lighting up a room (power outage)

[adrianmariano]

I had a power outage recently and I tried to use a lantern that I had obtained for this purpose. It's the Nuwai 20 LED 4 D cell lantern:

http://flashlightreviews.com/reviews/lantern_ck-220.htm

And while it was better than nothing, it seemed like it wasn't that great. I had the lantern in the middle of a table. (Maybe it would have been better elevated.0 It was almost better to stand my streamlight propolymer LED 4AA on its tail pointed at the ceiling. So I'm wondering, what do you think is the best way to light up a room during an outage?

Is pointing a light at the ceiling the best choice? If so, what is the best light for the job?

Or is there a better lantern out there? River rock? I saw a Coast lantern at brightguy that looked interesting:
http://www.brightguy.com/products/Coast_LED_Lantern_4_AA.php

 

[LukeA]

I built a 3 warm white Cree 3DMag and it's great for ceiling bounce. It's running about 450 lumens out the front.

I think for ceiling bounce you want at least 300 lumens, especially when you realize that many rooms are typically illuminated by ten times that amount of light.

 

[TJOD]

double post....

 

[TJOD]

I think that radiating light in all direction (lantern) would be much more efficient than pointing a bright light at the celling. When you point the light at the celling what you are doing is bouncing light off the celling, in other words, you are using the celling as a reflector, just like the ones in the head of a flashlight. That said, the celling is not a good reflector, so most of the light is going to be in a nice bright spot on the celling with out lighting up the room much. A lantern on the other hand will produce light in all directions, thus lighting up the room. I would go for an LED lantern as they are going to be more efficient, aka longer run time, which you are probably going to need, because u have no way of knowing exactly how long you are going to be going with out power. I also thing that going with a few medium bright lanterns would be better than getting one super bright one. With more less bright lanterns you are going to get more even light in the whole room. Also i think it would be annoying to have the "sun" in the middle of your room lighting it, its going to be annoying to look in the direction of the super bright lantern. also when you do your pupils will dilate and when you look away the room will appear to be less bight for a few minutes. In addition I would strongly recommend going with a lantern which runs off lithium batteries. The reason for this is that they can last up to 10 years in the device. Normal batteries might leak and harm the lantern, so when its time to use it......

my two cents

 

[adrianmariano]

The room I was in is normally illuminated by two 100 W incandescent bulbs which means 2800 lumens. I'm not trying to duplicate that level of illumination. I want to be able to not walk into things, not trip over the kid's toys. We were playing a game on the table and wanted to be able to read the game pieces. (I have a headlamp to use when I need really good light for something. It's a Princeton Tec Corona and I've been very happy with it.)

I agree that shining a light at the ceiling seems suboptimal due to losses at the ceiling. But nevertheless it seemed like the smaller light shining at the ceiling was nearly as good as the lantern. One problem was the lantern's beam wasn't very smooth. (Maybe others are better.) Using the ceiling as a diffuser would tend to even out nonuniformities. It also means less shadowing. We were looking at the lantern, so it may have made its light less effective. Another problem is that the lantern's light mostly went out and down, so the region that was illuminated seemed to be kind of small. I think if I'd had a way to hang it up higher (and had thought about it at the time) it would have worked better.

The lantern I have has the disadvantage of using D cells. It's the only thing in the house that uses D cells. I have the D cells stored in a separate box next to it to prevent lantern death due to battery leakage.
(I suppose I could get some of those AA->D adapters.)

 

[Oddjob]

I have to say I never liked lanterns for lighting up rooms. I find the light from some lanterns distracting in my peripheral vision and I do not like the artifacts in the beam. I prefer ceiling bounce even if there is some loss in light because the light is more even and not shining in my eye. A Fenix light diffuser works well if you do not want to ceiling bounce. It's like a soft lightbulb.

 

[adrianmariano]

That diffuser is interesting. Are the compatible Fenix lights (L2D looks best) good for lighting up a room that way? (I have resisted the temptation to get a Fenix so far...)

