Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries? (for lights and more)

[Poppy]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I'm always on the extreme low end of these threads, but a single AA Eneloop or 14500 per week for my son and I would be fine in our QAAXs with DIY lantern and "neck band" accessories.

Good morning reppans!
No power failure thread would be complete without your participation.
Please post a link or picture of your DIY lantern, it's really cool.

 

[reppans]

Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

Please post a link or picture of your DIY lantern, it's really cool.

Here ya go Poppy...

clicky and clicky

 

[yliu]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I think a 3D LED Maglite (or Fenix TK60 if u can afford) with 2 sets of batteries would be enough for a week to light up a room. You could use them when the family is together.
I would mainly use AA format lights. Such as the Fenix LD series. I think 2 set of batteries can also get you through the whole week.

Get a couple diffusers/lampshade or just do ceiling bounce.

Most importantly, try to use the lowest setting possible and take in account that our eye can adjust to low light conditions. Most of the lights should be able to make it through the week without battery swap if u really use it very sparingly.

If you are in an emergency situation, you might as well have a high powered light in case u need to go outdoors.

 

[cland72]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I have a 47 mini123 that, on low, will give just enough illumination (in tailstand mode) to navigate a dark room with dark adapted eyes. It will run for approx 6 days in this mode. That would likely be my primary light to use in the event of a power outage.

As backup, I also have a Surefire U2 (175 hours on low) and a Surefire Minimus (50 hours) for hands free needs.

If the power were out for a week, I estimate I'd go through maybe 10 CR123 batteries.

 

[wjv]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I have a couple Fenix diffusers and a couple Fenix "camp light" caps that fit on the ends of various flashlights. I'd run them at 2-30 lumens. depending on which light it is and what its lowest setting is.

I also have a crank lantern (freeplay) and a crank radio (eaton) plus a couple of LED lanterns and shoe boxes full of batteries plus all my rechargeables.

1) $5 Walmart lantern, with parchment paper added to enhance the diffusing effect.
2) FreePlay Indigo, 6 LED, Wind up or USB charge lantern
3) Brunton Polaris 3C cell, 3 LED, 50 hours on high (3 Watt - ~90 lumen)
4) Rayovac Sportsman 3D, 72 hours on high, 150 hours on low (4 watt - 300 lumen)

Here is a review I wrote a while back with some "beam shots" from these lanterns

http://pullig.dyndns.org/practicalpreps/forums3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1229&hilit=

 

[Jimson]

Concentrating on the kids

Any kids in my house would already have their own flashlight. When young relatives hit 3-4 years, I buy them a 2-AA light with a push-button in the switch. That's what the child uses, for I use a dab of glue to deactivate the slide part of the switch. This worked well even in the old incandescent bulb days. With a low-draw LED, battery leakage would be the main problem. The ten-year-old would have graduated to his/her 2-C Maglite, the "C" part being good for smaller hands. Again, the light is fitted with a low-draw LED PR-flange bulb. A frill on this one is a couple of adapters so the light can use AA batteries if need be. I can't foresee kids needing a bright flashlight.

 

[trialt]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I think the simplest and most reliable setup would be to have a malkoff M61LL which will give you about 100 lumens for 10 hours if you used it in a SF 6P or similar light. I like using mine in a G2. I would use this to light up the living room (ceiling bounce, just put your light in a mug to tail stand). You could also have 1 or 2 extra M61LLL (I think about 30 lumens for 20 hours) for personal use of family members or alternatively gets Malkoff's MD2 body with a switch so you can use the M61LL in a high or low mode.

 

[Samy]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

In my experience lanterns are great for outside use, where you have no ceiling to bounce light from. Inside, a lantern can't compete with a decent white ceiling to bounce light from.

I've had a few power failures at home and at work in the last 2 years so i've converted to decent tailstanding lights, amassed a small army of eneloops and setup a small 12 volt solar recharging station at home. I also try to keep a dozen+ spare fully charged eneloops for emergency situations. My 8 bay eneloop charger takes 2.5hrs to charge a full set of 8 eneloops via my deep cycle 12 volt battery.

The best power failure light i have is my TK 41, yes it uses a whopping 8x AA eneloops but it gets 27 hrs at 110 lumens (that's 6+ days at 4hrs per night) or if i want to really light up the house it gets 7.5 hrs at 350 lumens. The superbright spotlight which the TK 41 emits performs just like the normal ceiling AC bulb. It works really well.

