, if you stick it to your forehead with a piece of tape. It DOES put out enough light to be useful in that setup, for limited notions of “useful”. You can navigate a dark room without bumping into stuff, you can see near-distances enough to change the battery in your main light without having to fumble around by feel, and so on. Since the light is just a direct drive SMT led and a CR927 cell, it could be that something similar with a CR1616 and a resistor (or go big and use a CR2032) could be used as an H3 substitute that would last for months.