Opinions on UST 30 & 60 day lanterns for power outage use, please.

[mickeyfinn]

60W incandescent is about ~ 800 lm

So, if my math is correct, StarHalo is saying 100 lumens from a lantern, the equivalent of a 7.5 watt bulb, is adequate to light up a 10x15 ft. room?

And any more than that is a night-vision stealing, waste of energy?

I'm reading by a 100 watt light bulb and just walked outside into the nighttime darkness.

My vision adjusted immediately.

I guess I have to get my eyes checked. I have a 25 watt incandescent light bulb in a tiny 4x6 storage cabinet and it's a real strain to find things in there.

 

[mickeyfinn]

Although it depends on the specific task, of course, but 100 lm for that size room seems massive, to me ....

I had visions of a lantern hung from the ceiling in the middle of that 10x15 ft. room.

The task is the thing, of course.

For example, I don't think the light would be enough to deal with making sure you had the right polarity on a multi-battery device or trying to screw or unscrew small screws on something.

 

[archimedes]

Lux, not lumens, are what you want (depending on task) ....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux

 

[mickeyfinn]

Lux, not lumens, are what you want (depending on task) ....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux

Not that I understood it, but until I read that, I thought Lux was for washing dishes.

 

[archimedes]

....
My vision adjusted immediately....

Adaptation includes different effects of changes in pupils, cones, and rods, each of which have different timing, and which also vary with age

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptation_(eye)

 

[raggie33]

i have both the 60 days and 30 day i love them noth but i would like a dimmer mode then low

 

[StarHalo]

100 lumens from a lantern, the equivalent of a 7.5 watt bulb, is adequate to light up a 10x15 ft. room?

And any more than that is a night-vision stealing, waste of energy?

I'm reading by a 100 watt light bulb and just walked outside into the nighttime darkness.

My vision adjusted immediately.

I guess I have to get my eyes checked. I have a 25 watt incandescent light bulb in a tiny 4x6 storage cabinet and it's a real strain to find things in there.

Correct, because your vision doesn't adjust immediately; any evening of stargazing will show you plainly that you need at ~10 minutes of staring at the dark sky before your eyes adjust enough to see lesser stars and satellites, then when you come back inside it will seem overly bright for a couple minutes until you readjust again. In a power outage at night, when there simply isn't any abundant light source anywhere, a single 100 lumen light source fills a room nicely and leaves your eyes in that dark adjusted state. Sitting and doing a task just by yourself needs only ~25 lumens, relaxing with some ambient lighting near a book needs ~2 lumens, lighting only the book itself takes only ~0.01 lumens.

Mankind lived by flame light up until a century ago, you are specifically evolved for modest lighting at night. I went through a 5 day outage in the dead of winter in the midwest, and I'm also the guy who does Earth Hour every year (and tries to get everyone here to join in,) I've done this a few times

 

[mickeyfinn]

Mankind lived by flame light up until a century ago ... .

Were Thomas Edison alive, he would disagree with you.

Often wrong, but never uncertain.

 

[StarHalo]

Were Thomas Edison alive, he would disagree with you.

It wasn't until after 1920 that more than half of US households had electricity; that's a salient point since it was electrification that allowed people to light their homes as if it were daylight at all times - it's not something you think about if you just plug a lamp into a wall. But when your power source is a small box of batteries and you don't know when any other power source will be available, it's best to buck modernity and go back to using the night vision you were born with.

 

[mickeyfinn]

It wasn't until after 1920 that more than half of US households had electricity; ... .

StarHalo,

The above is true enough, but New York, Chicago, other large cities and some smaller cities too, had electricity in homes in the 1880s and 1890s, well before 1920.

Earlier in this thread you said;

Mankind lived by flame light up until a century ago ... .

This is simply not so and I post this only in the pursuit of accuracy.

 

[archimedes]

Re: Opinions on UST 30 & 60 day lanterns for power outage use, please.

No more Rule 4 off-topic chatter please

Others, please don't take the bait

Mickey, please consider if you'd care to edit your post

This is close to soon becoming another of your threads closed

 

[raggie33]

Re: Opinions on UST 30 & 60 day lanterns for power outage use, please.

the stream light seige is very nice to..and the rayovac 530 lumen

 

[mickeyfinn]

Re: Opinions on UST 30 & 60 day lanterns for power outage use, please.

No more Rule 4 off-topic chatter please

Others, please don't take the bait

Mickey, please consider if you'd care to edit your post

This is close to soon becoming another of your threads closed

archimedes,

The post has been edited.

Thanks,

Mickey

 

[archimedes]

Re: Opinions on UST 30 & 60 day lanterns for power outage use, please.

Thank you for the edit, mickeyfinn

Let's now return from turn-of-the-century lighting concerns, to lanterns for power outage use circa 2017, please

 

[bigburly912]

The 30 day would be overkill for that size room. I used it mainly in a 6 man tent and needed only the lowest setting. You won't be disappointed with it.

 

[mickeyfinn]

After much ado over what some would say was nothing, I ordered a lantern today.

