By Andrew Liszewski

You might think it’s impossible to recharge the batteries on a cordless screwdriver in just 90 seconds and you’d be right. But the FlashCell from Coleman manages to pull this off since it doesn’t actually use batteries, but instead relies on a large capacitor.

So while the FlashCell charges incredibly fast it also discharges just as quickly. An equivalent-sized battery powered screwdriver might be able to handle 37 screws but you can expect the FlashCell to give up after about 22. (As taken from Popular Mechanic’s review of the FlashCell.) However the advantage is that once you stick it back in the charger you only have to wait a minute and a half before you can get back to work again. Team Products International, the company who actually makes the screwdriver claims it has a life cycle of about 500,000 full charges with no memory effects and will retain about 85% of its charge after sitting unused for 3 months. They admit that the technology wouldn’t work as well when applied to something like cordless drills but for the occasional assembly project around the house this seems like a pretty great idea.

The Coleman FlashCell is available on its website for $99.99 and you can read Popular Mechanic’s review of the screwdriver here.

[ Coleman FlashCell ] VIA [ Popular Mechanics ]

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