[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Trevor Baylis the inventor of the Baygen Freeplay Radios and Flashlights.

Met Trevor at the London International Inventions Fair 1997, giving him a big hug and congratulating him on his invention and beating down the sceptics into their rightful place at the bottom of the abyss. Nice One Trevor!

Trevor Invented the Clockwork Radio after hearing about the Aids and other health related problems in the developing world, particularly Africa.

The It’l never work brigade put Trevor down, refused to assist him or sponsor him. The U.K. turned its back on him, as it always does! But did that stop Trev? Not on your nelly. Trev took his ideas and prototype to Nelson Mandela, who in turn could see that this product, “Batteries not included” had great potential for alerting the African Peoples to the plight of practising, unprotected sex with multiple partners, “thought to be the main route for infectious diseases like Aids, and in doing so has helped to alert many people to the deadly risks involved, and saving countless lives along the way.

Not to mention helping many people bring their inventions and products from the shed to the market place.

I take my hat off to you Trev  You are an inspiration to us all and may you carry on banishing the doubters to the abyss for many years to come.

Andrew K Fletcher

[neilep]

Too true...Trevor is great....we luff him.

Now you can buy wind up torches too and.....errhhmm !!

Still...his invention was and is awesome.


Who can think of new things to be wound up !!

Me likes to wind up wifey all the time !!

[Pumblechook]

But how many have been in use over the years?  Wasn't it too expaensive for poor folk?

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Not at all. Origanlly when it came out it was expensive until it went into mass production. A battery operated radio would burn enough batteries in its life to buy many CR's

My son has had two of them. But the sad thing is, as is always the case with patents. People are ripping him off and manufacturing inferior snides.

[Pumblechook]

Only figure I have seen is 100,000 in 20 countries which does not sound too impressive but I am not sure whether it is refering to one particular model. 

The Baygen is clockwork.  The one I have charges a battery.   The clockwork will be more complicated and more delicate mechanically but re-chargeable batteries have a limited number of charging cycles and poor shelf life.    Maybe supercapacitors could be used? 

[syhprum]

One of my schoolmates before the war had a hand cranked flashlight the idea is not all that new, I have recently bought a Chinese made one and find it a boon peering in the innards of my computer.