Power failure: The best light is:

[Gandalf]

On the shortest night of the year, I had a power failure. Sort of a flashaholic's dream come true.

The last time I had a significant power failure, I mostly had Maglites to see me through. I made do, but I wasn't very happy carrying around a 2 D cell Maglite while trying to do things. I ran down my Magcharger, and Streamlight Stinger pretty quickly. For 'hands free' light, The 2AA, or better yet, the 2AAA light can be held in your mouth quite easily, but the thought of slipping and falling, and being found dead on the floor with a Mini Maglite stuck into my brainstem was not too appealing.

Things are *much* better now: I have a very large assortment of lights to choose from. So which lights were the most used, and useful?

Although this should be pretty obvious, virtually any headlight is far and away the most useful light to have. Both your hands are free to do whatever you need to do. My Photon Fusion stayed on my head virtually the entire night. This 6 LED light is just perfect for lighting your way in a dark room. It has 4 wider angle Nichia white LED's, and 2 of the 'standard' white Nichia's. This light delivers both a good area light, and a nice 'hot spot' right were you want it. The light pivots to several locking positions, and then a slight adjustment of the head light straps puts the light right where you need it. It has 3 power levels, also, to conserve power. Also, the head straps can be removed, and the head containing the LED's can be removed from the side of the battery pack, and attached to the end of the battery pack, giving you a light with a swiveling head that will stand on a table, and a very decent hand held light as well. All in all, perhaps the best LED headlight on the market today.

But while the Photon Fusion works well as a general light, I found I needed more light for some tasks. What to use? Any incandescent light gives a really poor yellow color, when you are used to the light from white LED's. All of the SureFire lights, except possibly the E1, are a way, way overkill for inside the house general illumination, except for those brief times when an extremely bright light might be needed.

The light I found most useful for when I needed some really bright light was the Lambda Illuminator. It beat out the Arc-LS due to it's quick and easy to use tail click switch.

But the Luxeon Star LED is pretty power hungry, compared to most lights with Nichia white LED's.

The other light that got quite a bit of use during the blackout was my EternaLight Elite Xray. This light is great to read by, bright enough for task use, and can illuminate an small room when stood up it's base and shined on the ceiling. Due to it's S rank Nichia LED's, and the lithium AA batteries in it, it is much brighter, and whiter, and had a much tighter 'beam' than my Photon Fusion head lamp.

Some years back, I had a power failure that lasted for 5 days. I had a few sets of Nicads, which were pretty quickly depleted. I used them in a portable radio, as well as in my Mini Maglites. I had only a few extra AA alkalines on hand. I had several 2 D Maglites, which provided most of my lighting, but I had few, if any, extra batteries for them on hand, either.

That's not the case now. I have plenty of batteries on hand, including many AA NiMH rechargeables, as well as a good number of AA alkaline batteries. But what if I didn't? What if I was limited to just the batteries in the lights I had? Obviously, the lights with very long burn times are the best for power outages, just as they are for camping or backpacking. And, aside from the fairly rare C and D cell LS LED mods, that means lights using Nichia LEDs.

And if I could only have a single light, and the batteries in it? I think I'd pick any EternaLight with lithium AA's; with the Elite Xray being my first choice, for obvious reasons. While there are big advantages to headlights, the EternaLight offers a very rugged case, positive bouyancy in water, compact size, and both brighter, and longer lasting light, than the Photon Fusion, and most other LED headlights, I expect. It has 9 different light levels, before you start stepping down from 4 to 3 to 2 and then to a single dim LED. On it's lowest setting, with all four LED's on Technology Associates rate the light for 700 hours. Odds are, the last third of that time is going to be pretty dim, but if you don't mind the high speed flicker at the lower settings, you could read by the light every night for months.

What would be your choice, if you could only have one light, and one set of batteries for it, for either emrgency, or camping/backpacking use?

 

[Sean]

I was about to start a thread on the same thing. I've been thinking about what light I would want as a be-all end-all emergency light in case of a long term power outage. Surefires are definately out as well as the ARC LS, their battery life is too short.

I would like to hear what others think. I was thinking about the Lightwave 4000 for it's long life D cell power.

What's a good, bright emergency light that would last for many hours?