One thing I noticed about the Coast lantern I mentioned is that it has a diffuser that might make the light less irregular.

 

[Stereodude]

Not to pimp my own thread, but you might want to check out this thread.

 

[adrianmariano]

You're quite right to direct me to that thread!

I did a bit more testing with my own lights last night and we concluded that my Streamlight 4AA LED at the ceiling is better than the 22 LED lantern no matter how I position the lantern, despite the inefficiency of bouncing off the ceiling. I was eyeing the Fenix L1D CE which should be considerably brighter than the Streamlight.

One of the issues with ceiling bounce is whether you can see into the light or not. With the streamlight which has a wide flood beam you still have a bright spot you have to avoid looking at. How well does the Fenix do (without the diffuser) at this?

Hmmm. I see my thread got relocated to the "laterns" area which isn't necessarily right for talking about ceiling bounce of regular lights.

 

[Uncle Bob]

I like the Energizer Weather Ready 4-D Folding Lantern...

http://tinyurl.com/67k8ap

 

[Weylan]

Build a 12V light regular house lamp.

Go to Target and buy a regular light with a shade. any light really works.
Cut off the cord end and replace it with a accessory cord adapter. Kind that goes in your car.

Buy a RV CFL 11W-30W bulb that runs from 12V.
See this link for examples.
http://store.altenergystore.com/Lighting-Fans/Compact-Fluorescent/c495/

Buy a battery jump box that you can charge all the time from an AC outlet so it is ready to go when you need it. See something like this at Kragen or Autozone on sale for $< 30.00.
http://www.partsamerica.com:80/ProductDetail.aspx?mfrcode=MTD&mfrpartnumber=11406

An 11W-14W bulb can run for like 4-8 hours depending on the Wattage you choose and can light the room like a 40-100W bulb.

The even cooler way to go, is the RV CFL bulbs can be so bright at this point that you sometimes can't tell the difference from regular house lights. We charge a jump start battery VIA solar pannel durring the day. and run many of the lights by this method EVERY day. It is funny we had a power outage durring the last storm. And the neighbor came over because their lights were out. We did not even know the power was out because at the time we were watching movies on the LAPTOP and surfing the net. And he was wondering how come we still had power.

But it is awesome to have light for 4-6 hours at a reasonable light level every day that multiple people can see with and not have to be huddled around the light. For Free from solar.

 

[StarHalo]

That diffuser is interesting. Are the compatible Fenix lights (L2D looks best) good for lighting up a room that way? (I have resisted the temptation to get a Fenix so far...)

The L2D uses two standard AA batteries, lasts for *over three days* on its low setting (roughly the same light output as a Minimag), plus you still have the much higher output settings to use as needed. That means the $5 8-pack of batteries carried at every store in your area will provide you with *over a month* of light even when used 8 hours a day :thumbsup:

 

[Alan]

The L2D uses two standard AA batteries, lasts for *over three days* on its low setting (roughly the same light output as a Minimag), plus you still have the much higher output settings to use as needed. That means the $5 8-pack of batteries carried at every store in your area will provide you with *over a month* of light even when used 8 hours a day :thumbsup:

I doubt how effective using diffuser on low setting.

I found that it's true that using ceiling bounce mode on a high output flashlight would be brighter than LED lantern, but it won't last long. Lantern was designed to last for tens of hours if not days on a set of battery.

Try the Rayovac SE3DLN Lantern that cost only $29.99. It uses 3x1W Nichia LED. It is bright without any artifact. I bought 2 of them and it's brightest LED lantern I ever have. I also have Eveready 4D folding LED lantern which is also good lantern but not as bright as SE3DLN. Both of them lasts for days. http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=197442

Alan

 

[StarHalo]

I doubt how effective using diffuser on low setting.

Effective enough for a group gathered at/around a table; if you're just interested in lighting the entire room as though the power wasn't off at all, you might consider a household generator.

 

[Stereodude]

You're quite right to direct me to that thread!

I added my shots from my Coleman Pinnacle PerfectFlow InstaStart Propane Lantern on very low, medium, and high in my shootout thread if you're interested to see how it compares to the battery powered lights in your quest for lighting up a room during a power outage.

