Caution on purchasing HF "helping hands"

[Jeff Johnson]

I bought 2 of these to donate to the space:

http://www.harborfreight.com/jumbo-helping-hands-with-led-lights-65779.html

Upon reading the reviews however, the LEDs burn out really fast. Apparently there are 2 white LEDs in parallel driven by 4.5 volts with no limiting resistor. I opened up one of mine and verified this. So if you do purchase this and hope to use the LED for more than 20 minutes, you may want to put a resistor in there. I'm going to put a 75 ohm resistor in mine (20 mA, assuming a 3 volt drop).

[David Rhodus]

Wow, thats a good deal. I think I will order one.
Thanks for sharing the line. It should be a fun task trying to put a
resistor in correctly for some of us! :-)

-DR

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[Jeff Johnson]

They are currently out of them (checked today). But when you go, try using this to get an even better deal:

http://images.harborfreight.com/hftusa/itc/7671/images/141.jpg

[DE 'Tad' Heckaman III]

As a reminder, there is also a Harbor Freight in Clarksville, IN, just a few miles north of the river. Probably closer to LVL1 than the Louisville Harbor Freight. No idea if they have any in stock, but it may be worth a try.

Tad Heckaman

[Jeff Johnson]

Good point.  Another real good deal which they don't have online, is a 4 foot long (maybe 5 ft) outlet strip with 12 outlets on it on sale for 19.99 (normally 24.99).  When you take 20% off with http://www.harborfreightusa.com/html/SingleMagLanders/americanprofile/images/20_c.jpg it gets it down to under $16.  The same kind of power strip costs about $30 at home depot.