2005 Coleman 8D Pack Away Fluorescent Lantern

[Icebreak]

My apologies if this one has already been discussed.

I bought the (New?) 2005 Coleman 8D Pack Away Spiral Fluorescent Lantern on Wednesday at Wal-Mart for $19.79.

8D Pack Away at ColemanDotCom

This picture is a little wrong. The square lens is totally clear all the way around.

I haven't field-tested it so I won't recommend it yet. I have a couple of concerns. This lantern collapses into itself. I haven't looked to see how they engineered the locking mechanisms. I wonder how durable they are. Your fingers don't have to press anything. You just give it a jiggle and a yank then it expands and locks in the extended configuration. Give it a little shove and the illumination section slides down and locks making a compact unit that feels sturdy. I like the feel of the lantern in this position. It looks like some kind of ammo carrier in the "Pack Away" configuration.

The switching is on top. I wonder if that is such a good idea for rainy weather. I suppose one could easily protect the switch.

The batteries load very easily from the bottom. They do rattle but that's of no concern to me.

I was really surprised with how bright it was when I turned it on. It's somewhat painful to look directly at the lit spiral. From reading about fluorescent lights on this forum I would attribute the brightness to the compactness of the 15W spiral tube. Also, see that reflector? It really works very well. A lot of light is reflected upward and outward. See the hole in the reflector? That's to allow the spiral tube to enter the power section when collapsing the lantern. Pretty slick.

With 8 D primary cells in it the lantern is heavy. One advantage might be that it could probably endure 35 - 40 mph winds without tipping over. I guess if I wanted it to be lighter I could make an investment in some rechargeable D cells.

I'm thinking that this will be a good power outage light. Set on a coffee table it throws light all over the living room. There is a 4'x4' dark spot (not really a shadow) on the ceiling. While I'm sitting in a comfortable chair 8' away from it there is more than enough light to read by. I don't know about that 26 hour claim but I think 18 hrs. would be reasonable.

For $20.00, I thought this light was preliminarily good enough and interesting enough to say something about it.

-------------------------

- Jeff

 

[raggie33]

pretty cool icebreak ,but some reason i cant get my self from not likeing gas laterns i guess there is something about the hiis .or the way there cheap to run

 

[Icebreak]

Oh yeah, me too, raggie.

I love the light from a traditional white gas powered, mantled Coleman. They are so light-weight and, as you said, inexpensive to run. Plus they just bring back memories of good camping and fishing trips. I like the hissing sound too.

The advantage of this lantern is that it might be less likely to fail if it was tipped over and there is little chance of it starting a fire. In the home it won't burn oxygen or expell unwanted exhaust.

No way it can compete with a gas lantern in output.

There was a program on the History Channel a while back about Coleman products. How they helped to make camping become something fun to do instead of something you did while escaping the great depression and the dust bowl. How the miniature stoves helped to vastly improve the moral of ground troops.

I liked that program.

 

[raggie33]

o i saw that program to icebreak i love the history chanel. i have a coleman latern i got at garage sale its army and made in 1955 it has 4 peaces a glass in stead of one .perhaps they couldnt make one peace it dont work though and parts are missing

 

[Lynx_Arc]

A 15 watt tube is about the same as a 60 watt light bulb. One thing you can do is figure out how to wire it up to a 12v sla and you wont have to buy batteries for it if you start using it a lot. I don't much like the price of 8D cells but one of the walmarts here had the C and D everactive 8pack batteries on clearance for $3 formally $4.50. Look around and see if they are clearing them out and get some spares.

 

[markdi]

if you like the light from a gasoline coleman lantern.
you should see the 400cp petromax kerosene lantern in operation.

 

[cheesehead]

Agreed,

Heck, if you like light, the gas lanterns are just much nicer for camping. For the price of 8D cells you can buy a propane cannister, and that has the energy of a bomb, vs 8D cells, which is enough energy to,... um,... er,... well,... hmm,... light a dim incadescent bulb?

Try gas, you'll never go back.

 

[jtice]

Very nice, I have had my eye on these.
I have a gas colmen lantarn like it alot, its the larger ones they make.

I might have toi check one of these out,
I just hate to kill 8 D cells on one run /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

BTW, I have a camping trip comming up, was thining of getting another gas lantern.
What is the best SMALL one?

 

[cheesehead]

Hmm, never tried the small one/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif, I just was so impressed with the regular size lantern/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif. You can adjust to to low, running like a small lantern/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/happy14.gif. Although, if there's a small gas lantern /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/au.gif then that'll be very nice. The other lights to check are the Aladdin series /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/aaa.gif, they pull a little trick /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/sssh.gif to get more light and again, run time, is measured in hours.

 

[cheesehead]

OK, seems like everyone is on the same page. Gas is #1. But that 8d cell seems like a much better idea inside the tent.

