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Old 3rd Jan 2019, 10:59 am   #1
IanNVJ35
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Default Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I still can't believe that the once 'go to' name for batteries and torches is no longer existent in the UK. The blue sign above shops proudly stating 'Ever Ready' was always exciting to me as a boy in the 1980's - pick up a new No.8 battery for my holidays or maybe a bulb or two. Pocket money fun.

Despite the sad demise of Ever Ready, I still use their items on a daily basis. I was wondering if anyone else did.

In regular use is:

1920's hanging glass lamp - like a small paraffin lamp - use it every morning when getting dressed on dark mornings. Much easier on the eye than a mains lamp.

1929 Portable Searchlight - 3 D cell with deep and highly polished reflector. Use it going to my unlit garage and taking the bins out. Always ready to go.

1937 'Night Watchman' - 5 D cell powerful torch, uses a 6 V bulb. Take it on walks and it just runs and runs and is bright. Ever Ready quality at its best.

1980 No.8 Solar. Plastic torch takes a No.8 battery. A 21700 rechargeable battery is a direct replacement (gives 5+ hours) and I use a 3D Cell Maglite bulb. Perfect for the pocket as its light and gives an excellent beam.

My Dad uses a 1920 Ever Ready Oak Hand lamp - perfect for the bedside as it can lay on its back and light the ceiling. I adapted it to use AA batteries.

My Mum uses a 1975 Ever Ready Glow Light - again, perfect for the bedside.

I have more Ever Ready lights, but these are the ones I use every day. It would be good to hear that others were still enjoying these excellent lights from the past too.
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Old 3rd Jan 2019, 11:51 am   #2
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Their Silver PP9's in the odd radio.
 
Old 3rd Jan 2019, 12:11 pm   #3
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Batteries still available Downunder, so using them in various items.
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Old 3rd Jan 2019, 12:16 pm   #4
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I collect and use ever ready torches all the time. I particularly like the solar 5000 and I am trying to get all the the different colour combinations that everyready made. I also have the everyday metal front bike light and the plastic torpedo shaped one D cell rear light. I'm not keen on led torches I prefer the softer light from a bulb.
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Old 3rd Jan 2019, 12:41 pm   #5
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Thanks for the thoughts.

I dug out my Grandma's Ever Ready 'Space Spotter', but the front plastic has yellowed badly as she smoked. I hope that I can get it up and running properly. I liked how Ever Ready names went with the times - 'Searchlight' post WW1, 'Space Ray' and 'Space Beacon' in 1960 and the 'Solar' range in the 1980's.
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Old 3rd Jan 2019, 7:01 pm   #6
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I use a "powerbeam" lantern regularly, takes a pair of 6 volt batteries.
I have several of these.
AD28 batteries still used.
Also a couple of bedside lights, 2D cell.
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Old 3rd Jan 2019, 7:08 pm   #7
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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Originally Posted by Terry_VK5TM View Post
Batteries still available Downunder, so using them in various items.
Don't confuse Ever Ready and Eveready though
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Old 3rd Jan 2019, 7:26 pm   #8
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Indeed: I've got a few "Eveready" branded AAA cells here - can't remember where they came rom, must have been in some bit of work-related gear I imported from the 'states in the last half-decade.

Their cat-jumping-through-the-digit-9 [implying 'nine lives'] logo is kinda iconic.

One of my aunts worked - briefly - at the Ever Ready factory in Dawley [now part of Telford] in the early-1960s. Ever-Ready UK failed to acknowledge the coming of better battery technology and instead bet the farm on Zinc Chloride cells - a sort of halfway performance-niche between classic Leclanche Zinc-Carbon batteries and Alkaline-Manganese - which I remember them selling as "Silver Seal". The advantage of this to Ever Ready's investors was that Zinc Chloride cells could be produced with only minimal investment on changes to the existing Zinc-Carbobn production-lines.

