lighting up a room (power outage)

[Oddjob]

...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.

I think you'll be happy with the L1D. I prefer the shorter lights even if it means a slight decrease in runtime and output. I usually pocket carry my lights so I like single cell lights. You may find after you get it you may want more. Have fun!

 

[Lynx_Arc]

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

depends on the CFL and battery. I wouldn't recommend 8AA alkalines running any flourescent lamp over about 10 watts as the current will be too high to have good runtime. Anything 12v on AAs you are probably better using 10 or more AAs and nimh over alkalines as the lower loss due to internal resistance.
I prefer flourescent light for area lighting to read and work with due to the smoothmess and coverage compared to LEDs. LEDs on ceiling bounce or diffused loses its advantage in efficiency that they may have over flouros. My favorite is the CFFL (cold cathode) as you don't have to worry much about tubes wearing out and will operate to lower voltages with no damage to the tube. I just wish they made a twister CCFL based high output lantern as replacing tubes can cost almost as much as a cheap flouro lantern.

 

[JohnR66]

I don't care for 12 volt CFLs. For one, they are expensive. Two, they give less light for a given wattage as compared to the line voltage ones. For example, I recall the specs of a 120v 13 watt mini spiral as putting out 800 lumens while the 12v 13 watt version was something like 500 lumens.

What I did is get a $15 70 watt cigarette lighter inverter and use regular CFLs. I use a couple 9 watt CFLs and have 50 watts extra to power something else. If using the inverter of of C or D cells, use on CFL rater 9 watts or less for good runtime. The inverter itself is pretty efficient and draws 100ma no load.

In some cases, like the bathrooms, I point a LED flashlight to the ceiling.

Haven't had an night time outage here for a while.

 

[jerry i h]

I have a similar problem with lanterns. We have a whole bunch of D-powered CFL's at work, and AA-powered LED's for home/camping, and I am not very happy with either one.
During a recent power outage at work, the CFL's were huge (not a problem in a factory), but they allowed the factory to continue operation. Problem: at the end of the shift, I had a huge, heavy box of dead D alkys.
The LED's are not much better. They are quite painful to look at, but since they radiate light sideways, you are obligated to set them at eye level (putting them at ground level in corners helps a little, but also decreases available light).
1) I like the idea of a 6D M*g aimed at the ceiling or in a lampshade. I have one such item destined (hopefully) for an ROP.
2) go ahead with the CFL, but power them with D NiMH's. You will have to recharge occassionally, even if you do not use them.
3) go with Sylvania Mini-Lantern. Due to a dispersal cap, it is the only LED lantern I have seen that is not painful to look directly at. However, the light is not enough to properly light a room, so you will need 3 or 4 such things.
Let us know what you eventually decide. I am interested in your decision.

 

[lctorana]

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

A common of-the-shelf answer to this does indeed use 8AA batteries, but 2 x 6 or 8W linear tubes. These work very well indeed, IMHO.

 

[adrianmariano]

1) I like the idea of a 6D M*g aimed at the ceiling or in a lampshade. I have one such item destined (hopefully) for an ROP.
2) go ahead with the CFL, but power them with D NiMH's. You will have to recharge occassionally, even if you do not use them.

...

Let us know what you eventually decide. I am interested in your decision.

A D cell solution is not very appealing because I have nothing that uses D cells. If I got D cell NiMH I'd have to buy them special for this purpose (at $10 each it adds up) and then I'd have to buy a charger as my existing charger is only good for AA and AAA. And then I'd have to remember to recharge them regularly. Chances seem good that by the next outage I'd have forgotten and they'd be dead. If I really was convinced I needed a D cell solution I'd probably be inclined to get the adapters for my AAs.

It sounds like you might have larger rooms or a higher brightness requirement than me. I went ahead and got a Fenix L1D CE, which has the advantage of being a little more versatile than some of the other choices. And I think that on the brightest normal setting it does an excellent job of lighting up my rooms. Good enough for me. It is definitely better than the 20 LED lantern both in brightness and in quality of illumination. It might be OK to use it even on medium depending on what we're doing. Low is probably good enough to avoid tripping on stuff---still lit up the whole room---but getting kind of dim. I didn't do prolonged testing, which means in particular that I wasn't at all dark adapted. The light levels might seem better in a real outage.

In comparison with the Streamlight 7 LED that I already had on hand, it works much better because the streamlight has a very broad beam and that makes it hard to avoid looking into the LEDs. The Fenix, with it's more deeply set LED and narrower beam is much easier to position so that you don't look into the beam.

I also got the diffuser tip that is available for the Fenix. This fits over the end and turns the Fenix into a sort of lantern. I think it actually makes a better lantern than the 20 LED lantern I have, but it has the usual lantern problem that it's too bright to look at. It does send light in all directions rather than only to the side. This might be good for outdoor use where you have no ceiling to bounce off, but I prefer the ceiling bounce indoors.