is there any benefits to gas or keroscenne laterns?.

[raggie33]

i mean i have a sofirn if25a latern i charge with solar i do miss the hiss of gas . but is there any reason to buy these relics ?

 

[vicv]

I'm not sure if there's a "reason", but I still like mine. In all honesty we don't NEED light. Before flashlights, people just went to bed when it got dark or read by candlelight.

 

[idleprocess]

Short of coming across a lantern for nothing-fifty and firing it up for funsies, the era of the gas lantern is over. In decades past when portable electric lighting was generally limited to incandescent lamps powered by carbon-zinc cells, a gas lantern could illuminate an area like nothing else of similar handiness.

But as we know technology has changed considerably; to wit a gas lantern is apt to be rated at watts per lumen rather than the more familiar inverse metric for other portable battery-electric technologies. By almost any metric of performance - other than waste heat rejection - LED and modern battery technology will offer orders of magnitude better performance.

 

[raggie33]

i agree idle oddly enough i found one of my inflatable solar lights it had to be a year since it was charged thru solar and it lite right up. btw it also can charge a cell phone slowly very slowly lol. i found it in a thrift store for a dollar if i recall .almost felt bad buying it so cheap

 

[Jean-Luc Descarte]

For warmth alongside the lighting, I guess?

 

[JimIslander]

I'm still a huge fan of my Coleman white gas lantern for base camps. I believe white gas carries far more lumens per pound than any battery, but I haven't verified the math. It runs great on gasoline, so if we lose the grid, we still have years of light...as long as we don't shatter the globes.

"Only" 800 lumens, but unlike a flashlight, that's 360 degrees of 800 lumens.

 

[vicv]

You're definitely right. Gasoline is much more energy dense than any battery

 

[raggie33]

but then you got to pump it up and for real my gas lantern sucks to light you have to preheat it with alchol for damn near 90 seconds

 

[JimIslander]

but then you got to pump it up and for real my gas lantern sucks to light you have to preheat it with alchol for damn near 90 seconds

???

I have thousands of hours on these lanterns. They light in seconds. Yours is probably due for a rebuild.

 

[vicv]

Something is wrong with it then. Mine all light instantly. Probably the generator needs a good cleaning

 

[raggie33]

nah thats just how they are when you use keroscene. coleman fuel is easy

 

[vicv]

Well that's your problem! Don't use kerosene

 

[raggie33]

Here it is I like kerosene because it's brighter and cheaper https://photos.app.goo.gl/H7T7aJDanomkXm9T6

 

[Thetasigma]

For situations where you aren't around an electric grid and no alternative charging solution like solar is present, a gas lantern will still give you some of the best performance for energy to weight.

In EDC or less intensive situations I am hard-pressed to find gas lanterns particularly compelling over LED lanterns.
That said I don't frown upon keeping gas/kerosene lanterns/lamps around as a reserve option as they produce quite serviceable light and if you need light when the batteries are dead, they beat the heck out of sitting in the dark

 

[idleprocess]

I'm still a huge fan of my Coleman white gas lantern for base camps. I believe white gas carries far more lumens per pound than any battery, but I haven't verified the math. It runs great on gasoline, so if we lose the grid, we still have years of light...as long as we don't shatter the globes.

"Only" 800 lumens, but unlike a flashlight, that's 360 degrees of 800 lumens.

Performance stats from the 'zon:

This outdoor lantern lasts up to 5 hours on high or 20 hours on low with 2.5 pints of fuel (sold separately).

We'll go with the high figure since that's quoted. 800 lumens for 5 hours per 2.5 pints of fuel or 0.3125 gallons. Gasoline is about 33kWH per gallon. 10,313Wh to produce 4000 lumen-hours or about 2.58 watts per lumen.

On a mass basis ... 0.375 * 6.3 lb/gallon = 1.97 lb of gasoline. Simplistically, 4000 lumen-hours from a 100 lm/W OTF source would demand 40 watt-hours, which we could round to 4 18650 cells. A typical 18650 is around 45 grams... multiply by 4 to get 190 which is about 0.40 lb. The extra ~1.5lb could go towards additional cells or a solar charging apparatus to net considerable additional runtime.

That being said I've got a sudden hankering to retrieve dad's old Coleman lantern and see if it will fire up on gasoline.

 

[raggie33]

gas laterns are fun they calm me but my sofirn fits in my pocket kinda lol and not fire risk.i charge it with foldable solar panel

 

[JimIslander]

Performance stats from the 'zon:

We'll go with the high figure since that's quoted. 800 lumens for 5 hours per 2.5 pints of fuel or 0.3125 gallons. Gasoline is about 33kWH per gallon. 10,313Wh to produce 4000 lumen-hours or about 2.58 watts per lumen.

On a mass basis ... 0.375 * 6.3 lb/gallon = 1.97 lb of gasoline. Simplistically, 4000 lumen-hours from a 100 lm/W OTF source would demand 40 watt-hours, which we could round to 4 18650 cells. A typical 18650 is around 45 grams... multiply by 4 to get 190 which is about 0.40 lb. The extra ~1.5lb could go towards additional cells or a solar charging apparatus to net considerable additional runtime.

That being said I've got a sudden hankering to retrieve dad's old Coleman lantern and see if it will fire up on gasoline.

800 lumens over 360 degrees, the equivalent of maybe 10 flashlights arranged in a circle. That's 4 pounds for batteries. $240 vs $1.00 worth of gas, or something to that effect. Or possibly I completely misunderstsnd the lumens measurement on lanterns.

 

[idleprocess]

800 lumens over 360 degrees, the equivalent of maybe 10 flashlights arranged in a circle. That's 4 pounds for batteries. $240 vs $1.00 worth of gas, or something to that effect. Or possibly I completely misunderstsnd the lumens measurement on lanterns.

Omnidirectional LED lanterns are a thing. BLF put their name on the LT1 which happens to be 800 lumens.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

For gas lanterns, I still use my butane lantern in a tent on cold nights for warmth. I have a propane adapter for it. If I wanted to, I could run it on a one pound or even 20 pound tank. Propane has pretty much replaced white gas in lanterns due to the increase in cost of Coleman fuel. For kerosene lanterns, most aren't made for kerosene unless it's a Kirkman lantern. Most fake ones use liquid paraffin. My best use for those is to take off the glass globe, cut the wick narrow, and use it in place of the specialty liquid candles in my luminizer lantern (uses heat to run l.e.d.s).

 

[Olumin]

Without electricity or during carrington event they are your only option. I dont like the ones which arent self-igniting. I recall having to push or turn some knob a few times to light the thing, most lanterns today dont have that function because they are not built as serious tools anymore. Makes them pretty useless IMO. Im not fiddling arround with some match or lighter out in the wilds. Imagine the thing goes out during rain or storm and it cannot self-light. Useless.