Rayovac Sportsman Extreme 300 Lumen Lantern - MORE INFO ???

[Egsise]

I have two Zebralight H50 headlamps which actually are great as lanterns too, with full 66 OTF lumens heat is an issue thats why I have been looking for a good real lantern.

The RayOVac 300 lumen lantern runtimes are something like 6-8 hours on high, and 20-28 hours on low?
Thats based on the current draw of 1.1A on high and 0.44 on low, D-cell battery capacity is 6-12A depending of the drain, right?

H50 can go for 72 hours on single AA so lets forget those moon mode runtimes..

Any lux readings from the lantern @1m?

 

[bobski]

The RayOVac 300 lumen lantern runtimes are something like 6-8 hours on high, and 20-28 hours on low?

The package claims something like 75/150 hours, but that must include some partial output.
12,000 mAH * 1.5V * 3 batteries = 54 WH. 54 WH / 4 W = 13.5 hours.
Low runs at 40%, which should be about 1.6 W. 54 WH / 1.6 W = 33.75 H.

 

[Egsise]

Yeah it's like a Led Lenser runtime, 200 lumens for 100 hours with 4xAAA battery.....

D cell is 12A with a small 0.02A load, with 1A load the capacity is something like 6-8A only.

 

[bobski]

D cell is 12A with a small 0.02A load, with 1A load the capacity is something like 6-8A only.

Is there a thread somewhere covering that effect? I'm curious what the mechanics/chemistry behind it are.

 

[Egsise]

Erm, my numbers were wrong, at 0.025A load the capacity is like 18Ah, under 0.5A load ~8Ah.
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/E95.pdf

 

[bobski]

That bar graph looks like 10Ah under 0.5A load and 20Ah under 25mA load to me. No help with the phenomenon involved there though.

The constant current graph is a bit more informative, though we're missing a key bit of info: How the lantern will react as the battery voltage drops. Is there a boost driver on the electronics board that will suck every last coulomb from the cells, or will the lantern peter out and shut off when there's not enough battery voltage to get over the LEDs' voltage drop?

I guess I'll hook mine up to a power supply and find out.

[edit]
Alright... I'm sure someone can make this into a pretty graph or two:

V at battery contacts, I at battery contacts, % brightness measured with a 1957 vintage light meter:

4.50 V, 1.56 A, 100%
4.40 V, 1.47 A, 99%
4.30 V, 1.37 A, 97%
4.20 V, 1.29 A, 96%
4.10 V, 1.20 A, 96%
4.00 V, 1.11 A, 95%
3.90 V, 1.02 A, 95%
3.80 V, 0.93 A, 94%
3.70 V, 0.84 A, 94%
3.60 V, 0.75 A, 93%
3.50 V, 0.66 A, 92%
3.40 V, 0.58 A, 91%
3.30 V, 0.50 A, 90%
3.20 V, 0.42 A, 88%
3.10 V, 0.34 A, 86%
3.00 V, 0.27 A, 83%
2.90 V, 0.20 A, 79%
2.80 V, 0.14 A, 73%
2.70 V, 0.08 A, 63%
2.65 V, 0.06 A, 54%
2.60 V, 0.03 A, 40%
2.55 V, 0.02 A, 24%
2.50 V, 0.01 A, 5%
2.45 V, 0.01 A, 1%
[/edit]

 

[Egsise]

I don't get that, at 2.65 volts it draws only 60mA and the brightness is 54% (~150 lumens!)

 

[bobski]

It's a camera light meter, so the scale is exponential. I'm not sure what units the meter is displaying (foot-candles maybe?), so I just used % of the meter scale. 54% is around 230 foot-candles, 100% is around 1600. The foot-candle value is probably more applicable to lumens. If foot-candles and lumens are proportional, that 54% value would correspond to something like 43 lumens.

 

[imgadgetman]

I have been watching these for awhile but they were sold out at my Lowes when the price dropped to $25. Well I finally found them and I ended up buying two. I love that you can hang it from either end and the globe can be removed.
I also tried one with AA batteries in a D adapter and they faded quickly on high but was still shining after 5 hours. I then switched it to low and it lasted the rest of the night. After a day rest it is still working on Low with the same AA's. I may just do a runtime of both with AA vs D to see how long they last on low setting. I have about 300 AA batteries from Christmas time with 60 for $10 at Home Depot deal and on low I would be happy with the runtime.
Imgadgetman

 

[Kremer]

I may just do a runtime of both with AA vs D to see how long they last on low setting.
Imgadgetman

I can tell you that once it falls out of regulation on D's it still runs for weeks producing declining but still plenty usable light.