I also use zebralight headlamps, a few low lumen single AA lights (quark, V10a), my Zebralight SC600 during outages but it has failed (just out of warranty) and i also use my Klarus ST20 but it doesn't tailstand on it's own. But that TK 41 is perfect for lighting up the house. I'm so impressed that i plan to buy another to store purely for power failures.

cheers

 

[jimboutilier]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

We've pretty much standardized our emergency gear on AA cells and keep a mixture of Alkaline and Lithium primaries as well as rechargable NiMh and LiOn batteries ready to go. As we buy in bulk our low stock level is usually around 24 of each so we have plenty of primaries for days or weeks. And with a few solar generator setups from Goal Zero, keeping things going on rechargables for months would be no problem.

For utility use we keep a number of 1, 2, and 4 AA celled Nitecore EA series lights around. Everyone has a single AA EDC and another 2 or 4 cell nightstand light. While the blinking "find me" lights on the EA series do use some power, they are very comforting during power outages and make the lights easy to find in the dark. For storage we use the tail cap lockout so the batteries don't drain, but when ready for use the blinkies are on.

For a few day outage we likely wouldn't have to break into spare batteries at all with the lights we have around and our frugal use. But on an ongoing basis figure maybe 2 batteries a day per person.

 

[Theron]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

Most of my lights can use CR123As, and I have enough Panasonic primaries to keep the entire house nicely lit for at least 250 days. Probably closer to 500 days considering sunlight and sleeping hours.

Nothing better for emergencies and quite cheap in bulk.

We have typhoons and earthquakes, so everyone always carries lights and whistles.

 

[Poppy]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I have a couple Fenix diffusers and a couple Fenix "camp light" caps that fit on the ends of various flashlights. I'd run them at 2-30 lumens. depending on which light it is and what its lowest setting is.

I also have a crank lantern (freeplay) and a crank radio (eaton) plus a couple of LED lanterns and shoe boxes full of batteries plus all my rechargeables.

1) $5 Walmart lantern, with parchment paper added to enhance the diffusing effect.
2) FreePlay Indigo, 6 LED, Wind up or USB charge lantern
3) Brunton Polaris 3C cell, 3 LED, 50 hours on high (3 Watt - ~90 lumen)
4) Rayovac Sportsman 3D, 72 hours on high, 150 hours on low (4 watt - 300 lumen)

Here is a review I wrote a while back with some "beam shots" from these lanterns

http://pullig.dyndns.org/practicalpreps/forums3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1229&hilit=

Bill,
Thanks for sharing your pictures, and the link to the beam shots of your lanterns.

I agree... there isn't much discussion about lanterns here at CPF, frankly I'd like to see more, and comparative "beam shots" like your's would be wonderful.

In my experience lanterns are great for outside use, where you have no ceiling to bounce light from. Inside, a lantern can't compete with a decent white ceiling to bounce light from.

I've had a few power failures at home and at work in the last 2 years so i've converted to decent tailstanding lights, amassed a small army of eneloops and setup a small 12 volt solar recharging station at home. <SNIP>

Samy,
I'd say that was a pretty astute observation. I have to agree with you that lanterns are great for the outdoors. I also tend to agree that ceiling bounced lights are better, for the most part. However, lanterns that take 6 or 12 volt SLAs can have a higher output for a longer period of time, due to the higher capacity of the battery, they would take fewer battery changes. Depending upon the situation, there may be an advantage to that.

 

[StarHalo]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I agree... there isn't much discussion about lanterns here at CPF, frankly I'd like to see more,

Because there's no innovation by the manufacturers when it comes to lanterns, especially compared to flashlights. The only lanterns I've been interested in over the last few years include only the warm Favourlight and a few of the custom mods CPFers have thrown together.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

Interesting comments. I agree with many of them.

I would add a couple points to consider when trying to calculate how many hours of light must be provided per night in an emergency:

First of all if you live in a place where the climate or your health requires AC and the grid is down you may be forced to do many tasks at night when it is a bit cooler than it is in the daytime without AC. This may add hours and hours of runtime per night which should be taken into account in your planning.

Secondly, if the grid down event is of wide enough scope and duration and is such that law enforcement and society itself begins to break down you may find yourself switching some tasks from day to night for OPSEC reasons. As above, more night time tasks equals more runtime per night.

The thing to take away from this is that if the situation is bad enough you may actually be kicked out of your normal daily routine. Include that possibility in your planning.

While it may seem counterintuitive to most, I've personally been through both of the above scenarios.

 

[bluemax_1]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

Interesting comments. I agree with many of them.

