I recently bought a Ryobi drill with two 18V LiIon batteries They're only 24Watt hours batteries, but can be had with about 3 times as much capacity (72 Watt). At any rate, I wanted a way to use them during a power outage, for whatever, and decided to pick up the lantern, take it apart, and add a USB output to it so that the batteries can be used as a source to charge phones, etc.
The lantern itself is very light weight. It has a single small die LED with a bulbous dome. I don't think it is a Cree, but I don't know. It is decidedly cool white, with a slight blue tint. There are artifacts in the beam, at the corners of the rectangular diffuser. The diffuser is very frosted, which really helps to cut down glare.
The light goes out from the sides, more than it goes up and down, but enough goes down that a person can walk a path with it, if he holds it waist high, though it is not as good as a flashlight. It does illuminate a picnic table well. And of course battery changes are a snap
I added a USB port:
To take the lantern apart, one needs some long reaching security torx allen wrenches, or specialty torx screw drivers. There is one phillips head screw hidden under a plastic plug, which is hidden by a label on the back of the lantern.
I drilled a 3/4 inch hole in the back of the Greenish-yellow base, and then filed it to fit one of those little 12-24V USB adapters that you can plug into a car's cigar power port. I hot glued it in place after taking it apart, and soldering a pair of wires to its power inputs, and to the inside of the lantern where the power comes in from the battery. A very easy modification. It took more time to find the security torx tool and take the box apart than to make the modification.
The little USB adapter I added has a little LED power on indicator light, that I didn't remove, but I figured that it's drain would be minimal, and that it would serve as a "FIND me" light for the lantern. IDK... your mileage may vary.
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At any rate, I took some ma readings after it was all done, with a full battery @ 20.35 Volts.
HIGH 154ma LOW 27ma and OFF with the adapter LED on 10ma.
So I guess the unmodified lantern would be 144ma high, and 17ma low. From there you might be able to estimate run-times.
They list it at 22 hours on the P104 HIGH (72Watt) capacity battery which I see listed as 18V 2.4 amp hour. (If my calculations are correct, it should get about 140 hours on low with one of the high capacity batteries.)
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Overall, I would say that it is functional for a camping lantern, with the typical drawbacks of lanterns in general. The light is not as pretty to watch as a campfire, so if I am camping, I'll watch the campfire but it does a decent job of lighting the table for a variety of tasks, and allows me to use rechargeable batteries that have other uses, rather than have to buy some tenergy D NiMH cells for other lanterns. Also, I think that the 130 lumen output level is a good level for a lantern. Typically higher than that, lanterns start to produce too much glare, and if I wanted to light a larger area, typically I would prefer multiple lanterns @ about 100 lumens or so, and spread them out and around.
The lantern itself is very light weight. It has a single small die LED with a bulbous dome. I don't think it is a Cree, but I don't know. It is decidedly cool white, with a slight blue tint. There are artifacts in the beam, at the corners of the rectangular diffuser. The diffuser is very frosted, which really helps to cut down glare.
The light goes out from the sides, more than it goes up and down, but enough goes down that a person can walk a path with it, if he holds it waist high, though it is not as good as a flashlight. It does illuminate a picnic table well. And of course battery changes are a snap
I added a USB port:
To take the lantern apart, one needs some long reaching security torx allen wrenches, or specialty torx screw drivers. There is one phillips head screw hidden under a plastic plug, which is hidden by a label on the back of the lantern.
I drilled a 3/4 inch hole in the back of the Greenish-yellow base, and then filed it to fit one of those little 12-24V USB adapters that you can plug into a car's cigar power port. I hot glued it in place after taking it apart, and soldering a pair of wires to its power inputs, and to the inside of the lantern where the power comes in from the battery. A very easy modification. It took more time to find the security torx tool and take the box apart than to make the modification.
The little USB adapter I added has a little LED power on indicator light, that I didn't remove, but I figured that it's drain would be minimal, and that it would serve as a "FIND me" light for the lantern. IDK... your mileage may vary.
-----------------------------------------------------
At any rate, I took some ma readings after it was all done, with a full battery @ 20.35 Volts.
HIGH 154ma LOW 27ma and OFF with the adapter LED on 10ma.
So I guess the unmodified lantern would be 144ma high, and 17ma low. From there you might be able to estimate run-times.
They list it at 22 hours on the P104 HIGH (72Watt) capacity battery which I see listed as 18V 2.4 amp hour. (If my calculations are correct, it should get about 140 hours on low with one of the high capacity batteries.)
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Overall, I would say that it is functional for a camping lantern, with the typical drawbacks of lanterns in general. The light is not as pretty to watch as a campfire, so if I am camping, I'll watch the campfire but it does a decent job of lighting the table for a variety of tasks, and allows me to use rechargeable batteries that have other uses, rather than have to buy some tenergy D NiMH cells for other lanterns. Also, I think that the 130 lumen output level is a good level for a lantern. Typically higher than that, lanterns start to produce too much glare, and if I wanted to light a larger area, typically I would prefer multiple lanterns @ about 100 lumens or so, and spread them out and around.
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