By the end of the week I should have the 60 day, 1200 lumen UST lantern here. Overkill? Probably.

We live in Florida, and if we get nailed by another hurricane I want LIGHT, and plenty of it.

Irma took our power for three days. And it sucked. We got by with flashlights, good ones, and plenty of batteries.

We have some big rooms here, a 24x12 ft. living room and a 28x26 ft. garage. Looking for stuff in a big, cluttered garage with a flashlight is no fun.

I'll be interested in seeing if this 60 day lantern lives up to the specs UST assigns to it:

• Removable globe provides forward-area light. It can be hung upside down if desired.
• ​
• High (1200 lumens, up to 41 hours)
• Medium (200 lumens, up to 192 hours)
• Low (20 lumens, up to 60 days)
• BULB TYPE: 4 x NS6W 1W Nichia, white LEDs

Shoot, if it does half of what they say it will do, I'll be happy with it.

After I've had it for a while and tested it out some, I'll post a little review here if anyone here might be interested.

Take care.

 

[mickeyfinn]

archimedes,

I'll bet you're glad THAT'S over with.

Thanks for your patience and forbearance.

Mickey

 

[Poppy]

I know that I am late to the party, but what the heck anyway

Martinaee did a nice review of the streamlight siege, it and the UST models have been compared by many with them being very similar.

I think that one will get fairly similar run-times with just about any 3D cell lantern that has a decent LED, whether it be Cree, or Nichia.

Of note: as stated earlier in this thread, if you run a light at a higher output, the faster the batteries will deplete. If you are looking to supply light for an extended power outage, IMO, lanterns that put out more than 300 lumens will run the batteries down too quickly (if run at that level of output.) Alkalines will last best at 100 lumens or less, and that happens to be the output that many feel comfortable with, once their eyes have become dark adapted.

I hope that you are happy with your UST 60 1200. Be sure that you have at least one extra set of batteries for it, so that when you see how quickly the output drops, that you'll have a fresh set to use at a lower setting, if your outage lasts for days.

 

[xdayv]

I have a UST 30-day. Been using it for almost 4 years now. It lives up to its long battery life off a 3 size D batts. Well enough to lit an average sized room. UI is intuitive. And can be hang up side down with a hook at the bottom. FWIW, I got a second one.

 

[mickeyfinn]

Of note: as stated earlier in this thread, if you run a light at a higher output, the faster the batteries will deplete. If you are looking to supply light for an extended power outage, IMO, lanterns that put out more than 300 lumens will run the batteries down too quickly (if run at that level of output.) Alkalines will last best at 100 lumens or less, and that happens to be the output that many feel comfortable with, once their eyes have become dark adapted.

I hope that you are happy with your UST 60 1200. Be sure that you have at least one extra set of batteries for it, so that when you see how quickly the output drops, that you'll have a fresh set to use at a lower setting, if your outage lasts for days.

Hi Poppy,

Thanks for your kind wishes. And yes, I'm very happy with the lantern. And I bought plenty of extra batteries for it. I just hope I never have to use them.

Objectively speaking, it makes perfect sense that the higher the output setting, the faster the batteries will be depleted when using a lantern, or any battery powered light, for that matter, right?

But how much light someone wants a lantern to provide is a purely subjective matter.

I wanted a lantern that threw a ton of light, and after testing it, I can say that's what I have with this UST 60 day, 1200 lumen lantern.

Yes, it takes a whopping 8 D cells. It's a trade-off, no doubt. But look at those specs:
​
High (1200 lumens, up to 41 hours)
Medium (200 lumens, up to 192 hours)
Low (20 lumens, up to 60 days)
BULB TYPE: 4 x NS6W 1W Nichia, white LEDs

I've been testing it, and so far I have run it on the medium (200 lumen) setting for 108 hours.

I took some photos for comparison purposes, and after 70 hours the light was somewhat dimmer than when I started the test.

And after 108 hours, when I ended the test, the light was dimmer yet but still throwing enough useable light to illuminate our 24x12 ft. living room.

I then switched the lantern to the high setting and the light output was dramatically higher and has remained that way for almost seven hours now.

And this is on plain old alkaline Energizers which I figure are, at this point, are more than 50 percent depleted.

I'm tempted to put in some fresh batteries to see how long it will last on the high setting, but I think it would be wasteful. I've seen enough of what it can do. And I'm well pleased with the lantern.

After Hurricane Irma blew through here and took our power with her for three days, I vowed to get a bright, battery powered lantern that would run a long time on a single set of batteries.

And this UST is just what I was looking for.

Yes, the medium, 200 lumen setting provides plenty of light for a good, long time. But I like knowing that I have the 1200 lumen setting available should I want or need to use it for some reason.

The only fault I can find with this lantern, and it's a small one, is that it starts on the high setting, then goes to medium, then low. I wish it were the opposite. But again, this is no big deal.

I'm glad I bought this lantern and, with the extra batteries I have for it, I feel prepared for a power outage, even an extended one. One less thing to worry about during hurricane season in Florida.