Whar recommendations do folks have for a compact, durable electrical lantern with decent battery life for the light. This is for kayak camping for two people, in the tent and for cooking and dining, to supplement headlamps. Presumably this means LEDs.
Specifically, any reviews, opinions, etc on the eGear Quattro 4-LED Mini Lantern (http://tinyurl.com/kvg8c).
Or maybe headlamps are all you need?
I'm bypassing flame / fuel cannister units because of fire hazard, fuel weight, fuel bulk, and fragility. Candle lanterns are OK, I guess, but I still worry about fire hazard. (I could be convinced to look at these again)
get one at target and only at target not on their website (called a river rock - in the flashlight aisle). Got the same body as the quatro or the bruton glorbe but the main difference is that it has a 1.5 watt jupiter led which is about 10 times brighter than your typical 3-5mm led. Cost is about $15 - $20 depending if its on sale ($20 regularly).
Wind up camp lantern I recently bought a wind up flashlight from LL Bean, on the packaging was a website that also sold wind up camp lanterns. I don’t have the packaging & can’t find the distributors info on my Wind N’Go flashlight, but you may be able to call LL Bean & get the info. If I hadn’t just bought the same battery powered lantern, I would definately have purchased the wind up model.
Great light! I modified mine a little bit. If one can find aluminum tape, the kind used in the HVAC industry, put about two inches on one side of the lens so you can have an area of the lamp that won’t night blind you if your eyes look that direction. The tape, Brand: Shurtape #AF-973, is shiny on the inside and acts as a small reflector as well as a shade. It’s durable stuff with a surprising variety of uses.
candle lantern I have a UCO candle lantern that I’ll use backpacking, you can get a reflective shield to provide more light but it’s not really bright enough to read for any length of time, but it is good, light. I’ve also dropped it while lit and it has a glass surround which if it doesn’t break works in preventing fires, you’ll just get wax all over it.
If you are bringing a fuel canister (isobutane style) you can get some of those Brunton glorb things, one with mantle one (more $$) without and they provide a lot of light and perhaps heat and they use the same kind of canister fuel a stove would use (like an MSR pocket rocket or a Jetboil)
Night lights Kayak fishermen have been using these for night paddling and fishing. They meet the 360 degree rule and are usually mounted on a piece of pvc to get them a few feet above the kayak
Not a lantern but check these out Don’t know if you’ve seen the flashlights that you shake up?
I believe thay are called Faraday Flashlights. Wally world sporting goods marine area has the water proof lights for about $11.00 or so.
The kids have the regular version (Boy Scout troop got a whole slew of them at $3.00 a piece) and they seem to work real well.
The only problem I’ve seen is that you may want to be very visible while your shaking the flashlight to generate power, Otherwise you may appear to be doing something else.
I also have one of those crank up lights. The switch setting allow for one or three LED’s to be used. Works like a charm. Bought it from Sportsmans guide. A little noisy if you gotta crank in the middle of the night.
That's a big order, by long battery life I assume you are refering to the 72hours listed for the Quatro light.
Even with LEDs I don't think you're going to have much lightoutput for a multiday battery life using 4AA batteries. Especially when that light is dispersed 360degrees. Once you put on refective tape on one side of the lamp you might as well use a head lamp that runs on AA or multiple small lamps pointing to the work area, or a 1watt 4AA flashlight pointing at a water bottle to diffuse the beam.
That River Rock 1.5watt light looks like a real area light,,that will burn for 5-8hrs,,which doesn't sound like a long battery life.
Seems to me for the half pound weight of an area light you could distribute three or four of those 9v area lights or similar small output LED lights to demarcate an area but not try and illuminate it leaving the headlamp for point illumination.
I think if someone wants an area light it's going to take a watt of power,,and to get many watt/hours from a battery it takes a big battery.
Once you put the constraint of 4AA batteries the output and time go down.
Shake lights Beware of some (many?) of the cheapie “shake lights” out there (eBay, flea markets, etc.) as they use a small, concealed button battery to power the LED and have no actual electrical generator. The guts (coil, “magnet”, etc) are simply for show. In other words, once the battery dies, you can shake all you want, but it ain’t gonna light up no mo.
In defense of the Quattro Also labeled as the Brunton.
I am quite pleased with the light output of this lantern. I don’t like overly-bright lanterns (Coleman etc) and I don’t care to futz with candle lanterns. This one seems to put out enough light to make navigation under a tarp convenient, but not so much light that it is obnoxious. Good tent light too.
If you are looking for something to walk a trail by, use a headlamp.
solar to try to releive some of the pounds per watt issue - I bring a long a small rollable solar panel to charge my AAs and AAAs during the day. Fits nicely on the deck of a yak or on the top of my canoe pack.