See here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...d-1494225.html
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 12:46 am   #9
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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Don't confuse Ever Ready and Eveready though
Of course, American company(?), batteries made who knows where.
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 1:01 am   #10
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Here's an old Ever Ready PP7 battery which I have gutted out. I am hoping to refit it with six NiMH AAs and a fuse so that it can be used in one of my older radios.
It would be nice if I could charge it from the top without having to open it up every time, but not sure how I would going about making a suitable charger.
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 1:47 pm   #11
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I remember the "Ever ready" man coming to the shop where I worked , complete with a fully sign written van , very colourful stuffed with all sorts of exotic batteries which he would sell to the Manager of the shop . Its one of my earliest working memories especially as it was my job to lug the new stock up 2 long flights of stairs to the stock room!
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 2:32 pm   #12
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jolly 7 View Post
Here's an old Ever Ready PP7 battery which I have gutted out. I am hoping to refit it with six NiMH AAs and a fuse so that it can be used in one of my older radios.
It would be nice if I could charge it from the top without having to open it up every time, but not sure how I would going about making a suitable charger.
If you know the mAh of the cells you fit, you can trickle charge them using a bench PSU as a charger. You set a low current and time it with about 40% over charge to counter losses. I do the same and it works well. Takes about 16 hours.
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 5:40 pm   #13
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

No batteries, I'm afraid, but here are a couple of items still in fairly regular use. Both bought in the late 1980s from the local electricity board showroom (Norweb)

The plug is on a lamp that's in daily use, and the two-way adapter gets used once a year at Christmas.

Unusual, I think, for a two-way adapter to be fused.
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 7:04 pm   #14
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I have an Ever Ready torch & shaver adaptor.
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 7:37 pm   #15
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Quote:
Originally Posted by IanNVJ35 View Post
I still can't believe that the once 'go to' name for batteries and torches is no longer existent in the UK.

Really? What's happened to them?


The font of all knowledge (well, all my knowledge - Wikipedia....) doesn't shed much light (sorry!) on the subject, can anyone expand?
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 8:01 pm   #16
Jolly 7
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

If my memory serves me correctly, Ever Ready used to make an unusual 3 volt battery in the seventies to fit their torches that would only take that cell. Does anyone recall this type of battery ?
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 8:05 pm   #17
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I use an Ever Ready Model K radio on a fairly frequent basis, a couple of times a week.

And I also use an Ever Ready Sky Monarch on a less frequent basis, a couple of times a month. The Model K is portable, the Sky Monarch isn't.

Torches and lanterns, though, no, I'm afraid not.
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 8:12 pm   #18
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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Originally Posted by Jolly 7 View Post
If my memory serves me correctly, Ever Ready used to make an unusual 3 volt battery in the seventies to fit their torches that would only take that cell. Does anyone recall this type of battery ?
There was the No. 8 battery, with two small, dumpy, cells in-line, slipped into a close-fitting cardboard tube. And there was the No. 800 battery with two much larger cells side-by-side, for cycle lamps.
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 8:17 pm   #19
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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Originally Posted by Jolly 7 View Post
If my memory serves me correctly, Ever Ready used to make an unusual 3 volt battery in the seventies to fit their torches that would only take that cell. Does anyone recall this type of battery ?
There were two oddities I remember:

One was specifically for cycle-lamps: two large fat cells in a cardboard jacket, with one springy brass contact soldered to one of the centre-rods and the other soldered to the outer zinc about half way down the side. "800" comes to mind as the type.

The other was three smaller 1.5V cells side-by-side in a cardboard jacket with rounded sides, with a pair of springy brass contacts on one end. They were used in some sort of small flashlights. Was "1289" the number?

Don't think they were Ever Ready specific though.
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 8:27 pm   #20
Jolly 7
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

@kalee20. I guess it must have been the No 8 battery I was thinking of. Your suggestion helped me bring up this link with a photo
https://www.***********/photos/via20t...ry/11345932746

@G6tanuki. Thanks for the additional info on batteries I didn't know about.
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