 

[lctorana]

We had a blackout last year, and I also found my lanterns irritating.

They have very good diffusers, but the point is, I just don't like light below eye level.

For cooking tea, I used the lanterns and some torches, but for eating, I used...

...a tailstanding 6D Maglite. (yup, ordinary MagXenon)

The ceiling bounce cast a lovely light to eat by, to such an extent that the family said that they were almost disappointed when the power came back on because the light was so pleasant...

That pleased me.

The point of the 6D Maglite was that, being so tall, it elevated the emitter well above eye level, completely eliminating glare.

 

[Ron Schroeder]

Build a 12V light regular house lamp.

Go to Target and buy a regular light with a shade. any light really works.
Cut off the cord end and replace it with a accessory cord adapter. Kind that goes in your car.

Buy a RV CFL 11W-30W bulb that runs from 12V.
See this link for examples.
http://store.altenergystore.com/Lighting-Fans/Compact-Fluorescent/c495/
<snip>

Modifying regular lighting is the way to go. Diffusion cuts down on glare, making the light more usefull. There are quite a few 12V CFLs, even MR-12 versions.

If you don't want to modify a lamp for 12V, you can still stick a flashlight inside of the shade. M@gs are especially easy with the removable head (candle mode) with either the incandescent bulb or a LED conversion.

I have held flashlights inside of shades with tape, tywraps, rubber bands etc. Stick flashlights in table lamps, ceiling lamps, whatever. Use the ones with the lightest shades for the most light of course.

You can also use household shades to build effective lanterns. I especially like inexpensive frosted or white ceiling light globes. I have one that I stick a 3AA M@g LED into, A donut of styrofoam keeps the flashlight centered.

Lastly, you can use various household goods as diffusers for flashlights. Tupperware, Rubbermaid or similar containers work. In a pinch, even a paper cup or some tissue paper or bubble wrap will make a diffuser.

 

[leeleefocus]

I have used lanterns in the past and much prefer cieling bounce.

My reasons being the light is very even throughout the room and also if you position it correctly there is no chance of looking into the light like there would be with a lantern.

I use my L2D-CE for this in either medium high or turbo depending on how i feel and how well my eyes are addapted to the light.

I don't worry about runtime because i find the light very good on batteries and i always have many sets recharged and ready plus a few Alkaline's lying around. Even on turbo mode i have got over 40 hours runtime with my batteries available.

 

[adrianmariano]

Power outages are pretty rare in my house, so I'm not inclined to do a lot of special purpose stuff just for power outages. If power outages were common I'd definitely consider the CFL lamp with the 12 V battery.

My goal here is not to make like there's no outage, but just to make it possible to do stuff. I have special reading lights to read with. I have a headlamp which is good for lots of activities. But I don't want to eat dinner by headlamp. Or for another example, my wife tried to put the laundry away using the lantern during the outage. She complained that the light was terrible for this task. I don't think a headlamp would have been good either. I think it's not so much a brightness issue as to do with how well the light fills the space. With ceiling bounce you don't have shadows everywhere.

Another problem with some of the lanterns (the ones with really long advertised run times) is their use of D cells. Nothing else in my house uses D cells. The D cells I have for the lantern are now 2 years past their expiration date.... I've got something like 50 AA cells scattered around the house in various devices. And they are a very easy size to find. To make the D cell lantern practical I'd have to get the AA->D adapters, and I'll bet the run time wouldn't be so great on a set of AA's.

I ordered a L1D CE Q5 (my first fenix!). Did I make a mistake? Should I have got the L2D instead? The performance seemed to be the same (except for turbo), with advertised run times for the 1D about half of those for the 2D. I could still get the longer body.... I thought shorter would be a bit more stable standing on its tail...and I have a bunch of lights that are the length of 2AA but no shorter ones.

 

[Ron Schroeder]

Run a CFL on a string of those AA batts? 8 cell battery holder at Radio Shack - $2 bucks?