 

[EMPOWERTORCH]

I might be a bit biased because I made the thing... but the EMPOWERTORCH BT1 is a great power-outage torch and has been field-tested in my home and on a campsite. It is a 4AA-powered single 5000mcd green nichia LED torch mounted in an ABS plastic box. It has a pushbutton tailswitch which makes it a lot easier to operate than some rotary head switched torches I've had. The Nichia LED gives out a really smooth light compared to a filament bulb.
I tested the torch under simulated power-outage conditions by conducting several tasks using no light but the BT1.
Food preparation was interesting due to the colour rendition...
Reading...
I found the torch's smooth green output very pleasant for reading by. Being square, the BT1 didn't roll about once positioned and I could read with both hands free to hold the book and turn its pages. Green is very easy on the eyes compared to the harsh light given by a filament torch on the pages of a book.
Place the torch on any reasonably level surface aimed at a white wall or ceiling and the BT1 becomes an excellent area light. Enough reflected light to find your way around the average sized room. Again it doesn't roll away like so many round-bodied torches would!
Where the BT1 really excels is with its very long battery life...the four AAA's installed at the time of building are still giving a very good amount of light after 3 months of regular usage, including accidentally leaving it on overnight a few times. These are cheap "pound shop" batteries, nothing fancy or pricey like Duracells, so the torch is extremely cheap to run and is considerably safer and more reliable than using candles! I would expect more than a years typical torch usage out of a set of high capacity alkalines! So, as a power-outage light, the BT1 is the light for me!

 

[Joe Talmadge]

I've pretty much picked the Eternalite as my main power outage and earthquake light. It's dimmable, and runtime is amazing on the lowest setting. In the scenario of a few days power outage, I could leave it in the bathroom as a nightlight on the lowest setting (which I do anyway, I've had it 6 months at least), but also be able to use it on the higher setting for putting about the house.

For brighter lights, Arc LS is first choice, but there are definitely times when even that's not bright enough, for which there are Surefires.

I hadn't thought much about the convenience of the Lambda Illuminator. When everyone was flipping over them, I was thinking, "okay, very cool mod, but it's no brighter than my Arc 123A, but 4 times as long. Why would I look at it?" But the tailcap switch would be a significant improvement for frequent usage, a nice feature for power outage.

Joe

 

[McGizmo]

Well, this is probably cheating but I have over 60 LED fixtures in and around my house and garage. Initially, they wer powered from four different 110 VAC to 12 VDC transformers with photo switches or timers. I installed a 40 AmpHr Gel battery in my basement that is hooked up to a smart 10 amp battery charger. I reconnected all of the 12 volt LED lights to this power supply. I installed a 12 volt photo switch that powers up the circuit when it is dark.

Many of the lights have their own on off switches so they can be turned off or on at will when it is dark and 12 volts is available due to the main photo switch. In the event of a power outage, the gel battery will probably provide enough power for 4 or 5 nights of operation.

Typically, even with 110VAC available, I have safe ingress and egress in and around my house without ever turning on a normal light.
There are two reading lights on the bed headboard, a 9star reading light on stalk on the wall above the kitchen table and two such task lights in my garage.

For a portable light, I have an eternalight with a soft coil tether that is connected at both ends to the light. This can be comfortably worn around the neck with the light pointing down and the light fill is enough for walking around, hands free, unless the light needs to be specifically directed which is simple enough to do.

Since becoming a member of this forum, my quiver of flashlights has grown to the point that my additional portable options have grown imennsely and I am in a position to aid my neighbors with lighting, should the need arise

 

[jtivat]

The LW 4000 is a very nice light for this. Lots of light for a very long time and thats what this application needs.

 

[sotyakr]

Hope this isn't being repetitious, but I'm also in the eternaLight camp. I've got a model 3 (which lives in the car) and an EliteXRay for all of the reasons mentioned already. Haven't experienced too many blackouts around here lately, except for the rolling kind last year, and they occurred during the day. But, having the eternaLights around is reassuring.

The XRay has been great on camping trips. Plenty bright for finding your way around, and hanging up in the tent.

 

[rlhess]

First, when there is a power failure we try and keep a normal routine--i.e. go to bed at a normal time, so we don't need all-night lights.

