Fuel or LED lanterns for outside camping?

With Coleman twin 4 Cree LED being the brightest LED lantern on the market, is it suitable to light up a camping sight? (not just for tent use) Should I stick to fuel based lanterns if I want to seriously light up a camping sight and if so, what is the "smartest" fuel option: karosine, propane, or liquid fuel?

Thanks

depends on how many people are going to be using it at the same time, what they are doing too. A gas powered lantern can put out a lot more light. If a coleman has 4 crees that is probably 500-800 lumens while gas lanterns can put out I think up to 1200-2000 lumens some models. As for best fuel depends on location and availability and cost. The unleaded lanterns will probably be cheapest and easiest to find fuel for but other fuels can be cleaner and easier to manage once you find them.

Depends on what you want, how your camping and how much trouble your willing to go to.

For me if I am tent camping where I have to haul my gear a ways I'm good with a LED pocket lantern. Not a lot of light in the Black Diamond or the River Rock but its about equal to most small pocket pack gas lanterns.

If I'm car camping or using our small camping trailer then the bigger lantern has it all over LED's.

I guess the pros and cons are in order.

LED's, simple to use and run a pretty long time on batteries. Extremely rugged and inexpensive to buy.

cons would be low light output.




All fuel lanterns have mantles that are pretty fragile and most have globes that can be broken easily.

As to the different fuel types.

Propane,
Its very simple with good light and the lanterns are cheap,
the cons are you have to have enough propane bottles with you and they are more expensive.

Kerosene,
I wouldnt even consider a kero wick lamp they work fine but you might as well carry an LED.

Kerosene pressure lanterns are a different story, fuel is cheap, though you will need a small bottle of alcohol; but they make plenty of light. There is a bit of a procedure you have to go thru to light but I find that part of the fun. The lanterns are higher in price but for $70 a new coleman can be had. Ebay they can be had for $30 in vintages from the 60's

Cons would be two kinds of fuel and the procedure needed to light.

White gas/unleaded
Cheap fuel, plenty of light. Lanterns are cheap, $50 to $60 new, ebay has some new powerhouse colemans at under $20 pretty often.

Cons, maybe the fact it is flammable to some folks but if your keep your head outta your orfice your good. Fuel storage may be a problem for some I keep it in a sig fuel bottle when I travel.


Simplicity in lighting.
Propane,
Screw the cylinder on lantern, crack the valve and hold a flame to the mantle when it lights open the valve.

Kerosene,
fill with fuel and pump it maybe 30 times, fill preheater cup with alcohol, light it off and let it burn down to preheat the generator. Usually a minute will do it sometimes less, sometimes more. Crack the valve and the lantern lights at full brightness, then open all the way. Give it another 5 or 10 pumps and your work is done.

White Gas/Unleaded,
fill with fuel, give it 30 pumps or so, crack valve a 1/4 turn and hold flame to mantle. You get a bit of raw flame and smoke until the generator is warmed enough to do its job. Once the mantle glows bright open the valve all the way give it another 5 or 10 pumps and your there.

I use kerosene more than any just because I like the ritual, I have a new Coleman 214 and an old Coleman 237, both work very well. I would stick with Coleman just because parts are easy to get. I'm not sure how easy it would be to find a Petromax mantle in Creede Colorado or Hanksville Utah.

To make things simple, I would go with the brighter fuel lantern outside and a battery one inside the tent (led or fluoro will both do the job nicely inside) for safety. My Coleman Pinnacle (propane) is approx 1600 lumens on high for 5 hours/tank; much longer runtime if on a lower setting.

As to fuels, I would say that if you are going to use your lantern a lot, with a great many trips/hours, or as a regular light fixture in an outbuilding, etc, go with white gas. If only for occasional use, make it easy on yourself and get propane.

To me, the availability of fuel is vastly overrated as a criteria in picking a lantern. If you're anywhere near a Walmart, etc, you have access to both white gas and propane. Tons of other stores also carry these. Convenience, performance and overall functionality of design are most important to me.