I would add a couple points to consider when trying to calculate how many hours of light must be provided per night in an emergency:

First of all if you live in a place where the climate or your health requires AC and the grid is down you may be forced to do many tasks at night when it is a bit cooler than it is in the daytime without AC. This may add hours and hours of runtime per night which should be taken into account in your planning.

Secondly, if the grid down event is of wide enough scope and duration is such that law enforcement and society itself begins to break down you may find yourself switching some tasks from day to night for OPSEC reasons. As above, more night time tasks equals more runtime per night.

The thing to take away from this is that if the situation is bad enough you may actually be kicked out of your normal daily routine. Include that possibility in your planning.

While it may seem counterintuitive to most, I've personally been through both of the above scenarios.

Thanks for your input. The thread in your sig should be required reading. Your preparedness considerations are not only extremely comprehensive, they've also been tried and tested.


Max

 

[filibuster]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I've been interested in the portable lantern side of emergency lighting for some time and need to get around to updating my lantern beam shots with some new models that have recently become available.

Like wjv I do like the Rayovac 3D LED lantern and think it's probably the best bang for the buck light source around. There are some new 18650 lanterns becoming available as well but the manufacturers are sealing the batteries inside the units and making them rechargeable instead of being able to replace them.

Here's a link to the lantern (and some flashlight) beam shots and their output comparison:
http://www.getpreparedstuff.com/led-lantern-review

Now I just need an automated way to do a runtime comparison.

 

[bluemax_1]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I've been interested in the portable lantern side of emergency lighting for some time and need to get around to updating my lantern beam shots with some new models that have recently become available.

Like wjv I do like the Rayovac 3D LED lantern and think it's probably the best bang for the buck light source around. There are some new 18650 lanterns becoming available as well but the manufacturers are sealing the batteries inside the units and making them rechargeable instead of being able to replace them.

Here's a link to the lantern (and some flashlight) beam shots and their output comparison:
http://www.getpreparedstuff.com/led-lantern-review

Now I just need an automated way to do a runtime comparison.

Very Nice! How long does the Rayovac run in the real world (I don't trust manufacturer specs on most off the shelf common store items)?


Max

 

[Poppy]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I've been interested in the portable lantern side of emergency lighting for some time and need to get around to updating my lantern beam shots with some new models that have recently become available.

Like wjv I do like the Rayovac 3D LED lantern and think it's probably the best bang for the buck light source around. There are some new 18650 lanterns becoming available as well but the manufacturers are sealing the batteries inside the units and making them rechargeable instead of being able to replace them.

Here's a link to the lantern (and some flashlight) beam shots and their output comparison:
http://www.getpreparedstuff.com/led-lantern-review

Now I just need an automated way to do a runtime comparison.

Nice job! Thanks for adding those comparisons to the conversation. One point that it makes is how well a ceiling bounced light performs.

One of the drawbacks of lanterns, is that if you happen to look in the direction of the light, your iris might step down, making your eyes, less "dark adapted".

 

[ledmitter_nli]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I like the best of both worlds lantern/flashlight and just use a diffuser over a warm LED dropin.

The Xeno diffusers in particular can stand.

 

[reppans]

Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

One of the drawbacks of lanterns, is that if you happen to look in the direction of the light, your iris might step down, making your eyes, less "dark adapted".

If you "happen" to look...? 360 degree lanterns are designed TO look at, I guess in a comforting campfire sort of way. If you use a lantern off to the side so as not be directly within your peripheral vision, you are wasting lumens and battery power (esp outside without bounce back). But I agree with you - yet another reason I gave up on camping lanterns in favor of the flashlight and directional bounce diffusers.

 

[Poppy]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

If you "happen" to look...? 360 degree lanterns are designed TO look at, I guess in a comforting campfire sort of way.<snip>

LOL...yeah, I didn't quite know how to write that

I have two lanterns, one a 12w spiral florescent (Northwest Territory Rechargeable Lantern ) 6v SLA battery
and a Coleman with two 6watt 9 inch florescent tubes.

the NW territory gives a bright white light, that is good for doing work in the kitchen, but may get annoying for sitting and chatting. It also somewhat causes one to look at it, adn you have to purposefully look away from it.

The Coleman on the other hand, has a warmer soft white light, not quite as good for doing kitchen work, but it does give more of that "campfire" feel; certainly more comfortable for sitting around chatting. With two tubes, it has a high and low setting, (one tube or two). It runs on two 6v alkaline batteries. I bought a pair of SLAs that I can swap in, before I was introduced to 18650 LiON batteries and better flashlights.