How many lights do you REALLY have during a longer power outage??

lightliker · Mar 30, 2013

Yesterday I had some time left and decided to act as there was a power outage and went "shopping" in my house for hidden and forgotten flashlights to keep the lights on during the night.
What struck me was that more than 70% existed out of LED flashlights :huh:.
The Streamlight stinger (with a battery that died on me years ago and won't be replaced) is not on the picture but was seral years ago my favorite, things change fast!

How many lights did you find at your house?

MatthewSB · Mar 30, 2013

About a dozen.

To be honest, I'm not sure I'd need more than my EB1T and P2X Fury. I have about 50 disposable CR123s, so that's thousands of hours of light.

Illum · Mar 30, 2013

Long time ago, when Florida actually saw strong hurricanes, I had a hurricane lantern built using a single CREE XRE LED and a Buckpuck D-E-1000. At 12V and set to max output, the system draws roughly 350mA from 12V. The system was in term connected to a UB12350 12V 35AH (C/20) SLA. Results were quite spectacular, the lantern ran for over 48 hours and the battery was estimated to still retain around 50% charge. On low who knows..500+ hours? It makes a wonderful nightlight by the way, ridiculously heavy for camping, but its the one light that I can leave on all night. Plug a couple more LED setups into the battery and the whole family can "read" through an outage.

The whole setup is in pieces today because the battery and buckpuck went into separate projects, with modern day LEDs I think it might run longer. Long power outages [ones over 4-5 hours] I usually rely more on headlamps, lanterns and 12V florescents than with flashlights. Flashlights should be kept on you no doubt, but unless your lights can tailstand and not blind you when done so, most tasks around the house in an outage/hurricane situation its best to keep both hands available. I have only about two boxes of cr123As on hand, as most [if not all :thinking:] flashlights around the house that I actually use have been converted to running Eneloops or Li-ion. I can charge Eneloops and li-ion using homemade chargers off one of several 35AH batteries in the house, but why hassle with conversion inefficiencies?

reppans · Mar 30, 2013

In recent years, perhaps due to global warming, we've been losing power for at least a solid week, sometimes two, per year. While I might be able dig up a similar quantity of old lights as you, it would certainly only be to scavenge the batteries from them. For efficiency, I would only use my later model lights. I have solar chargers and can scavenge the myriad of household AA/AAA/9Vs littering my house in other devices if it really came to it. Also, being a huge low lumen/night vision fan, I think I could cover my illumination needs for four months or so just on the scavenged household batts.... but of course, we'd all have bigger problems if it came to that.

TK41 · Mar 30, 2013

We had an outage the other night. I had to loan my girlfriend my Fenix PD22 since all her family had was an old fashion MagLite and the Fenix E05 I gave her for her keychain. Lol, I told her many times before: I'm buying you a bigger light (likely a 2A setup for simplicity, like a LD22). Her family was so thankful for having my PD22 that night. So interesting how a little 3 inch light was much more useful than a 12 inch, heavy one.

The outage also prompted me to purchase a diffuser for my TK41. A fresh set of batteries should last well over 200 hours on low. A couple hours on a dark night of use... maybe 5 at most... (200/5= 40). 40 Days is more than adequate.

With that said, it's more about convenience than sheer lumen power. I'd take 3 100 lumen lights over 1 800 lumen light if I had the choice during an outage, especially when living with others. Imagine you are eating in the kitchen and somebody needs to use the restroom and all you've got is 1 light. That's a problem, haha!

Sgt. LED · Mar 30, 2013

Like an old 6D Maglite rigged with a 35 lumen drop in that will run for months and provide enough light by ceiling bounce to wander about comfortably?

aaronhome27 · Mar 30, 2013

We have plenty of lights. But when it comes to a power outage I fall back on about 6 or so 18650 powered lights. I have a large amount of charged cells that are always available. those lights also will take 2xcr123a if I need to crack into a box of those as well. But in terms of usage. If no one goes ape crazy trying to blind the neighbors all night long, I have enough for each member of my family and then some to have light for at least a week or so even running lights around the clock. I have several very efficient Fenix lights as well as custom p60 drop in models as well.