 

[artsiom]

I can tell you that once it falls out of regulation on D's it still runs for weeks producing declining but still plenty usable light.

It seems from measurements by bobski that there is no regulation at all in this lantern, plain resistor to dissipate extra power. Am I wrong? Can someone measure the LED voltage and current with different battery V.

 

[Egsise]

I can tell you that once it falls out of regulation on D's it still runs for weeks producing declining but still plenty usable light.

Usable light compared to what?
Could someone compare it to a flashlight which output is known, use a diffuser tip for comparison.
Enough light, plenty of useable light etc. actually doesn't tell anything...

2 weeks is 336 hours and thats a long runtime!

For example Quark 2xAA runtime on medium/22 OTF lumens is 24 hours (50ma).

 

[Kremer]

Usable light compared to what?
Could someone compare it to a flashlight which output is known, use a diffuser tip for comparison.
Enough light, plenty of useable light etc. actually doesn't tell anything...

2 weeks is 336 hours and thats a long runtime!

For example Quark 2xAA runtime on medium/22 OTF lumens is 24 hours (50ma).

When it falls out of regulation I'd say it's about 100 lumens, declining to maybe 5-10 or so over weeks before it shuts down completely.

 

[Egsise]

So on high it's 300 lumens for 6-8 hours, after that 100 lumens which drops to 5-10 lumens in 300+ hours?
Is it ~50 lumens after 150 hours or does the output drop faster?

50 lumens is still useable as lantern.

Damn I wish I could get one a bit cheaper than 40€(54$). :sick2:

 

[bobski]

Well, I picked up a second lantern last week and finally unboxed and put batteries in it today. I compared it side by side with the old lantern and noticed something interesting:

The new lantern has a noticeably warmer (more neutral) color temperature than the old one. Color rendering seems better with the new one as well.
Does a white LED's color temperature increase over time (phosphors break down or whatever), or did Rayovac switch to a nicer emitter?

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

Wow, that is very interesting indeed! I wonder if they changed to warmer Nichia chips...? Great photo there!

Could you post the datecodes/date of manufacture for each? That would be very helpful.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Well, I picked up a second lantern last week and finally unboxed and put batteries in it today. I compared it side by side with the old lantern and noticed something interesting:
The new lantern has a noticeably warmer (more neutral) color temperature than the old one. Color rendering seems better with the new one as well.
Does a white LED's color temperature increase over time (phosphors break down or whatever), or did Rayovac switch to a nicer emitter?

most likely rayovac just got a deal on a better bin of LEDs I have noticed that as time goes on the high output bin LEDs have less issues with tint and less noticeable bin variations compared to the old green lux 1s of years past.

 

[bobski]

Could you post the datecodes/date of manufacture for each? That would be very helpful.

Where would I find that?

Differences I've noted so far:
- On the aluminum bezel between the lamp diffuser and housing, the older lamp has the Rayovac logo printed/etched four times all the way around, while the newer lamp only has it once on the front (button face) of the lamp.
- The alignment arrow stickers on the battery doors are on the opposite alignment tabs.
- The battery contact tray on the newer bottom cap doesn't spin as freely (thank god).
- The older lamp has an "SP-G" sticker in the battery compartment, while the newer is "MB-G".
- The battery polarity stickers are a little smaller on the new lamp.
- The phosphor on the newer emitters looks a shade darker than the older ones.
- The new lamp's main PCB has a few component revisions (diode added, larger capacitor) and has "V2" (compared to the old lamp's V1) silkscreened on the end of the part number under the pushbutton.

 

[MegaHurtz]

Very Interesting!!

Does the newer version show the 'PWM Strobe' on low like the 1st gen did? Or is it smoother on low due to the larger capacitor maybe?

Thanks for posting your findings, this is one of my favorite lanterns.

 

[bobski]

Does the newer version show the 'PWM Strobe' on low like the 1st gen did? Or is it smoother on low due to the larger capacitor maybe?

We're talking about surface-mount components here, so the larger capacitor is still probably a few microfarads or less (though I've seen surface mount caps as large as 22uF before). That might smooth things out at high frequencies (in the 100,000 Hz range), but not at 100 Hz. The ole hand-wave test shows it's still clearly PWM.
It looks like the flasher mode's on-pulse time might be shorter... Maybe that's what the cap change did.