Looking for ceiling bounce light for power outage...

Hi, I am looking for a led light with following requirements:

- Tail standing
- min. 350 lumens
- min. 1 hour runtime
- can take rechargeable batteries
- have enough body mass to run unattended at max until batteries die (tail standing with no cooling)

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Are you willing to tailstand it in a large glass of water? That will GREATLY help the heat load (And bump your lumens up). Especially if you put ice in the water.

Edit: I ask because 350 lumens for 1 hour and rechargeable is just about doable with a decent 1x18650 light. But tailstanding and handling that heat is much tougher (ie, more expensive).

SkyRayKing 4x18650 300 lumens forever, 1600 lumens for 1.5 hours


what it is, is -cheap-.... like 60 bucks cheap for a 3xXML powerhouse
and with the 3xreflector, it spreads on the ceiling well

I use one for exactly this, room light for the cabin at 300 lumens, on all night

will run on 1,2, 3 or 4 18650

when it is going to die, it gets dimmer, and then one xml will not light. at that
point batteries are drained to about 2.8 volts.

My edc+ x60l drop in handles the heat really well. 1,4~1,5 amps, so it wont go uberhot on you if you tailstand it. I dont know how many lumens it is, but it's really bright. Even when compared with a similar hard driven light i own. (a direct driven xm-l on a imr 18650.. No resistors and stuff, only 2 wires + and - :devil: Yeah i know, it's over the top and it might die someday really soon.) Anyway, I use the x60l when i know im going to tailstand, or use a light on "max" for a longer period. It gets warm tailstanding it, but not too hot. it got battery protection in med and hi mode, so it's perfect for me. (got loads of unprotected 18650's form broken laptops, and i dont like to use more than one at the time. I wont tailstand anything with more than one litium cell, protected or not.)

For power outage use I would suggest 2 150+ lumen lights instead of 1 350 lumen. (2 is 1 and 1 is none + you will have more to choose from with the lower lumen requirement) 1 hour run times during a power outage? Ours typically last much longer. I figure to on at least 5-6 hour run to get through until the next day. Yeah you can swap batteries 2-3 times during the evening, but usually there is plenty of other things to take care of during power out.

Hi guys, thanks for the inputs...

I think the SkyRayKing looks promising but 4x18650 is a bit too many. what kind of behavior if i were to run it 2x18650?

I have been looking around and found a few 4xAA that might fit my requirements (Jetbeam PA40 and Fenix LD41). Anyone here knows if they can be left unattended at max without cooling?

Thanks.

Like AnAppleSnail mentioned, it's certainly achievable.

What you want is a high output light that can do excess of 600 lumens with around an hour of runtime and have it run at medium setting. That way, heat dissipation is going to be non-issue, not to mention the fact that you will be increasing the runtime by at least two-fold.

Fenix TK60 has great runtimes! Get a set of NiMH D-cells for normal use, and stock some alkaline D-cells in case of emergency. Runs 12 hours on 350 Lumens.

If you want lithium cells then I would recommend the Jetbeam BC40 and stock up on CR123s or 18650s. 130 Lumens should light up large sized living room pretty well.

All these output numbers are way too high; the goal of area lighting during a power outage isn't to recreate the amount of lighting that's normally there, but rather to efficiently provide enough light to complete tasks and keep morale up. You could do many hundreds of lumens, but for how long? And how many times a day will you have to swap batteries, not knowing how long the outage will last..

You'll find that once the lights are out, a ceiling-bounced 100 lumens is plenty to fill a large living room for the family, even enough to eat by at the dinner table. If you're by yourself, you can cut that all the way down to 25 lumens, anything more than this and you're just putting more light on what you can already see. And even the most basic one-cell light will give you many hours at these output levels, making long-term planning much less of a worry.

Sunwayman C20C. 280 lumens for 3 hours. Heat not a problem.

Just to clarify, where i live we have regular power outage but usually does not last more than an hour. Sometime i need enough light to continue doing some stuff and i realise i need roughly 350-500 lumens. The lights i have that puts out those lumens are single 18650 and rcr123 lights which gets hot pretty quickly.

Like 127.0.0.1 and enomosiki suggested maybe i should get a high powered light and run them at medium. And i would like to stick to 18650(max 2) or AAs format. D cells are expensive and tends to leak, also not planning to invest in D nimh + charger.

Any suggestion on light tht has medium/max mode around 350 lumens? Can tailstand and safe to leave unattended?

Thanks.

Fenix Tk45. Two hours on turbo (760 lumens), has three power settings, over 200 hours run time on lowest setting, tail stands, keeps cool, runs on 8 AA batteries. Used mine every day for the past year and a half, great light, very durable and waterproof.

