Rechargeable Non Rechargeable Traffic Wands
Rechargeable Red Traffic Wand Case Set 3
Rechargeable or Non Rechargeable Traffic Wands
We frequently get asked why do you not have more rechargeable traffic wands? On the face of it rechargeable traffic wands seem like a great idea, indeed we used to supply several versions and do have other rechargeable products in our range, however having supplied many thousands of traffic wands, listened to customer feedback and seen how these products are used (and sometimes abused) we decided to withdraw all but the most robust products from our range. Read about our robust rechargeable traffic wand here
Why
The reasons are many and varied but fundamentally we became concerned with the risk that presented itself especially with wands being a hand held product prone to receiving some robust handling that could result in damage.
Drops and crush damage can dislodge, damage and expose the internal workings of a marshalling wands components and with rechargeable wands having more components we felt this was risky particularly as wands are often left unattended whilst plugged into the mains.
There’s always the potential for users to continue using damaged products when really they should be consigned to the recycle bin and that also made us consider the risk of electrical shock, d to our knowledge this has never occurred but we see enough damage being done to wands to make this a possibility when products are used inappropriately.
We also noted the issues with rechargeable lithium batteries on PC’s and phones when they were over heating and bursting into flame. Once again we have never encountered or had reported any issues but we assessed the risk was greater where a traffic baton has suffered damage and with the potential for users to continue using a damaged device we thought it best to remove all but a few of our highly robust traffic wands and hazard lights from our range.
Basically we came to the conclusion that a separate battery charger with a spare set of batteries, that sits safely in an office and is not carried around (i.e. won’t get dropped and damaged) coupled with hand held wands that undoubtedly will get dropped at some point is a sensible and secure means of signalling traffic safely.
Consider Your Choice of Traffic Wands
Here’s a summary of things we considered and why we suggest a separate charger with rechargeable batteries coupled with a standard traffic wand is a practical solution for those that do not want to spend more on our robust rechargeable wands :-
- Wands are hand held and are frequently dropped by users, trying to recharge a damaged unit presents a safety concern – shock, overheating & fire risk
- Unattended units, – leaving wands charging presents risk if units have suffered damage or lithium rechargeable batteries are damaged
- Wands generally do no have the same level of intelligent charging built into them when compared to a specialist battery charger, this can result in over charging and reduced operational life
- Where functionality has been built into the wand, drop damage has the potential to prevent this working
- Battery packs often cannot be exchanged which limits the life potential of the wand, a battery fails and the wand becomes scrap
- Wands will be out of circulation when recharging which could require more wands to be available adding cost
- Charging cables and charging plugs are prone to damage and loss
- End of life disposal – rechargeable batteries are often inaccessible or difficult to get too, they require specialist disposal more often the whole unit will simply find itself in landfill which is not environmentally sustainable and a danger to recycling plants if dropped in the wrong bin
- Wand life expectancy limited by battery life
- Battery quality – standards of rechargeable battery are highly variable, life expectancy, recharge rate and performance will deteriorate with frequent use whilst standard batteries can be swapped and always perform uniformly