bl4kkat
Newly Enlightened
Hi everyone I was wondering if anyone has messed with a battle lantern within the past year or so to convert to LED?
I have one I modded almost 10 years ago with 5 ~ 7 10mm white LEDs from Radio Shack to use 6v. Back then it was a pretty crude mod and more of a challenge to myself to make it more usable again. I forget the exact details but I remember that each LED did have a resistor. I was debating if I should wire all the LED to one resistor (cheaper), or if I should add a resistor to each LED which is the proper way from what I was told, but still did not under stand why exactly (expensive). I ended up going the proper and expensive way. Now a days it sits in my son's bedroom to have on while theres a storm out side. I don't mind him leaving it on over night because of the insane runtime and I can use the cheap zinc 2-pack lantern batteries from Wal-Mart.
Beam profile I was after was a combination of spot and flood. I ended up making a "Spoting lantern" with very little flood. But at least I get better runtime with with the original incadescent bulb.
I did mod another one about 3 years ago using four cheap 0.99 cent head lamps from Wal-Mart. It used two CR2032 coin cells. Long story short, cut off the portion of the LED and PCB (I think it also hada resistor in line with the PCB), wired them in a 2S + 2P to get a 6v input. They were mounted on a piece of plastic board cut to the diameter of the bulb housing. Then I drilled and taped two holes for the bolt heads to make contact to the spring loaded contact pins on the battle lantern housing(had to make sure was correct or it would not turn on). Last was to cut a piece of Lexian platic as the "Lens" with rubber gasket... Boom and done!
I don't remember the runtime with the first lantern, but the more recent one with the scavanged head lamps is as follows:
1 Zinc 6V Rayovac lantern battery => ~54 hours from 100% to about 50%
I had no light meter or anything to measure the lightout put, just using my good ol eyes =)
Pretty much turned the light on Friday night before I left work, came back after the weekend, and on Monday saw it was still lit. Left it on, came back Tuesday and noticed that it pretty dim a couple of hours before lunch and ended the run time test. So again not exactly scientific but it gives you a rough idea of runtime. Also again this was using just one zinc battery NOT two batteries.
I am fairly confident that I can acheive longer runtimes depending on battery setup. Examples one or two batteries and which type of chemistry (zinc, alkaline, or rechargables). I am also aware they do have D to F adaptors also. Just for fun I did four AA > D adaptor (enloops) then D > F adaptor. Light still works but didn't want to do a runtime test for fear of possibly ruining my enloops.
Beam profile for this light is ALL flood no hot spot. In a perfect world I still would like a combination of spot/flood but I am not thinking if I want something like that I will need to incorporate a reflector of some sort and I don't have the capability for that nor do I want to try and engineer something from scratch. So I am totally fine with an all flood light. I can always pick and choose from my other EDC lights I have on hand.
So here if where I am at now. I want to do another "flood' build, have it multi-mode. Here are my requirements:
Runtime: at least 48 hours Hight mode (20 ~ 50 lumins?)
at least 48+ hours on low mode (12 lumins?)
at least 100+ hours on low low/moonlight mode (1.00 - 0.01 lumins?)
and lastly have a Beacon Mode not to be confused with Strobe
I have been looking around Mountain Electronics, Illumn, and google for multi-mode drivers. My main use for the light is a hurricane/black out light with the main focus on long runtime. I already have other lights that are 80+ lumins in various battery configurations. If anyone is familiar with the battle lanterns they have a ginormouse amount of space. So space for the drivers is not an issue, and if what ever electronics is that big, I can sacrifice on battery space for the from a 2 cell to single cell lantern.
I look forward to everyone's recomendations!
Thanks in advance
Mark
I have one I modded almost 10 years ago with 5 ~ 7 10mm white LEDs from Radio Shack to use 6v. Back then it was a pretty crude mod and more of a challenge to myself to make it more usable again. I forget the exact details but I remember that each LED did have a resistor. I was debating if I should wire all the LED to one resistor (cheaper), or if I should add a resistor to each LED which is the proper way from what I was told, but still did not under stand why exactly (expensive). I ended up going the proper and expensive way. Now a days it sits in my son's bedroom to have on while theres a storm out side. I don't mind him leaving it on over night because of the insane runtime and I can use the cheap zinc 2-pack lantern batteries from Wal-Mart.
Beam profile I was after was a combination of spot and flood. I ended up making a "Spoting lantern" with very little flood. But at least I get better runtime with with the original incadescent bulb.
I did mod another one about 3 years ago using four cheap 0.99 cent head lamps from Wal-Mart. It used two CR2032 coin cells. Long story short, cut off the portion of the LED and PCB (I think it also hada resistor in line with the PCB), wired them in a 2S + 2P to get a 6v input. They were mounted on a piece of plastic board cut to the diameter of the bulb housing. Then I drilled and taped two holes for the bolt heads to make contact to the spring loaded contact pins on the battle lantern housing(had to make sure was correct or it would not turn on). Last was to cut a piece of Lexian platic as the "Lens" with rubber gasket... Boom and done!
I don't remember the runtime with the first lantern, but the more recent one with the scavanged head lamps is as follows:
1 Zinc 6V Rayovac lantern battery => ~54 hours from 100% to about 50%
I had no light meter or anything to measure the lightout put, just using my good ol eyes =)
Pretty much turned the light on Friday night before I left work, came back after the weekend, and on Monday saw it was still lit. Left it on, came back Tuesday and noticed that it pretty dim a couple of hours before lunch and ended the run time test. So again not exactly scientific but it gives you a rough idea of runtime. Also again this was using just one zinc battery NOT two batteries.
I am fairly confident that I can acheive longer runtimes depending on battery setup. Examples one or two batteries and which type of chemistry (zinc, alkaline, or rechargables). I am also aware they do have D to F adaptors also. Just for fun I did four AA > D adaptor (enloops) then D > F adaptor. Light still works but didn't want to do a runtime test for fear of possibly ruining my enloops.
Beam profile for this light is ALL flood no hot spot. In a perfect world I still would like a combination of spot/flood but I am not thinking if I want something like that I will need to incorporate a reflector of some sort and I don't have the capability for that nor do I want to try and engineer something from scratch. So I am totally fine with an all flood light. I can always pick and choose from my other EDC lights I have on hand.
So here if where I am at now. I want to do another "flood' build, have it multi-mode. Here are my requirements:
Runtime: at least 48 hours Hight mode (20 ~ 50 lumins?)
at least 48+ hours on low mode (12 lumins?)
at least 100+ hours on low low/moonlight mode (1.00 - 0.01 lumins?)
and lastly have a Beacon Mode not to be confused with Strobe
I have been looking around Mountain Electronics, Illumn, and google for multi-mode drivers. My main use for the light is a hurricane/black out light with the main focus on long runtime. I already have other lights that are 80+ lumins in various battery configurations. If anyone is familiar with the battle lanterns they have a ginormouse amount of space. So space for the drivers is not an issue, and if what ever electronics is that big, I can sacrifice on battery space for the from a 2 cell to single cell lantern.
I look forward to everyone's recomendations!
Thanks in advance
Mark