My new lantern

[Grant Lamontagne]

While at Costco yesterday I found this little gem, hidden away in a giant pile in the bargain section right inside the door.   



It's a Coleman LED lantern, powered either by 4xD cells or 8xD cells, depending on how many D cells you can find and how long you want it to run.  It's a nice light- I only had five D cells lying around so I've only been able to run it off of those, but it isn't dimmer with half the power, it only runs for half the time.  Even so, it will still run for approximately 40 hours on high with only 4 batteries, which is amazing, especially considering how bright the low setting is.  In fact, you can read quite comfortably on low. 



It has low, medium and high settings and lights up a 10x12 room quite well.  Also, the body is made of an odd substance called metal, so it's a little heavy even without batteries, hugely heavy with 4 batteries and has I'm sure a significant weight with all 8 in there, but I have to say, for a light where you measure the amount of hours you can use it in three digits I think that's amazing.  That means if you had fresh batteries and were trapped underground, you could turn this thing on and have light measured in weeks!

Here are the claims made on the box if you don't believe me.



24 hours in a day times seven days in a week is 168 hours, which means with fresh batteries, on low setting (which as I said is a comfortable amount of light for reading) you could run the thing for just over 14 and a half days non stop.  Let's face it, if you aren't rescued or find your own way out in two weeks you might as well start learning the language of the Morlocks and interbreed with their women, because chances are you aren't going to do anything else in life.

Seriously, that is a lot of light.  I'll try to get some decent comparative photos tonight after dark, but so far I am pretty impressed with this thing, and I'm using batteries that have been in my crisper drawer for about five years now, and were store brand cheapos when they were new.   

Oh yeah, and how much did this thing set me back?  $22.99.  I think there would be value to this light at twice that price.

Def

[MadPlumbarian]

Hmmm, very interesting! That would have came in very handy when we had that power outage a few years back, but I think we did good on candles for a week but still that looks interesting, not a bad price either! JR

[microbe]

Nice light. Makes my emergency candles look quite archaic.

[Mr. Whippy]

8 D-cells?  That's in the "use as a weapon" range.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Yes, that is kind of the drawback- where the heck do you find D cells these days?  There's not much point to a power source that is larger than most of the devices you would want to power!

Still, there are a number of cell adaptors you can use so you could feel this thing AAA's if that's what you wanted, although power output and longevity would probably suffer!  Still, it's worth keeping some D cells around for light or to throw at marauders.

Def

[Dr Gonzo]

I recently saw a nice single D cell lantern on County Comm...pity they don't ship to the UK

http://countycomm.com/strobetll.html

[Gareth]

That's a excellent looking lantern Grant.  certainly going to be a heck of a lot brighter than my lantern.

[Gareth]

I recently saw a nice single D cell lantern on County Comm...pity they don't ship to the UK

http://countycomm.com/strobetll.html

Now I WANT one of them.

[Dr Gonzo]

I recently saw a nice single D cell lantern on County Comm...pity they don't ship to the UK

http://countycomm.com/strobetll.html

Now I WANT one of them.

Me too Man...it would make a great emergency light and is very well priced

[Namsob77]

I've found the Rayovac Sportsmen Extreme to be about the best bang for the buck.
300 lumens and only 3 D cells

http://www.disaster.net/shop/details/rayovac_se3dln_sportsman_xtreme_300-lumen_led_lantern

[Cupboard]

Rather more practical to have in your house than the one I have. It runs on petrol.

[jzmtl]

Yes, that is kind of the drawback- where the heck do you find D cells these days? 

Costco? 

I saw it too and thought about getting one, but then I decided there's really no chance I'll ever need it.

[Heinz Doofenshmirtz]

Even though they're printed on the box, I am suspicious of the run-times.  I don't doubt they're accurate, but the measurement metric is what I'm thinking about...  I suspect the driver isn't regulated, and that the lantern will progressively dim as the batteries deplete.  Many manufacturers that claim ultra-long run times have unregulated driver boards for the LED and measure the time until there is no visible light left coming from the LED at all.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Yeah, you are probably right, but even so if it lasts half that long it's still more than I would need it for.  After all, realistically you only need it for a few hours a night in most cases, so there's no reason that a set of batteries shouldn't last through a whole camping trip- or even a whole camping season.

Def

Sent from a digital multitool

[Sparky415]

I recently saw a nice single D cell lantern on County Comm...pity they don't ship to the UK

http://countycomm.com/strobetll.html

Now I WANT one of them.

Me too Man...it would make a great emergency light and is very well priced

+1    Nice

Rather more practical to have in your house than the one I have. It runs on petrol.

But we always have spare petrol