The boys have Tech *** PR2s in 2C lights that will run all night if necessary plus their 2D Krypton Lumilites I just bought them.

For all-night use, the PT Aurora headlamp is useful--and also for wandering around hands-free.

The 4D Energizer folding lantern and a 4D incandescent (with dimmer) RadioShack (possibly Dorcy) lantern (it aims up and has a dome and a plastic bail handle) provide room lighting when needed.

For general looking around and working, that's why I got the UKE D8. Lots of light, long run time, dual lamp construction. A lot to carry, but a lot of light for a long time.

The normal EDC (Arc AAA LE and SF E2e) will also serve purposes for looking around, etc.

Notice almost all of the above are alkalines, and I normally stock 48+ C and 48+ D cells as well as 100+ AAs and 50+ AAAs and 20+ 123s.

I cheat a bit as I have a 2.4(?)kW generator.

Cheers,

Richard

 

[brightnorm]

I had good practice for this questions even before joining CPF in my preparations for Y2K. For power failures of unknown duration I make a distinction between house lights and personal lights. Also, I'll restrict my comments to "in house" lights rather than lights outside the house. I found that the best house lights were the 8 D cell fluorescent lanterns and after some experimenting I found my favorites:

Coleman "Deluxe Twin Tube Lantern" Approx burntime: 24hrs
Dorcy "Luminator Twin Tube Lantern" Approx burntime: 45-50hrs

There are brighter models but burntime is sharply reduced

In the "personal light" category, almost any light, including the Infinity is more than adequate for navigating around the house since I could almost do it blindfolded. I too like the Eternalights for their variable brightness and my favorite is still the original "classic" model because it is much smaller than all the others and can be stood on end to make the perfect 700 hour night light. Too bad it's not waterproof. For a very bright long burning durable light I prefer the Trek 1400 or the LW 3000/4000. I always carry at least one "mini-superbright" on my belt; either the TACM III or the ASP TACLITE/TRIAD

One of the biggest challenges during a blackout is creating a feeling of comfort and security. Aside from food, water and shelter LIGHT is crucial to that end, and I always have at least three of my six lanterns burning unless it is a very bright day.
I used to haul bags of D,C, and AA batteries home from RadioShack until I discovered online sources. I never keep less than about 120-180 Alkaline D cells in the house which I "refresh" every three or four years. Fanatic? You bet!

Finally, the best reading light I've found after trying many brands is the Levenger "Light Voyager". It's a 4AA mini-fluorescent that gives a very bright smoothly dispersed long lasting beam.

Brightnorm

.

 

[fracman]

I live in a small subdivision and was so thrilled when the power went out for four hours. Naturally, the x990 was there.

But my solution was really quite elegant. A Honda 6500 generator that I could plug in and run about 1/3rd of the house on. I particualrly loved turning on all the lights in the front of the house with all those dark ones every where.

 

[EMPOWERTORCH]

I suppose our obsession comes into its own during a power outage, and we can make good friends with the neighbours by offering them a torch or two...They will really appreciate you greatly...hopefully you will get your torches back afterwards!

 

[Brock]

Well I have 12v outlets and back-up inverter outlets all around the house. I have 240vac at 5kw in sine wave inverters (dual SW2512's) that power all the inverter outlets, including the fridge and freezer. I also have a little 4kw 240vac genset, 12v 35amp genset, and 200w of solar panels. And if all else fails I can charge my battery bank with a line to my garage and connect them to one of the cars. My wife jokes, "When the power goes out, I know because some lights come on". Which is true, they automatically come on if the grid AC fails. I should point out that we do have regular outages here so I am not all that crazy, (well that's my excuse anyway) and in the winter when the power goes out all the neighbors come over, then they think it is neat.

As for personal lighting, I am never far from any, I am using the Opalec more and more, and beginning to use the Pal again. I like that it starts dim and gets brighter, great for using at night when you need a little light and don't want to loose your night vision. I have removed the lenses on them; I like the wider spill of light.

I also have quite a few "extra" batteries lying around, but I can recharge my Ni-MH's I use in the Opalec from my 12v battery bank (1200amps) with the C204F charger. I also like the CCFT lights; I have three now and really like to be able to place them where ever. They also use Ni-MH's, so I am set.

