Etón Scorpion Multipurpose Emergency Radio (Black/Orange)

Comments about ETON Etón Scorpion Multipurpose Emergency Radio (Black/Orange):

The radio works great but over charging the battery for two long (once its full) can damage the battery.

Comments about ETON Etón Scorpion Multipurpose Emergency Radio (Black/Orange):

good emergency radio for backpacking and listening to at night in tent. a little hard to set but once done a little winding will keep the time going or just leave in window sill should be enough to keep clock going year round.

Comments about ETON Etón Scorpion Multipurpose Emergency Radio (Black/Orange):

Ordered online; [...] Was cranked; had nice sound for all of 5 minutes and 27 seconds. Twenty-four total hours in the sun and more cranking did not revive this "alleged" radio. Returned it by mail.

Comments about ETON Etón Scorpion Multipurpose Emergency Radio (Black/Orange):

So here's the deal with your new scorpion. It has AM, FM and 7 NOAA band which all catches pretty good reception. LED light which is pretty good…it's not no 180 lumen surefire flashlight but it's pretty good for seeing your way around a blackout. Cell phone charger works (USB port) but you'll have to crank the dynamo for about 10minutes to get about 2 minutes of talk time…just enough to make an emergency call. AC adapter sold separately as an alternate means of charging the internal battery (I never tried it yet). An AUX port to plug in your MP3 player and use as speakers, which works pretty good. Nice rugged feature, splash proof IPX-4, compact, carabineer to clip onto your belt of backpack and a bottle opener. Another cool feature is the solar panel which after talking to the guys from ETON it must be charged in direct sunlight for about 8-10 hours and the radio will play for about 3-4 hours. I haven't tried it yet but I will the next time we go beach. Your scorpion is not designed to charge from a window or in the shade…you may see the battery indicator charging but direct sunlight would give you the most effective result. After doing my own testing I found that about 1 minute of cranking (about 2 rotations a second) will produce about 10 minutes of radio with the volume set at level 15; 4 minutes will give you about 50 minutes and 8 minutes of cranking will give you almost 2hours of radio play. Your scorpion has an automatic feature that turns the radio off before completely draining the battery charge which is a cool feature. I don't think you can overcharge the battery so just keep cranking. I hope you enjoy your scorpion from ETON as much as I do. It is a must have for your emergency kit.
My only gripe with the scorpion is that it doesn't charge your phone or iPod using the solar panel, it's not waterproof and you can't turn on the backlight while the device is on.