And plus, I would assume the run time is HOURS. Darn, now I think I need that light too, lot safer around 3-6 yo fingers.

 

[Icebreak]

Lynx Arc -

Two good ideas. Thanks for the heads up on the 37 cent D cells. The best I've been able to do lately is 67 cents per cell for 16 Energizer Alkalines.

Markdi -

Oh yeah. I've been wanting a Petromax ever since I saw one on this forum I think about 2 years ago. Those are really nice. I enjoyed reading about the history of them on this site:
PetroMaxBerlynEnterprizes

Cheese -

Yes, double agreed.

I like gas. I have gas. Maybe that's TMI? ***edit*** I didn't see your other posts befor I posted. Yes, I think it is safe. Inside a tent it would be nice. Coleman claims 26 hours. I think more like 18.

jtice -

I don't know. I've seen glorb in thread titles but never read about them. They look good for your purposes.
GlorbOnBackpackGearTest

Hey. Wait a minute. How come my thread is all off-topiced? Oh well. Sometimes OT is more fun than the topic.

 

[markdi]

kerosene pressure lanterns are much brighter than gasoline or propane lanterns and run a lot longer on a tank of fuel.

kerosene has a lot more energy per unit of volume.

kerosene lanterns emit very little carbon monoxide
so you can use them indoors.

kerosene is a lot less Volatile than propane or gasoline -
so it is not as dangerous.

sorry I will go away now

I do not want to hijak this thread

 

[markdi]

kerosene is number one

then gasoline

propane

and last but not least electric

ha ha

I thought my big petromax was 400 cp

it is 500 cp

puts out as much light as a 400 watt incandesent light bulb

I also have the 150 cp lantern

and a petromax kerosene pressure stove.

does any one know where to get repair parts other than britelyte ?

 

[cheesehead]

No no no, kerosene is not #1 indoors. Kerosene is #1 OUTDOORS. Indoors, a AAA led from Dorcy is enough. Gas, Kerosene, Propane, they are all CO emitters. Even if they don't emit the CO, whey will all use up O2.

 

[markdi]

I have run my big petromax in my dining room of my house
for 4 hours straght.

there was a slight smell of kerosene

no one got dizzy or passed out or died.

you should open a window(a few inches or so depending on size of window etc)

I did not open a window because I wanted to see how bad the
kerosene smell would get.


petromax still lights half of the world(or something like that)

 

[markdi]

my mom's condo has a natural gass stove.
I installed it 2 years ago.

it draws air from the room that it is in.

with the oven burner and all four of the range top
burners burning it must use more oxygen than my petromax.

I do not think there was a exaust system either.

so why doesent the carbon monoxide kill the renters ?

maybe I am wrong and I hooked it to some sort of air inlet/exaust system.

I have nothing Against the renters ha ha.

maybe if you are in a small room that is sealed/insulated well you would have a problem.

 

[Icebreak]

No. Please don't go away markdi. You are making it fun.

 

[Steelwolf]

There is no denying how bright some of these liquid fuel lamps can get. I love the output from my Coleman Northstar. It's a bit big for what I need these days and I'm planning to get a Glorb and one of the mini Coleman Expedition lights. The downsides I've always had to operating one of these was the flareups at the start, the cool down period before you can start packing away everything, the regular cleaning of the fuel ports and anything that gets coated in soot during the flareups, and the need to keep replacing mantles. (Part of the reason for switching from the Nortstar is that its mantles are expensive and hard to find, since it uses the tube style. I can't find generic replacements either. The Brunton and smaller Colemans use the typical bulb-like mantle which is cheaper, easier to find and has tons of generic replacements.)

But I love my electric lanterns too. Judiciously used, their meagre output is still enough for many of my needs, the rest being supplemented with a headlamp and a couple of handheld torches (more toys! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ). Clean and easy with quick setup and take downs (I just need to get another charger so I can recharge more cells at any one time). And the so-called "meagre" output isn't really that meagre with the new spiral/energy-saver tube lanterns. And I'm not so worried about breaking another mantle when it gets jostled in my backpack.

What I would really like is when there is a way to efficiently extract power from fuel for electrical operations, without having to carry around heavy, noisy generators. Imagine, the Coleman Fluorescent lantern (or something bigger!) powered from a fuel cell! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

*sigh* may that day come soon.

 

[raggie33]

hoolly molly what ya all is saying about keroscen that it is bright as 400 watt bulb.. u can probaly play firisbes out doors at night with one.i love All leterns there something about em.i even like the old huricane ones that use a wick.i get the keroscen ones for like 3 bucks

 

[cheesehead]

400 watts, that's impressive.

Natural gas stove, why isn't everyone dead, hmm, I don't know, I would assume they would be from my last post (not this post, but about a year ago, where I got jumped). Stoves emit next to nothing in CO, they are almost all CO2. A lantern too if it's blue or close too it, will be safe, but there have been reported deaths in closed tents from their use.