A lot of good info, thank you all. What design features should I be looking for in a fuel type lantern? On average how long do the mantles last and need changing? Do they make fuel lanterns that can take both propane or white fuel? What impacts lumen output in fuel lanterns and what's the highest lumen output available now? How big do the fuel tanks go in size?

i used many different led, incand. lanterns before, now i switched to gas one, and i like it, my coleman twin mantle is very bright, one propane tank lasts about 4 hours on high, but i usually get like 6 hours with not so high setting, i buy 2 cans for $5.
mantles are frigale only if you touch them or drop the light, globes only brake if you drop them, so far (i started using gas this year) i didn.t brake a globe, and mantles work entire camping trip, once i take the light apart to pack it, mantles are trown out, they go for $4 per 4.
it is cheaper than buying batterys, or bringin lots of regargables.

wish someone made small generator that runs on propane, i,d get one, can't have smelly gas generator sit in the app.

mega_lumens said:

A lot of good info, thank you all. What design features should I be looking for in a fuel type lantern? On average how long do the mantles last and need changing? Do they make fuel lanterns that can take both propane or white fuel? What impacts lumen output in fuel lanterns and what's the highest lumen output available now? How big do the fuel tanks go in size?

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As was stated alpg88 the mantles are only fragile after they have been burned. I usually get two or three trips from a mantle or pair of mantles depending on the lantern but I keep the lantern cased when in transit. But to be safe, keep enough spares on hand to replace every trip. Chances are you wont have to but better safe than sorry.

Never seen one that can go between fuel and propane.

Brightness is way over rated in general use, propane lanterns may be consistant in CP but fuel lanterns are at the whim of too many variables. In this thread https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/180416 one of the members got a different answer from Coleman every time he asked. Chances are it's going to be brighter than you need regardless of which one it is. Just remember there is no free ride, to get more light you need to burn more energy (fuel) and burning more energy produces more heat.

On one of the lantern forums they tested 29 lanterns as to their brightness compared to advertised brightness. 2 lanterns exceeded their advertised rating and the rest were considerable dimmer.

brightness of propane lanterns are different even between similarly looking 2 mantles lights, my friend bought what it looked the same light with 2 mantles, but his was not as bright, after closer inspection we discovered his (thou identical looking light) used different types of mantile, so we put mantles for my light (no 21) on his, it became a bit brighter, but not as bright as mine, idk why such difference, everything looks the same from outside, my guess valve sends less gas to mantiles, thus different type of mantiles used.

Reading other threads, I see that the Coleman models are the brightest, so I have narrowed down my choices between the Coleman NorthStar dual fuel instastart 2000 series and the Premium Powerhouse 295 series. Does anyone know if the Northstar is significantly brighter than the Powerhouse or they are similar in output? The instastart feature is not important to me, and if the Powerhouse has similar output, I'd get it because it's cheaper.

reality is, you never know unless you try. they look not much different,
every liquid fuel lantern i've seen are not as bright as my propane one. i'm ptetty sure i've not seen every dual fuel light, but so far propane with manle no.21 is the brightest one for me.
but honestly i,m sure i'd do fine with any of them, you could only see difference if you have both running side by side, if you only got one even the the one that is not the brightest, you wont be missing much. the difference isn't night and day, more like (just to make a point, not actual lm ratings) 100lm, or 90lm
also when buying mantles get the ones that have a wire, not a string, often those strings brake and you mantle is trash, plus it is more convinient to put one on with a wire, even in very low light,

I would guess that the Northstar is brighter than the Powerhouse. But in real world usage its not much difference.

I'm not sure I would even bother with a powerhouse when there stuff like this floating around ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-COLEMAN...trkparms=65:12|66:2|39:1|72:2149|293:2|294:50

Dont know the seller but you can probably buy it for $25 including shipping. They are all over ebay.

mega_lumens said:

Reading other threads, I see that the Coleman models are the brightest, so I have narrowed down my choices between the Coleman NorthStar dual fuel instastart 2000 series and the Premium Powerhouse 295 series. Does anyone know if the Northstar is significantly brighter than the Powerhouse or they are similar in output? The instastart feature is not important to me, and if the Powerhouse has similar output, I'd get it because it's cheaper.

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Personally I wouldn't want to be without the electronic ignition that my Coleman propane lantern has. It's the one feature I insisted on when my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday (many years back). Why fool with matches if I don't have to? Someday I might forget to pack them.

Rexlion said:

Personally I wouldn't want to be without the electronic ignition that my Coleman propane lantern has. It's the one feature I insisted on when my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday (many years back). Why fool with matches if I don't have to? Someday I might forget to pack them.

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Is it the piezo or the battery powered ignition?

The Northstar 2000 I have has the battery powered ignition, the Northstar propane I had has the piezo that clicks when you open the valve. The battery is way ahead of the piezo.

Matches havent been much of an issue for me, I keep boxes of waterproof matches stashed in all my gear boxes.

yea, who goes camping without matches of lighter?????????