Hooked on Fenix · Mar 30, 2013

Honestly, more than any single brick and mortar store in the area(Home Depot and Costco have me beat on batteries though, except for 123As). :grin2:

lightliker · Mar 31, 2013

Illum said:
Long time ago, when Florida actually saw strong hurricanes, I had a hurricane lantern built using a single CREE XRE LED and a Buckpuck D-E-1000. At 12V and set to max output, the system draws roughly 350mA from 12V. The system was in term connected to a UB12350 12V 35AH (C/20) SLA. Results were quite spectacular, the lantern ran for over 48 hours and the battery was estimated to still retain around 50% charge. On low who knows..500+ hours? It makes a wonderful nightlight by the way, ridiculously heavy for camping, but its the one light that I can leave on all night. Plug a couple more LED setups into the battery and the whole family can "read" through an outage.

The whole setup is in pieces today because the battery and buckpuck went into separate projects, with modern day LEDs I think it might run longer. Long power outages [ones over 4-5 hours] I usually rely more on headlamps, lanterns and 12V florescents than with flashlights. Flashlights should be kept on you no doubt, but unless your lights can tailstand and not blind you when done so, most tasks around the house in an outage/hurricane situation its best to keep both hands available. I have only about two boxes of cr123As on hand, as most [if not all :thinking:] flashlights around the house that I actually use have been converted to running Eneloops or Li-ion. I can charge Eneloops and li-ion using homemade chargers off one of several 35AH batteries in the house, but why hassle with conversion inefficiencies?

You're right about the need of portable flashlights where a fixed lightsource would be better for everybody (specially for someone making his emergency stop during the dinner of other familymembers

) , I have plenty empty tubes in my house making me think about putting some economical XM-L based wall-lights at several points in order to always have emergency lighting at different places that keep on during the night. With 180Ah at 12V I think the outage will be over before 180Ah of batteries have died on me :devil:

lightliker · Mar 31, 2013

TK41 said:
We had an outage the other night. I had to loan my girlfriend my Fenix PD22 since all her family had was an old fashion MagLite and the Fenix E05 I gave her for her keychain. Lol, I told her many times before: I'm buying you a bigger light (likely a 2A setup for simplicity, like a LD22). Her family was so thankful for having my PD22 that night. So interesting how a little 3 inch light was much more useful than a 12 inch, heavy one.

The outage also prompted me to purchase a diffuser for my TK41. A fresh set of batteries should last well over 200 hours on low. A couple hours on a dark night of use... maybe 5 at most... (200/5= 40). 40 Days is more than adequate.

With that said, it's more about convenience than sheer lumen power. I'd take 3 100 lumen lights over 1 800 lumen light if I had the choice during an outage, especially when living with others. Imagine you are eating in the kitchen and somebody needs to use the restroom and all you've got is 1 light. That's a problem, haha!

As long as the 3 lights will keep on giving light for an extended time you're right.
When having both (900 lumen for 9 hours from my SR-90) you are lucky

.
Did they buy some extra lights after the outage?

TEEJ · Mar 31, 2013

I think I had maybe 20 lights going, with solar charging for the cells, supplemented by car chargers and car starters, etc.

I've gone weeks at a time like that. (Could go indefinitely)

I have more lights than that, but, that's all that were needed.

Something like a ZL SC600 tail standing in a normal room is a lot like having the light switch work. TM11's and so forth do the same thing if its a larger room.

Every body gets an assortment of lights for various tasks, and keeps the cells charged and ready for the next night.

How many lights do you REALLY have during a longer power outage??

lightliker

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MatthewSB

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Illum

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reppans

Flashlight Enthusiast

TK41

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Sgt. LED

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aaronhome27

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Hooked on Fenix

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lightliker

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lightliker

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TEEJ

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