 

[rlhess]

Between Brightnorm and Brock, I'm a neophyte! Wow, Brock, that IS impressive!

I guess living in the benign climate of So Cal makes me less concerned. The generator that I have runs the fridge and some of the lights and connects into the main house wiring with some switching. There's 99.99% protection against backfeeding the grid.

The Colemen generator that I have is noisy, so that makes Brock's idea of the battery bank (1200AH -- WOW!) a good idea. What kind of life do you get from the battery bank?

Cheers,

Richard

 

[Empath]

Brock, which CCFT lights do you use?

 

[brightnorm]

McGizmo and Brock,

VERY impressive. It's times like these that I wish I lived in a house rather than an apartment, with the space and circumstances to hook up all these wonderful devices and then pray fervently for a blackout!

Brightnorm

 

[Brock]

My current battery bank is about 4 years old. It is 1200a at 12v=14,400w or about 14kw. I consider it a 10kw bank to be conservative. I rarely get the bank below about 80%. In RE (renewable energy) systems mine is actually quite small. I can run my all my loads on a sunny day with the solar panels. I plan to add 1 SP75 (75w solar panel) a year, I have three at this time.

I set this system up so it takes no human intervention to switch to backup, and can run about 2 days by itself. I didn't want to have to have my wife starting a generator or switching plugs. Or get home with my wife to find the power had been out the whole day and the freezer completely thawed, which is what started it all.

As for CCFT I have been using the Eveready "Arc White" and the Sharper Image "Light Voyager" (both using 4AA's) and the other little neat one I bought off EBay that runs on 4 AAA (can't remember the name right now) and the tube folds out and swivels 180.


The Arc White pulls 280mA, 3" tube
The 4 AAA one pulls 240mA, 4inch tube
The Sharper Image one pulls 220mA, 2 inch tube.
This is also the brightness order.

I also use a 8D Coleman CF lantern. It uses a standard 13w CF lamp and is the brightest "area" light I have. I also have added a 12v plug to it

 

[txwest]

Since everyone is listing some very exotic outlays here, I'm going to go the other way. Very cheap & simple. Something you might recomend to a neighbor that's not going to spend much money, but it still works very well.

Go to W-M, or simular store, & get the Cool Blue ($9) & Dorcey 4AA lantern ($3). Now swap the bulbs. You then have a lantern that puts out plenty of light for an area light when your eyes get dark adjusted, & a bright light to use for short periods when you need it. Then when the batteries in the incadesent start getting dim, just swap with the light that has the LED. Then if you really want to get the most out of your batteries, get a 4.5V LED & a 3V LED. As the batteries run down, just swap lamps.

But even without the extra LED, you have a pretty good setup for less than $15. TX

 

[Saaby]

I'll post somethign cheap too...I like the Energizer Folding Flouressent lantern very much. They publish 40 hours on 2 bulbs and 20 on 1 bulb on 4 D-Cells. I recently purchased it's little brother...the LED version and like it quite a bit to, but I think it's battery life numbers are slightly exaggerated, 100 hours for 2 LEDs 200 for 1 LED on 4 AAs, but they might be telling the truth, it's not like these are Luxeon Stars...(Still plenty bright enough to light up a room though)

Have a friend that works at a hospital? My mom's friend works at a hospital where they use those industrial D-Cell Duracells, they have to throw them out (or rather...give them away) if they are used ONCE or after a certain ammount of time, so I have an almost endless supply of D batteries.

 

[BuddTX]

Where the Power Outage occurs, and what you need to do, would, I think, determine what you need.

I thought that I was prepared, when Flood Allison hit in June of 2001. Although I had many lights, I did not yet know about CPF's, and my light collection was basicly limited to what Wal-mart carried.

One lite that I did have, and still like/hate, is the Energizer ARC white. I own five of these! The incandecent bulb is almost worthless (except for one of my lights, where the beam is narrow, but almost perfect! - the other 4, however, the beam was soo bad, I took the bulb out and put in an LED bulb). I really like the fluorescent blub, and the ArcWhite is compact enough to fit into your pocket, and I think the run time is 8-12 hours.

I read that some people say that SureFire or ARC LS would not work because of short run time, but your power outage provisions should have multiple lights, extra bulbs and extra batteries, and led lights.

