Just picked up a River Rock 3AA Lantern from Target

I searched a few targets in the area and found 2 from a older Target store. I heard a lot of great reviews about them, so I picked up the last 2 they had there.

I have a couple questions about them.

This is the K2 model that is different than the one reviewed on Flashlightreviews.com....is this the newer model?

Is the K2 model brighter/better than the River Rock model reviewed on flashlightreviews.com?

http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/riverrock_lantern.htm

Here are a couple of pics I took:

Just tested this little light out and damn its bright for its size. It lit up the living room really bright on high and on low it was pretty bright too. Pretty happy with this light so far.

That truly looks like a Favourlight lantern that I picked up a month or two ago. The Favourlight branded one is available with a warm LED.....

GreySave said:

That truly looks like a Favourlight lantern that I picked up a month or two ago. The Favourlight branded one is available with a warm LED.....

Click to expand...

Whats a warm LED?

Most LEDs have a white to cool blue output. A "warm" LED mimics an incandescant bulb more closely and is usually better at color accuracy and seems to cut through ambient lighting, rain, etc... a little better. Some people report that they are easier on the eyes. I tend to agree, but I think it is a very subjective thing. LEDs with warm tints typically have a slightly lower output. It is really a mater of personal preference.

If you look around you will se some threads in the LED and Review forums with side by side beamshots of warm versus standard tint LEDs. You'll easily see the difference.

banana_clip said:

I searched a few targets in the area and found 2 from a older Target store. I heard a lot of great reviews about them, so I picked up the last 2 they had there.

I have a couple questions about them.

This is the K2 model that is different than the one reviewed on Flashlightreviews.com....is this the newer model?

Is the K2 model brighter/better than the River Rock model reviewed on flashlightreviews.com?

http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/riverrock_lantern.htm

Here are a couple of pics I took:

(pix deleted)

Click to expand...

Even though the package says "K2", it may or may not be. There have been two versions of the lantern sold at Target in the same identical packaging. The earlier version was K2, the later was a Cree. There are prior threads describing this.

The River Rock 3AA Lantern/Flashlight was still on clearance at Target this week. I'd passed it up last week but since they were still there this morning, I went ahead and got one. Aluminum body with rubberized top and bottom caps. K2 Luxeon LED, 3 modes: High(16hrs), Low(35hrs), & Flash(35hrs), 85 lumens(3W) brightness on high. Included clip and carabiner can be attached to top or bottom of light for hanging, and top part with reflector can be removed to use lantern as a flashlight. There's a green LED that flashes every 5 seconds in Off mode for locating lantern in the dark, that I think is unnecessary. Not bad for $10.88, but I wouldn't have paid more than that for it...

Looks like a good deal for 10 dollars.And plenty of light too boot.

I think some one in another thread said,the green lantern has a Cree led,the black model has a K2 led.

DaveG said:

I think some one in another thread said,the green lantern has a Cree led,the black model has a K2 led.

Click to expand...

The packaging shows my green one as having the K2 LED... :thinking:

The front packaging on mine states "136 Lumens Bright" instead of Luxeon K2 Led, and "CREE LED Light" at the bottom right in blue letters in a white rectangle.

I had to dig out a magnifying glasslaughing and I took a closer look at the LED in the light, and it is marked cree on the circuit board. Dunno why the packaging is labeled K2. Is the cree brighter/longer runtime than the K2?... :thinking: Either way, I'm satisfied for a $10 light.

I have the same little lantern and think it is pretty cool.

These are on clearance for $15 at my local target.

That is about the same price as other Target's "Sale" prices a couple years ago.

My target tends to overprice stuff. I'd love to pick up one for $10 or under.

I own 2 of them, they are hanging in my van. Gives me added light when I need to put my daughter in her car seat.

I replaced my cree emitter with another cree - Q3 5A on 10mm PCB

It's just as bright, if not brighter. The neutral tint is much less harsh, it's much more like a lantern now.

To access the emitter, just remove the batteries and the 4 screws down inside. The whole thing slides apart, boom, there's the emitter, sitting on a big cylindrical thimble of aluminum (which is probably epoxied to the plastic underneath).

To remove the emitter, I drilled out the rivets and unsoldered the wires. Still stuck. Place soldering iron the one terminal until the emitter became loose, lifted it off the board with tweezers. Pried off the board, found a nubby of aluminum coming up through the middle of the board with epoxy. Scraped off the epoxy and grinded off the nubby.

With a clean, level aluminum surface, I put down some thermal grease and the new emitter on it's PCB. put two screws through the rivet holes, and let them tap threads. After tightening down the board, I soldered the wires.

I guess you could put pretty much any emitter in there. I had mine laying around waiting for a host.

Thanks for the emitter swap description. I am planning on doing the exact same thing soon.

My Target (Commerce, MI) has them on sale for $10.88 with 2 pegs full. Picked up couple for gifts.

Ayeaux said:

Thanks for the emitter swap description. I am planning on doing the exact same thing soon.

Click to expand...

One thing I forgot to mention. After drilling out the rivets, they will fall inside. If you move the wires to the side at the base of the thimble, you can shake them out... then push the wires back where they were.

thanks for sticking around, and sharing. ideally, what led would you go with for this lantern? would you stick with the q3 5a xp-e or xr-e? i picked the rr lantern up @ 50% off that my son uses for reading by at night. i'd like a hi cri neutral/warm that is similar brightness to stock. what do you suggest?

This is where I got my neutral/warm emitters mounted on 10mm PCB:

http://www.dereelight.com/emitters.htm

The currently shown Q4 simply means it's a tad brighter than Q3.

Looks like they are out of stock... send them an email.

Have fun!