UpChUcK
Enlightened
So I bough the 4xAA Coleman Packaway LED Lantern for $21 @ Meijers. I got an orange and a red one and they also had blue which I'll get when I have more $$$ 
. I'm not sure how these lanterns are different from the Exponent line but they are pretty bright and this mod applies to Exponents too. I have seen the ugly as sin beam shots of the Coleman Exponent Packaway 4xAA and 3x123 LED lanterns throughout CPF (like DM51's comparison) and elsewhere on the web. But the lantern is such a clever design that I did not want to give up on it. I thought there's got to be an easy solution to smooth out the artifact-rich light emanating from it. So I was at the local hardware store picking up some mousetraps and went down the paint aisle and the Krylon Window Frosting spray caught my eye. So I decided to try it on the Packaway. Well, it worked well. See for yourself in the pics below.
If this mod was already done please forgive me, I did do a search albeit quick.
Here's the orange Packaway without frosting and it is arvertised as 90 lumens for 12 hours:
Here's the can of Krylon Glass Frosting and my red Packaway frosted w/ 1 thin coat:
A close up of the frosting with my River Rock 3xAA in background:
And below some comparison beam shots with and without frosting. Note: I still have blue masking tape on the frosted one because I may do another coat. All pics taken on Canon 30D DSLR in manual mode. f6.3, 1/13 sec., 200 ISO, 28mm.
Without frosting on high:
On high with frosting:
On low without frosting:
On low with frosting:
River Rock 3xAA on high:
As you can see, there is a huge difference in usable light. Without the frosting, the light is bright but the pattern is so bad that it is pretty much unusable. With the frosting however, the light not only is much smoother but also seems much brighter. :twothumbs Compared to the River Rock, it is very comparable but I did notice that the Coleman is brighter and now has a lot of smooth light going up.
I didn't know if the frosting would be scraped off upon closing and opening. But I was happy to find out that I could open and close it without affecting the frosting. Time will tell if it stays on though.
I may add additional coats to test out how much smoother the light can become, but I do not want to start diminishing the light output. Maybe 1 more coat at a later time.
Anyways, thanks for reading.
. I'm not sure how these lanterns are different from the Exponent line but they are pretty bright and this mod applies to Exponents too. I have seen the ugly as sin beam shots of the Coleman Exponent Packaway 4xAA and 3x123 LED lanterns throughout CPF (like DM51's comparison) and elsewhere on the web. But the lantern is such a clever design that I did not want to give up on it. I thought there's got to be an easy solution to smooth out the artifact-rich light emanating from it. So I was at the local hardware store picking up some mousetraps and went down the paint aisle and the Krylon Window Frosting spray caught my eye. So I decided to try it on the Packaway. Well, it worked well. See for yourself in the pics below.If this mod was already done please forgive me, I did do a search albeit quick.
Here's the orange Packaway without frosting and it is arvertised as 90 lumens for 12 hours:
Here's the can of Krylon Glass Frosting and my red Packaway frosted w/ 1 thin coat:
A close up of the frosting with my River Rock 3xAA in background:
And below some comparison beam shots with and without frosting. Note: I still have blue masking tape on the frosted one because I may do another coat. All pics taken on Canon 30D DSLR in manual mode. f6.3, 1/13 sec., 200 ISO, 28mm.
Without frosting on high:
On high with frosting:
On low without frosting:
On low with frosting:
River Rock 3xAA on high:
As you can see, there is a huge difference in usable light. Without the frosting, the light is bright but the pattern is so bad that it is pretty much unusable. With the frosting however, the light not only is much smoother but also seems much brighter. :twothumbs Compared to the River Rock, it is very comparable but I did notice that the Coleman is brighter and now has a lot of smooth light going up.
I didn't know if the frosting would be scraped off upon closing and opening. But I was happy to find out that I could open and close it without affecting the frosting. Time will tell if it stays on though.
I may add additional coats to test out how much smoother the light can become, but I do not want to start diminishing the light output. Maybe 1 more coat at a later time.
Anyways, thanks for reading.
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