>>I have a wind-up hand lamp, and when it's empty, the brightness is linearly proportionate to the handle's speed. So I think just lowering the voltage (or whatever) does it. They may be used in digital things, but they seem to be quite analog in their nature.

>Yeah, I guess most lamps (eg those "headlamps") are cheaper to produce as a varied matrix of LEDs rather than including a capacitor? BTW, that wind-up LED lamp is such a cool idea, esp for camping (which goes through batteries in no time).

These are supposed to have a rechargeable battery that you only replenish by cranking, but its capacity seems to be quite low. Still, it's great for fitting things inside a computer - can stick it in pretty much any corner and actually see what you're doing, or to have in the car just in case. We've actually bought it for the case of hurricane, if anything such happens at night, we all know where it is.

>They had them on offer in our local fuel station last year and I didn't get one. Mind you, I bought 3 shell-shaped LED solar powered garden lights and they didn't even last till end of summer, so I guess I was a bit skeptical of such container-load-of-cheap-crap-from-China (such as whose other sole purpose seems to for the of filling up those high street £1 shops)

's why I didn't buy it in Walmart - waited until it fell below $10 in Keymart. Now after a year or so it doesn't hold the juice that long, but you still get several minutes of light for a minute of cranking, and you can do that with a single digit (aka finger).