At home, I have one of the Energizer folding Fluorescent lights. It has a 20/40 hour run time depending on if you use one or two bulbs, and can give 360 light:

Something to consider, if you have children (for at home) or for employees (at work) is to have lots of cheap flashlights to hand out to employees or children. This gives them comfort, as well as safety.

Now if you are just sitting at home, waiting for the lights to come on, I think you are set, but if you have to work, hands free lights are a very big help.

I like the Princeton Tec Aurora, but there are lots of choices here. I also like the Lite-ize Lite-Lok, that mounts a 2AA light on your belt, and lets you pivot the light for either carrying, or horizontal so it can be your "headlight".

Also, this is not a time to be a hobbiest, or a "pure-ist". Use Incandecents when you need to, and use LED's when you need to. Don't try to substutite one for the other.

The Princeton Tec Surge would be a good light to have in a flood/hurricane/emergency kit also. Long, run time, very bright light, and hands free lanyard option is a godsend if you are rescuing or doing some emergency operations.

Make sure to have some bottled water, first aid supplies, small radio, antihistimines, flares, and some canned foods, and candy bars, and put it all in a waterproof container.

If you live in a remote area, I would think you would need to keep a large supply of emergency supplies on hand, but if you live in a urban area, you just need a couple of days worth of supplies.

I survived Hurrican Alicica, and the Eye of the Hurricane actually passed directly over my house. Talk about an erie feeling! After hours of torrential winds, and rain, and mopping up the water "pelting" through our door for hours, the sun came out, and everthing was calm and sunny. We knew that we were in the eye, and it was very wired knowing that there was nothing that we could do to get out of the storm. We just waited for the storm to start back up again.

Now, I lived in a suburb of Houston, and I don't think it could get much worse than Alicica (although Flood Allison was no fun either!), and within 2-3 days of Alicia , the stores were all re-stocked with bread and water, and everything you needed, so I think that you need to be prepared, but not go overboard, on keeping food and supplies. Now, Batteries are another issue, as it took a couple of weeks to get power restored to everyone in Houston after Alicia.

Someone mentioned the LightWave 4000, and I agree that the LW 4000 is an awsom light, with an incredible amout of runtime, but one thing to consider is it's weight.

When dealing with Flood Allison, I carried around a Mag-light 3-D light, and a Energizer 8 AA db light, and the Energizer ArcWhite. (It was all I knew about at the time!)

Carrying around those lights for 14 days, got very old, very quickly.

I would have much rather have had an ARC LS, and a Brinkmann Legend LX, and a Princeton Tec Aurora, and two Lite-Loc bet clips, and extra batteries.

So, in summary, sitting at home, just watching tv, waiting for the power to come back on

, an energizer fluorescent lantern, and whatever lights you have laying around the house would be fine (I am sure that everyone here has more than enough lights!). Don't forget about the children. You probably don't want to give them your 80 dollar lights, but you don't want them to be left out either. The Attitude would be a good one for children. Up to 140 hour run time too. Of course it gets less bright, but a child's comfort will be that the light is on, not how bright it is, and it would make a good night light. Make sure you have a neck rope.

But, if you are in a disaster or emergenency situation, your needs are different.

Hope it never happens to anyone reading this!

 

[Lux Luthor]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by EMPOWERTORCH:
...I found the torch's smooth green output very pleasant for reading by....Green is very easy on the eyes compared to the harsh light given by a filament torch on the pages of a book...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I find green to be the easiest on the eyes. Yellow is fairly easy on the eyes, and with better color rendition, but it's just not that bright of a color.

Green is an excellent power outage color. It's very efficient, and preserves night vision, which can be important since the rest of the area is likely to be very dark. It also gives reasonable color rendition: better than red and blue, but not as good as yellow.

I've mentioned this before, but I have a BD Moonlight with 3AA battery case I ripped from a Lunar. I replaced the whites with 4 green LEDs. It gives off good brightness for about 24 hours straight on NiMHs. Point it at the ceiling, and it lights up a whole room. If you go outside, just put it back on your head.

Definitely consider an LED headlamp for power outages. Also, don't give up that long range spotting torch. You need it to spot things down the street, and maybe even to flag emergency personnel.