Flashlights Your Kids (and You) Can't Lose

I have made some flashlights that kids (& adults) cannot lose while camping!

Yeah, I know. Kids are inventive enough to find a way to lose these lights.

One kid came to us and said “I can’t find my light”, I asked “Weren’t they clipped on your pants?”,

and he said “I can’t find my pants either!”. (Facepalm!)

So, it will not prevent every kid from losing it, but this makes it a lot harder, and the title got you to read this Instructable. It gives you a flashlight you never need to put down, you can point it in any direction, and is small enough to carry everywhere. And it costs less than $2/light if you are making more than one or two (otherwise the built-in shipping cost raises it). I am posting this because I wanted to give back to the Instructables community for all the cool stuff I have seen on the site.

The concept is simple. You use a tiny keychain style LED light and attach it to a retractable badge holder that can clip onto a beltloop or waistband. It is small enough that you can carry it everywhere, and you never have have to put it down because it retracts back to your belt. So you can always have a light with you, always know exactly where it is, and always have it within easy reach.

I got the idea when I saw an item at $5 Below, which was a tiny LED flashlight with a retracting string that clipped you your belt. Unfortunately, they were so cheaply made that they broke after kids played with it for 5 minutes. And I realized that I have used my retractable badge reel numerous times a day at work for years and haven’t had a problem so I decided to make my own version with better parts. I originally made them for my son & I for camping trips, and most recently I made 15 for all the kids that were going to Boy Scout camp this year.

It solves two problems:

1) The “I need a light to find my light problem”. Whether it is when someone cannot find their flashlight in the dark in a tent or their backpack, or if a kid wakes up and needs to find his head lamp, he has the little flashlight to find it. Actually, it is usually bright enough to answer natures call in the middle of the night, and let you walk safely to the nearest latrine or tree so you might not even need to find your headlamp. It also solves the problem where they forget to bring their headlamp to a group campfire (because they go while it is still light & return in the dark). They can use the small light to get back to camp.

2) It is harder to lose because you never need to put it down. It remains clipped on to your belt loop or belt, and you can point it in any direction you want to look at because of the retractor string. Instead of putting it down when you need to use your hands, it retracts back to your belt.

It is small enough that you can keep it clipped on all day & all night (unlike a head lamp), and it is small and light enough you can sleep with it attached and you will not feel it when you roll over. Whether I sleep in my hammock, or on the ground, I never even feel the light. They only time you would need to take it off is if you are going swimming (or when you might be swimming – like kayaking, paddle boarding etc.)

I leave a couple attached to my backpack and my daypack, and clip one on my pants right before we go camping or hiking. I also have one I leave on my hammock ridgeline just in case I forget to clip my regular one back on my pants after swimming.

The parts are pretty easy to find. If you are making 10 or more you can easily get it down to less than $2 per light. I bought them off of Amazon and will include some links. I have used different brands and haven’t noticed much difference. Here is what to look for:

For the scouts I bought a variety pack of colors for both the badge holders & the lights. That way I figured that people wouldn’t be grabbing someone else’s light thinking it was theirs. But then you might have kids arguing over who gets what color. You know your kids…choose your option. (5th picture)

1) Get the badge retractors with both the carabiner hook and the belt clip. (First Picture) The cost difference is negligible, and it gives you two options to attach the light to your pants. The carabiner is MUCH more secure, so it is much better option, but some pants don’t have belt loops or anywhere to hook to. You can put some cloth tape (or any tape with slightly rough texture) on the metal belt clip to keep it from sliding up and off your pants as easily.

2) I really like the LED lights that had a shielded bulb (sometimes called stealth lights) because none of the light shines in your eyes, but I am having a hard time finding them. Regular ones work fine though. (See image 3)

3) Make sure you are ordering the white light LED’s, not black light, purple light etc.

4) Some LED lights have a switch where you can turn them on & leave them on, but that might let the kids turn it on and forget (or accidently turn it on) and have the battery run down. If you do get the ones with the switch, you don't have to tell the kids what they are for.

5) When camp is over, and before they head home, tell the kids to clip the lights on their daypacks or backpacks so

a) They can find them the next time they go camping and

b) They don’t go through the wash still clipped onto their pants. I have yet to find tiny waterproof lights. If anyone knows where to find them at a reasonable price let me know!

6) You want to have the light & carabiner as short as possible so it doesn’t bounce around as much, which is why you remove the extra rings.

7) If you get the LED lights with the tiny carabiner hook, save the hooks for attaching stuff inside your backpack (keys, whistle, compass) (4th Picture). Yeah, you could use the light without the badge retractor, but it is much harder to point at what you want.

The actual construction is so simple you can probably just look at the end result and figure it out, but they do call this Instructables, so I will give steps and add some pointers I have found.

You will need 2 pairs of pliers, needle nosed preferred but not required, as well as the actual light and badge retractor.

First step is to remove the 'extra' stuff from the badge retractor. There will usually be a large ring, as well as a plastic strip with a snap to hold a badge. You want to remove both of those. They will be attached to the retracting part by a triangular piece of metal. You want to open up that triangular wire clip by grabbing each side with a pair of pliers and gently pulling them apart, bending the wire so it can be removed from the retractor.

Just pull it far enough apart to remove the wire. The smaller the gap, the easier it will be to reassemble.

Remove the ring and plastic badge holder.

Most of the LED lights have a tiny ring connecting it to a larger ring or carabiner. You want to keep the tiny ring and get rid of the larger one. Take your LED light and remove the larger metal ring from the light. It is usually a keychain style ring, but if it is the mini-carabiner style, just open the small metal ring like you did the triangular clip in the above instructions. You want the badgeholder and light to be as short as possible.

At this point take a look at the small ring on the light. It is just a piece of wire formed into a circle with the ends just near each other. If there is too big of a gap, you might want to take to opportunity to use the pliers and tighten it a bit.

1. Take your badge retractor, the triangular clip you removed from it, and your LED mini light with the big ring removed, (and the little ring still attached).
2. Put the triangle piece through the little ring attached to the light.
3. Put the open edges of the triangular piece against the holes in retractor end. - (the part you pulled the triangular part of of in step 1)
4. Use the pliers to bend the triangular clip back into the retractor end. You can either use both pairs of pliers and do it the way you pulled the triangle apart, or use one pair of pliers to squeeze both ends as seen in image 3.
5. That's it. On to the next one!

These are some of the links I used to buy the lights and badge retractors. I don't know how permanent these links are, but just search for

"LED keychain lights" and

retractable badge reel with carabiner belt clip

and you should find what you need.

There are also something called Key retractors, but they are built to retract a key ring full of keys. Don't get those - they are much heavier duty than you need for this project and more expensive. The weight of the mini LED light is similar to a badge.

LED Keychain Mini Flashlight

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X1NRY44?psc=1&ref=pp... https://www.amazon.com/Uniclife-Keychain-Flashlig...

Multi color LED Keychain lights

LED Light with mini-Carabiner

Retractable Badge Reel with Carabiner Belt Clip

Carabiner & belt clip badge retractor

Multi colored Carabiner & belt clip badge retractor