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submitted 1 year ago by maniajack@lemmy.world to c/til@lemmy.world

David Misell, an English inventor, invented the first flashlight and patented it in 1899. It used three D batteries in a tube that was used as the handle of the device. The batteries supplied enough power to create light through an incandescent bulb.

The name “flash” light was a knock on the reliability of the model. These units could not be left on for long because of the zinc-carbon batteries that couldn’t hold an electrical current for long periods of time, thus creating only a “flash” of light.

These early flashlights were nothing more than a novelty at the time. The batteries were inefficient, and the bulbs were dull. Improvements of the batteries and bulbs by Eveready and others started to increase the popularity of flashlights by the second decade of the 1900s.

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[-] JungleJim@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago

The thing I was surprised to learn was the D batteries were a thing back then.

[-] Ghoti_@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

You’d be surprised at how much old technology is still used in parts of our electrical devices and electronics

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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
222 points (98.3% liked)

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