Hamilton Felix
Enlightened
My wife just came back from shopping at Costco, where she picked up a GE "Enbrighten" lantern for about twenty bucks. It holds eight D cells in the base, apparently a 6v series-parallel scheme, because it will also run on four D cells, with half the rated runtime of eight.
So far, we've done nothing more than turn off the kitchen lights and try the lantern. It has three levels, claiming 350 lumens on high. It also claims pretty long runtimes, particularly on low, where it claims 350 hours on eight D cells. You can work fairly well at even the low setting.
Just at a glance, it compares very favorably with a handful of older two tube Coleman fluorescent lanterns (also eight D cells in base) that we have at work. Maybe I'll bring it to work and do a side by side comparison.
So far my only "disappointment," speaking as a collector of kerosene lamps, is that with this lantern around I may not have many excuses to light my lamps. Our winter power outages usually are not much more than overnight, a few days at most.
So far, we've done nothing more than turn off the kitchen lights and try the lantern. It has three levels, claiming 350 lumens on high. It also claims pretty long runtimes, particularly on low, where it claims 350 hours on eight D cells. You can work fairly well at even the low setting.
Just at a glance, it compares very favorably with a handful of older two tube Coleman fluorescent lanterns (also eight D cells in base) that we have at work. Maybe I'll bring it to work and do a side by side comparison.
So far my only "disappointment," speaking as a collector of kerosene lamps, is that with this lantern around I may not have many excuses to light my lamps. Our winter power outages usually are not much more than overnight, a few days at most.