19Feb External power for the TorchLED bolt
The TorchLED bolt is a great little ultra bright light panel, but it burns through batteries fast. Each battery will give you ruffly 45 min of constant use and the Switronix batteries will set you back around $80 a peace. Battery power is nice but if you have an electrical source, why not save your batteries for the times when you need them?
I looked into a Switronix wall wort adapter and it seemed like $35 was a little over priced for something like that. I started digging around the house for a wall wort that would put out enough current to power the TorchLED bolt. The specs on the LED panel list that it requires at least 2 amps at 12 volts DC from the wall wort. After doing a little digging, I found that the adapters used by a couple of the portable hard drives I have around the house would do the trick.
A little more searching and I was able to cross reference it to this $7.99 wall wort. It only has 5 feet of cable so I’ll probably still need an extension cord, but overall it’s a good price if it works. I have one on order right now so I’ll let you know how it turns out. This will probably save me from having to order a few more batteries.
You can check out my full review of the TorchLED bolt here. One of the best performing LED light panels I’ve used.
February 19th, 2013 at 6:07 pm
DeeJay, do you use this light for run and gun? I’ve been upgrading all of my small camera mounted LED lights. The batteries look a lot like Canon XF batteries or Sony camcorder batteries. I wonder if it’s compatible. You can get Wasabi versions of those for under $30.
February 19th, 2013 at 7:43 pm
I believe you can get away with Sony NP-F970 batteries. I do sometimes use this for run and gun, but for the most part I use the battery when I need to light a small space or shoot outside at night. Much of the time I just need a focused light in a small area and power from a wall outlet would be just fine.