Sent from my PB99400 using Tapatalk 2

rewdee said:

Just to clarify, where i live we have regular power outage but usually does not last more than an hour. Sometime i need enough light to continue doing some stuff and i realise i need roughly 350-500 lumens. The lights i have that puts out those lumens are single 18650 and rcr123 lights which gets hot pretty quickly.

Like 127.0.0.1 and enomosiki suggested maybe i should get a high powered light and run them at medium. And i would like to stick to 18650(max 2) or AAs format. D cells are expensive and tends to leak, also not planning to invest in D nimh + charger.

Any suggestion on light tht has medium/max mode around 350 lumens? Can tailstand and safe to leave unattended?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

2x18650 will be better if possible, for extended runtime and not overworking the batteries to death. The lower the battery voltage supplied, the more current the driver has to suck out from the battery to maintain the output.

I've been trying to look at some lights for you, but everything I came across have minor flaws. Here's a list;

EagleTac M3C4 - 2x18650/4xCR123A, parasitic drain
Fenix TK35 - 2x18650/4xCR123A, unstable tailstand
Spark SL6/SL6S - 1x18650/2xCR123A, parasitic drain
ThruNite TN11 - 1~2x18650/2~4xCR123A, unstable tailstand
Zebralight SC600 - 1x18650, parasitic drain, no support for primaries
Lumintop TD-15X - 1~2x18650/2~4xCR123A, unstable tailstand, no output between medium (200) and max (580/720)

My recommendation out of all of them would be the M3C4. It has a stable tailstand, has good array of modes and is capable of handling primaries in emergencies. It has a high parasitic drain, but that can always be remedied by lockout.

StarHalo said:

All these output numbers are way too high; the goal of area lighting during a power outage isn't to recreate the amount of lighting that's normally there, but rather to efficiently provide enough light to complete tasks and keep morale up. You could do many hundreds of lumens, but for how long? And how many times a day will you have to swap batteries, not knowing how long the outage will last..

You'll find that once the lights are out, a ceiling-bounced 100 lumens is plenty to fill a large living room for the family, even enough to eat by at the dinner table. If you're by yourself, you can cut that all the way down to 25 lumens, anything more than this and you're just putting more light on what you can already see. And even the most basic one-cell light will give you many hours at these output levels, making long-term planning much less of a worry.

Click to expand...

The OP wanted min 350 lumens.
I would totally understand his requirements. Since an average power outage is only gonna last for a couple of hours max unless there's and natural disaster or other large scaled disasters going on.
In that case, I would like to light up my house nicely, and make that couple of hours as comfortable as possible. Most larger sized XML lights can do 350 lumens easily, and should not overheat.
Of course, if you are in a disaster or an emergency, you should be conserving as much battery as possible.

Wow my post totally got erased, any way I think 350lm is ok. Two 75watt light bulbs in a room is like 1800-2000lm so 350 is a lot less.

What about a Quark 123^2 Turbo X with tail standing tail cap? Little smaller option if you wanted, should run on HIGH mode for a while and you can lego it and run it on 2 AA's or an 18650 body if you can find one.

Reviving this thread rather than starting a new one as I'm looking for the same requirements.
A few hundred lumens at sustained output. Preferably 1x 18650 or even multi AA powered. Neutral tint at least.

Currently looking at an Astrolux S41S quad 219 and/or a modded triple neutral Convoy S2+.

How about the Thrunite TN4A.

As a pop-can style light, it will be very stable when tail standing. At least one reviewer believes it slightly exceeds it's high mode spec of 550 lumens, and tested it on 2000 mAh NiMH batteries for 1 hour, 36 minutes in that mode. Or you can drop down to the 140 lumen mode and run it for roughly 9 hours.
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...xAA)-review-RUNTIMES-BEAMSHOTS-VIDEO-and-more!

It maxes out at 200 lumens, but you need to look at the Nitecore LR30. It uses one 18650 or two CR123, and will do three hours at 200 lumens, over eight hours at 85 lumens, and sixty two hours at 12 lumens. It also has a red light LED if that matters. It has a hook and a magnetic base so it can be deployed almost anywhere.

There are two more options: the Nitecore EA41 and the Nitecore LR30. The EA41 is a smaller version of the pop can lights, that uses four AA cells. It tail stands quite well, and several modes that gives you a range of options for ceiling bounce. The other option is the LR30. It uses one 18650 or two CR123 cells. It maxes out at 200 lumens, but that is not really that far off from your goal of 300 lumens. It also has a CRI of >90, so that its color rendition will be very good, which will be helpful in a ceiling bounce situation. It also has both a lanyard loop and a magnetic base, so it can be deployed almost anywhere.

Best of all, the MSRP for the LR30 is $35 for the LR30, and $70 for the EA41.

I would pay attention to HaikeLite SC02 that consumes one 26650 battery. Low -- 200 lm, med -- 500 lm. Group Buy still available.