Just Got GE Enbrighten LED Lantern

[BloodLust]

Yup. The links showed the pics. Thanks!

 

[Stereodude]

Yes, they are still made pretty well. I've seen them in Costco again.
The new ones are advertised as 500 lumens. Almost exactly the same design.
Sometimes Walmart has the smaller 4 D-cell version.
These ones are 8 D-cell but can run on a set of 4.

That latest ones in Costco in the US are 550 Lumen, aren't GE branded anymore, and don't seem to have remote phosphor. I picked one up yesterday, but didn't try it last night. Here's a few pictures from eBay listings.

 

[Stereodude]

I tried it tonight. It's bright. Pulls about 1.17A at 6V on high. It's not regulated. Current draw stayed the same as I dialed back the voltage. I didn't see a whole lot of brightness loss until the voltage quite a bit. The Enbrighten 550 has a similar tint to an older remote phosphor GE Enbrighten lantern I have. My GE Enbrighten lantern remote phosphor one is a ~3 years old. It is a 300lm one. The new 550 lumen lantern is pretty easy to disassemble. The lens and top unscrew from the base. The large bulb diffuser turns a little and can then be lifted up. You then see an optic with a rather opaque white cap. You can remove the white cap carefully and expose the Fresnel lens optic. I'm guessing it's a neutral white Cree of some sort under it. I didn't attempt to remove the optic since they crushed the plastic tabs under the aluminum heatsink the LED is mounted to. It's mounted on a fairly decent sized heatsink.

Here are some pictures:

I've ordered a number of lanterns and plan to do a lantern shootout. I have a USB connected lux meter on the way so I can data log brightness over time or against input voltage.

 

[Monocrom]

Looks like someone contacted the very same foreign company that made the lantern for G.E.

Not surprising in this Day & Age.

What's the difference between the Toak's, Optimus, and Vargo long-handled Ti spoons?.... The name printed on the handle. :ironic:

Still, it's an excellent lantern design and happy to see these are still available.

 

[Stereodude]

Looks like someone contacted the very same foreign company that made the lantern for G.E.

Still, it's an excellent lantern design and happy to see these are still available.

Jasco made both the old and new lanterns. Jasco lists them as GE licensed products on their website. Basically Jasco pays GE to slap the GE brand name on them. So the scenario you're describing isn't really possible. Costco isn't screwing GE by going around them to GE's CM/ODM. They've always been dealing with Jasco. They've decided to omit the GE branding this time around.

 

[Monocrom]

Never said Costco was trying to screw over G.E.

Thanks for the licensing details.

 

[Stereodude]

So I got my hands on one of the older remote 500lm remote phosphor GE Enbrighten models via eBay, and got to pay twice as much for the privilege.

It uses a little bit more current at 6V than the newer 550lm one. Around an extra 100mA on high. It did not exhibit the same constant current draw behavior as the voltage was dropped and seem to dim more readily. Once I get my Tenergy Centura D cells I will test all 3 versions I have of the Enbrighten Lanterns along with all the other lanterns I've recently picked up or already own in a big shootout complete with lux and current measurements over voltage and pictures of the light output patterns.

 

[raggie33]

I have the 550 version with usb I love it

 

[raggie33]

wow I really really love this baby

 

[KeepingItLight]

So I got my hands on one of the older remote 500lm remote phosphor GE Enbrighten models via eBay, and got to pay twice as much for the privilege.

It uses a little bit more current at 6V than the newer 550lm one. Around an extra 100mA on high. It did not exhibit the same constant current draw behavior as the voltage was dropped and seem to dim more readily. Once I get my Tenergy Centura D cells I will test all 3 versions I have of the Enbrighten Lanterns along with all the other lanterns I've recently picked up or already own in a big shootout complete with lux and current measurements over voltage and pictures of the light output patterns.

Thanks. I appreciate the effort!

 

[Stereodude]

Thanks. I appreciate the effort!

I finally got my Centura D cell batteries after a big run around so I can start my testing.

 

[Poppy]

:thumbsup:
Looking forward to them

 

[raggie33]

I finally got my Centura D cell batteries after a big run around so I can start my testing.

got any info?

 

[Stereodude]

got any info?

Not yet. I found out the datalogging software for my lux meter gets wonky after you measure more than about 65,000 data points. That screwed up my first attempt to measure the runtime and relative output of the older GE Enbrighten 300 Lumen lantern. Also, in retrospect that was a poor choice for the lantern to start with because of the relatively low current draw when using NiMH cells. By my estimate the batteries (when using 4 D cells) are likely to last somewhere between 26-30 hours. I was measuring 1 sample per second, so it crashed and I lost all the data somewhere in the 18-20 hour range before the batteries were run down. :sigh:

I'm charging the batteries back up and will try again later with a slower sampling interval so the software doesn't crash. I will probably start with the 500 or 550 lantern this time.

I have measured the current draw of the 3 versions I have rather carefully. I used a power supply set to 5V (which is a reasonable voltage for 4 NiMH cells). I compensated for voltage drop across the current meter. Here's the data:

GE Enbrighten 300:
H - 0.286A
M - 0.058A
L - 0.009A

GE Enbrighten 500:
H - 0.720A
M - 0.220A
L - 0.063A

Enbrighten 550:
H - 0.476A
M - 0.261A
L - 0.053A

 

[raggie33]

cool ty I love my 550

 

[raggie33]

id like to get 40 hours battery life out of some cheap nimh on medium

 

[Stereodude]

id like to get 40 hours battery life out of some cheap nimh on medium

Well, I guess that depends on your idea of cheap... However, eight 8000 mAh D cells should have no problem giving you more than 40 hours. You should get pretty close to 60.

16000mAh/261mA = 61.3h

 

[raggie33]

ty dude.i ordered the ebl cells I should of went with tenergy I bet

 

[Poppy]

Well, I guess that depends on your idea of cheap... However, eight 8000 mAh D cells should have no problem giving you more than 40 hours. You should get pretty close to 60.

16000mAh/261mA = 61.3h

On the other hand, I believe that the Energizer NiMH D cells are only 2500mah (actually no better than eneloop's AA cells) and I don't know if they are LSD or not. My guess is NOT. But using the same math 8 cells set as 4S2P, 5000mah/261ma = 19.2 hours.

 

[raggie33]

lol I'm so confused my enbrigten only uses 6 cells. it is the 550 lumens model how long wil it run on medium ? with the 6 cells it takes?