Australia - West Coast trip - Opinions/Suggestions on lights needed

My cousin is leaving to Australia for a year on the 5th Feb and during his trip he will be travelling through the east coast in a caravan or motor home.
being a flashaholic I thought I should give him some lighting tools for the trip.

However i do not know what kind of light he may mostly need as i have never travelled in a caravan for extended periods.

I tot i might give him the Parthenon lantern i built for general wide area lighting ( can also be used to light up the entire camper ), a small flashlight with a wideish beam for close up general work ( P1D-CE ) and a larger one with some power and throw for everything else ( Quad XR-E mag 3D with shark driver ).

However.....I have a few problems:

There is a weight limit ( 22Kg ) on his luggage and he is already finding it very difficult not to go beyond the limit even without the lights as he needs to take a lot of other stuff for a 1 year trip.
This means that the parthenon is out as it is bulky and weighs about 5Kg on it's own.
this poses another problem for batteries as different recheargables need different chargers and add to weight and bulk.

Another problem is battery availability and cost as CR123 batts might be expensive and hard to find so the P1D-CE is a bit iffy at the mom.

so im guessing the best bet would be the quad XR-E Mag which i would give him without batteries to save on weight and he can buy the d size batts from there easily. it is dimmable for close range lighting and should bright enough for everything else, however it will not be good for area lighting unless i can come up with some collapsable diffusing cone which does not take too much away from brightness, also alk batteries will not be that good at high levels. he might be able to buy ni-mh batts there but not sure about a 12V car charger for them. it is also not that easy to carry being a bit bulky.

I do not have enough time to buy him something different from overseas but i could build something new from scratch as i do have a lathe and many XR-E's and optics.

so i'm in a bit of a dilemma.

Your opinoins and suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

hey,
definately get him a lantern because he'll probably be fishing at night alot. Also if you want to get him a light, get him some rechargeable cr123a cells too. They're close to $10 each here. The quad xr-e mag may be good too. You can always post him some lights later.

That's a good idea !! i had not thought of actually posting stuff to him.
The problem with the lantern is the weight and size, even if i posted it to him it would cost me a lot as it's very heavy. I could post him a couple if recheargable 123's and a charger for the P1D-CE, but the light settings would not work with a recheargable 123 in it which makes it less usable. i guess i could have some $1 primary 123's sent to him from the US too.

I also have an L1P that i could give him instead of the P1D-CE which may make things more economical.

Ideally i would give him 1 light for all uses but i doubt that it exists: a pocketable 500 lumen, long running ( at a lower setting ) , long throwing, side spilling, lantern transforming, ( solar charging ? ) light.

i guess ill have to design one in 10 days

BTW he will also be looking for a decent ( possibly also permanent ) job while being there so if any of you Aussies have a job opening I ( and my cousin ) would be very grateful.

Thanks

If he won't take the latern with him.. i could imagine a headlamp being very usefull (fishing, making food, car repairs, etc). Ain't too heavy either.
Maybe something that takes AA's?

He would like the 3AAA MiniM@G Led

Amonra said:

BTW he will also be looking for a decent ( possibly also permanent ) job while being there so if any of you Aussies have a job opening I ( and my cousin ) would be very grateful.

Thanks

Click to expand...

He will require a work permit to work in Australia, a visitors visa does not allow you to take up any form of employment.
Norm

Amonra said:

it is dimmable for close range lighting and should bright enough for everything else, however it will not be good for area lighting unless i can come up with some collapsable diffusing cone which does not take too much away from brightness,

Click to expand...

a plastic shopping bag can collapse into the size of a marble. When opened, it can be placed over the light can diffuse the flashlight to a pleasing level. There was a video of this somewhere of a few guys playing cards in a tent and squinting at their cards.. then one guy pulls out this cheap plastic shopping bag and lays it over the flashlight and suddenly the tent is well lit and tollerable. Anyone have that video?:huh:

Hello Amonra

Buy for him 2 RCR123 3.0V LiIons with charger (works perfect, tiny and lightweight) and a white reflective beacon from Barbolights for the P1D-CE.

So he'll have a very small EDC incl. lantern. With you QL-Mag it's all what he'll need.

Best regards

____
Tom

22kg to bring to Australia? Yikes! That's squat all depending on the Airline that he's flying with he might be able to ask the airline nicely and get a higher baggage allowance.
Get some rechargable CR123s and make sure they fit the lights you are giving him,

In terms of your all in one light this could be this one
http://www.tadgear.com/x-treme gear/flashlights main/wilderness_kit.htm

Transforms into a headlamp, area light and flashlight,

For jobs down under, hmmm, what type of visa your cuz got?

Raptor#: a headlight could also be nice i guess

TORCH_BOY: i do not have enough time to have one sent to me, i would also like to give him one with a little more umph.

Norm: He ( and his GF ) does have a working visa for 6 months of his stay 3 months of which will have to be harvesting to be able to stay for a further year if need be. so i guess it will have to be a temporary job. they will be staying at some relatives before the trip in Springvale in Melbourne.

carbine15: I was thinking of something more sophisticated but it's a good idea.

Long John: i think i will be giving him the P1D-CE anyway for EDC but without the Li-ions as i only have unprotected 3.7V ones and being a regulated light im afraid it would be dangerous.

quokked: it is quite an unreasonable weight limit. the airline is Emirates. another proble is that he will be stopping in Singapore for some cheap electronics shopping on the way to Australia so he has to leave some space for them too. and overweight costs about $24 per kilo which is expensive in my books.
The tadgear light would be ideal....only if it had a better emitter with some Ba#!s though.

i was thinking of modding one of these:

With 3 or 4 P4 XR-E's with Cree optics a shark with pot and 2 18650 li-ions in paralell.
The good thing is that it has 2 sliding filters, and i can mod one of them into an opaque one for area illumination and use the red one to preserve night vision. it also has an obscurator that can be used for signalling.
The only drawback is that it is a bit large for a pocket and may be awkward to handle although i guess one could find some kind of belt carry pouch for it but it is still is much smaller than the 3d mag.

bump

As time was running out i decided to go ahead and build a tri P4 XR-E Mag for him.
You can have a look at it here: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/1825873#post1825873

Amonra, I hope your cousin has a good time. Is he going the west coast or east? If he needs any CR123 I will give him a couple of packs of pairs if you want and you do give him the Fenix. I hope you are going to give him something to keep away sharks, tiger snakes, stingrays, funnel web spiders, death adders, etc
:lolsign:

will a lot of light sacre these critters away ?

Amonra just saw the XRE Mag, very nice and perfect for spotting roos out in the scrub. I would give him something pocketable as well, handy for getting back to your van after eating in town or at a pub

Not much scares those critters away, but I am sure he will have a good time

he does have a pockatable 18650 lux3 light with 2 batts and a long runtime for everyday general lighting so i guess hes all set.

How about a CPF PAL safe-light? An Arc-AAA? Photon? All of those use readily available batteries, apart from the photon - and its batteries weigh near to nothing. I would steer away from cr123 based lights for the reason of weight (carrying spares in luggage). I spend a fair amount of time outdoors in Australia and I can say that you don't need a lot of light at all most of the time.

You can always send stuff ahead to a hostel/hotel and they can keep it for him upon arrival.