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We get asked frequently why do you not have rechargeable traffic wands? On the face of it rechargeable traffic wands seem like a great idea, indeed we used to supply them several years ago and 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 rechargeable wands from our range.
The reasons are many and varied but fundamentally we became concerned with the risk that presented itself with wands being a hand held product and as such are prone to user mishaps particularly accidental drops.
Drops can obviously damage an item, if not visibly they can dislodge internal components and with rechargeable wands having more of these we felt it risky particularly as wands are often left unattended plugged into the mains.
There's always the potential for users tio 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, it never happened to our knowledge but we see enough damage being done to wands to make this a possibility when used inappropriately.
We also noted the issues seen with rechargeable batteries on PC's and phones when they were over heating and bursting into flame, we never had this issue with our battery suppliers but with the potential for users to drop or damage a unit and the battery we didn't want to worry about this either.
Basically we came to the experienced conclusion that a separate battery charger with a spare set of batteries, that sits safely in an office and not carried around (i.e. won't get dropped and damaged) coupled with hand held wands that are going to get some robust use, will in the long term provide a more economical, safer solution to marshalling people and vehicles.
Here's a summary of things we considered before moving away from a rechargeable wand and why we suggest a separate charger with rechargeable batteries coupled with a standard traffic wand is best:-
- 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 batteries fail
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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 charging which requires more wands
- Charging cables and charging plugs are prone to damage and loss
- End of life disposal – rechargeable batteries often inaccessible and require specialist disposal more often the whole unit will simply find itself in landfill which is not environmentally sustainable
- 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