Brighter bulb for Rayovac Hunter lantern

Hi! Brand new member here.

I have a Rayovac Hunter Lantern identical to the one shown in this thread:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?316672-Ray-O-Vac-Hunter-Lantern-ca-1970-Pics

It works fine but the PR15 incandescent bulb is quite dim. I don't want to modify the flashlight so I'm wondering if there is a compatible LED (or other) bulb that I can drop in to replace the PR15 bulb.

It doesn't need to be the brightest bulb in the world.

Let me know if you need more info and thanks in advance.

Nite Ize makes a very nice LED PR replacement bulb for C/D cell lights:
Amazon lists it as the 'Nite Ize High Power LED upgrade Bulb for C/D flashlights, 74 lumen'. I used one to replace the PR bulb on an Eveready 4D lantern I have that is about ten years old and it works great for that device.

It would be helpful if you could post a picture of the bulb by itself.
[h=1]Nite Ize High Power LED Upgrade Bulb for C/D Flashlights, 74 Lume[/h]

Way to search. Good job.

Welcome to the site.

A xenon bulb is the way to go. Perhaps krypton.
A Dewalt 9023 xenon touts 150 lumens when using a 9.6 volt battery.
Figure those 8 D cells put out about 1.2 volts each under load. That's 9.6 volts total.

A KPR 118 bulb would be a 7 cell bulb, which can with stand a bit more zap than 7 batteries and will burn a little brighter using 8 than with 7, but at the sacrifice of lifespan.

A PR 20 would be a good choice too.

If you can find them, Maglite PR based 7 cell bulbs are great. Krypton are nice n bright. Xenon even brighter but those are really, really scarce.

Anyway, check out places like 'top bulb', 'memotronics' and 'bulb town' for a wide selection.

Amazon or eBay would be the place to find those Dewalt bulbs that come in twin packs.

Happy hunting.... yes pun was intended...

Another tip would be to clean all contacts with a Tarn X, de-oxit or other contact cleaner to get that resistance as low as possible. Sometimes just giving ole bessey a good cleaning makes your mountain dew yellow looking beam look like a nice bright light tan incan beam.

Ty Timothy

Any regulated LED drop-in will have a huge brightness-over-time advantage over any incandescent bulb; most older incan flashlights like these have max output in the first few minutes and then quickly drop to ~25% output where they remain for most of the runtime, whereas an LED will hold the rated lumens until near death. The TerraLUX model is good for 140 lumens.

Uh, guys, if you look closely at the thread referred to in the original post, the Hunter is a 4S2P light, which means a max of 6v. As such, any of the LED upgrades that would classify as PR15 would work quite well. And yes, a halogen or xenon replacement would be brighter than the OEM incandescent bulb, but I think LED would be the way to go.

If the leoleoleo wanted to run the most simplest LED drop in possible to 6V lanterns and reverse polarity included, the LED of choice would be:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003MP8MGO/?tag=cpf0b6-20

40 lumens
Extremely affordable (less than $5)
LED durability and longevity
Crisp white light tint with a much cleaner beam pattern
Literally 100's of hours run time.

If its like the other lanterns I have seen this done to, simply take the incan bulb out, drop the LED in its place and secure it all together again. My brother has this exact drop in LED and can attest it is everything he needed it to be...crazy run time, batteries lasted forever in comparison to the incan bulb.

The great thing about this drop in of this type is that if a any time you wanted to revert to the nostalgic incandescent bulb it takes seconds to swap back, just keep the bulb you are not using in what looks like the bulb holder by the black wire in the head under the reflector.

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful replies.

Timothybil said:

It would be helpful if you could post a picture of the bulb by itself.

Click to expand...

Working on this.

Timothybil said:

Uh, guys, if you look closely at the thread referred to in the original post, the Hunter is a 4S2P light, which means a max of 6v.

Click to expand...

Looking at the battery terminals, it does seem that the 8 batteries are organized so that there are 2 groups of 4 batteries. The 4 batteries are in series and the 2 groups are in parallel. I'm taking an educated guess that this is what 4S2P means

LeanBurn said:

If the leoleoleo wanted to run the most simplest LED drop in possible to 6V lanterns and reverse polarity included, the LED of choice would be:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003MP8MGO/?tag=cpf0b6-2040 lumens Extremely affordable (less than $5)LED durability and longevityCrisp white light tint with a much cleaner beam patternLiterally 100's of hours run time.

Click to expand...

Looks good. How much brighter is 40 lumens, compared with the incan bulb?

LeanBurn said:

The great thing about this drop in of this type is that if a any time you wanted to revert to the nostalgic incandescent bulb it takes seconds to swap back, just keep the bulb you are not using in what looks like the bulb holder by the black wire in the head under the reflector.

Click to expand...

That's great! I wondered what that clip was for.

OK, here is the PR15 bulb, a bit blurry.

I failed to take note of the circuit path.

If it were a 4 lane double decker bridge for example, 4 batteries send current in one direction with the other stack in the other...
1.2 volts per battery (x4) so it's a 4.8 volt circuit.
A 4 cell Maglite xenon with a PR base (like that PR 15 has) will definitely improve the brightness. A krypton would also make a difference. Google KPR113 bulb if the Mag bulb cost is more than you can stand. Again check memotronics, top bulb etc...
L to R:
A regular bulb, a KPR bulb and a Mag PR xenon.

That's a basic PR bulb as you'd find in lots of older Maglites, so any older upgrade that doesn't require heatsinking would indeed just drop-in. The aforementioned Terralux is a complete LED and driver combo all in one PR bulb package, you literally just drop it in; 140 lumens would look more than twice as bright than the incan bulb, and it would hold that brightness for hours as opposed to the bulb's tendency to dim over time. $17.

I understand from reading other threads that the switch of this lamp will only handle a certain amount of amperage and the plastic reflector will only handle a certain amount of heat.

Is the Terralux going to be fine in that respect?

2.33 watts / ~4.8 volts, you should be looking at just under half an amp, so no worries there; the Mag's reflector is also plastic and the mount does not provide heatsinking, so this would functionally be the same situation. The only issue will be the beam quality, since an LED puts most of its light forward and not off to the sides for a wide reflector, your lantern may be less of a thrower and more of a flooder using this.

I have a similar light and used a 1 watt LED drop in from one of the usual suppliers. The claimed output is 100 lumens and the bulb is not polarity sensitive. The runtime should be well over 100 hours on alkaline D cells.
Current should be about 200ma, or less than half of that used by the incandescent bulb, and the heat output is also reduced, so no risk of overheating anything.

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate all your help.