How much flashlight do you need for camping?

[John in Santa Cruz]

in flashlight-lingo, 'tactical' refers to having a on-off pushbutton on the tail, encouraging you to hold hte light up high in your fist with your thumb on that button.

one thing that's annoying on all these sorts of lights is the silly song and dance you have to go through to get all their different mode settings ... this one has its share of them, see the 'operating instructions' on https://www.fenixlighting.com/produc...ix-flashlight/

[trainman]

All being said, it's just another flashlight in the mix as flashlights go, wasn't this post about flashlights, or did some not want to know what's out there in the real world. The dim light on the flashlight is about the same as a standard two battery D-cell flashlight light, but on hyper bright it can light up the county side at night.

trainman

[Gompka]

I used to have a few, but we picked up some Coast headlights from Costco a while back, i think they were a pair for $20. 3 brightness settings for the main, focus-able beam, which is surprisingly bright. Also a small red led that I use quite often when I want to keep my night vision, the green one I don't use.



https://www.amazon.com/Coast-FL75-Co.../dp/B01BD4HE6E

[Jon Vermilye]

Along with my Nitecore keychain flashlight I mentioned earlier in this thread, I have one of their headband flashlights. Choice of three levels of white light, or red to preserve night vision.

[k corbin]

I like buying the latest and greatest new LED flashlight It is called retail therapy! I am always checking them out at the hardware stores, so many lovely looking ones to click on and off. Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, no, no, yes, yes.

[Raz]

I like Maglite flashlights. They are high quality and made in the USA. I wanted to replace my AA Maglite with an LED version. White Leds require over 3 volts to operate. They either use three batteries or an electronic circuit to achieve that. All the Maglite AA flashlights use the latter resulting in a greatly reduced battery life (less than 3 hours). I had to move up to the C cell flashlights to find what I wanted. No computer inside. No flashing lights. No switch to fail. Just a simple twist the head to turn it on, 18 hour battery life, reliable flashlight. $20 at Home Depot.

[Borrego Dave]

Raz I like the Mini Maglite too and have carried them for probably 30 years. A few years ago I had to replace it but could only find the LED version. Can't say I really like it as well as the original, it's way to bright for things under 3'. Pretty much blinds me with the intensity but for long distance it's fine.

[Raz]

I like the small ones but I wanted something a little brighter for walking the dog at night and early morning trips to the shower house. If maglite made a 3 battery led mini, I would have bought that. I have had poor luck with the 2 cell variety. Any intermittent contact causes them to turn off or worse start strobing. I survived disco once. I don't need it to return.

[John in Santa Cruz]

the LED flashlights that use 3 alkaline batteries mostly run the LED unregulated, and they suck batteries fast. the ones with the DC-DC regulator chips will run constant brightness til the battery is almost dead, and get much better battery life.

For premium LED flashlights, I'm a fan of Fenix, especially their smaller lights that use a single AAA or AA.

[Raz]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

the LED flashlights that use 3 alkaline batteries mostly run the LED unregulated, and they suck batteries fast. the ones with the DC-DC regulator chips will run constant brightness til the battery is almost dead, and get much better battery life.

For premium LED flashlights, I'm a fan of Fenix, especially their smaller lights that use a single AAA or AA.

I suggest you go to the maglite site and compare run times. The two c cell maglite runs 2 hours. The 3 cell that I bought runs 18 hours.

[minke]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

the LED flashlights that use 3 alkaline batteries mostly run the LED unregulated, and they suck batteries fast. the ones with the DC-DC regulator chips will run constant brightness til the battery is almost dead, and get much better battery life.

For premium LED flashlights, I'm a fan of Fenix, especially their smaller lights that use a single AAA or AA.

I agree completely,,, but, but, but I get frustrated with the voltage regulation which makes it difficult to have advance warning of the battery death. You need a second flashlight to change the batteries of the first.

[John in Santa Cruz]

my single AAA Fenix LD-01 is 100 lumens in its 'turbo' mode, which gets about 1.5 hours of battery life. 100 lumens in a reasonable cone is quite bright enough for my every day usage. in regular mode, its like 5 hours at about 50 lumens, and in dim mode its like 14 hours at like 15 or 20 lumens, which is good for upclose work in the dark.


2 C cells is about 24 watt*hours, in a much bigger and heavier format. the AAA powering my Fenix is only about 1.8 watt*hours.

if I needed a bigger/brighter flashlight, I'd rather have something that uses 18650 lithium rechargables, than something with C or D cells. I've got a noname chinese light with a single 18650 that puts out nearly as much light as a motorcycle headlight, in an focusable beam, it can light a several acre field in its wide mode, or throw a spot 1000 feet in its narrow mode.

a single 18650 has around 10 watt-hours of power in a battery thats not much larger than a AA (which has 4 watt*hours). a 3 watt LED nowdays can be as bright as 750 lumens, almost headlight brightness, giving 3 hours of runtime on a charge at max brightness from a 10 watt*hour battery.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by minke

I agree completely,,, but, but, but I get frustrated with the voltage regulation which makes it difficult to have advance warning of the battery death. You need a second flashlight to change the batteries of the first.

on my fenix, when the battery is run down, the turbo mode becomes no brighter than the regular mode... and if you run it down even harder than that, the low mode keeps working for many hours.

[Raz]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

2 C cells is about 24 watt*hours, in a much bigger and heavier format.
.

Watt hrs is a measure of energy usage and requires a current value to be calculated. That of course is a function of what you are powering. I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers from. Again, I suggest you visit the maglite site for their battery life specs. I posted here to let folks know about what I think is a pretty nice basic flashlight. Nothing more.

[John in Santa Cruz]

watts are a measurement of power, and are volts * amps. 3V at 1A is the same amount of power as 1V at 3A, both are 3 Watts. watt*hours is a measure of the total energy stored, and are watts * hours. If your power source has 10 watt*hours, then it will power something that needs 3 watts for 3.33 hours, or something that needs 1 watt for 10 hours. The reason I convert battery mAH (milliamp*hour) ratings to watt hours is that different batteries are at different voltages, so the amps matters less than the volt*amps == watts.

[Rzrbrn]

I have a number of lights. Dislike having to read the instructions when I need to use a particular light; that is I like simple. The following are what I can find.

Utilitech 350-Lumen LED Handheld Flashlight, bright enough, on off, works well enough.

Energizer LED Headlamp with HD+ Vision Optics, 4 modes. Wife says unreliable, shouts off for no reason. Give off sufficient light.

Nitecore TINI 380 Lumens USB Rechargeable Keychain Flashlight. Like it, use it to find a larger flashlight.

Fenix E20: Simple butt button, on off, not bright enough for wife. Goto hand held for me.

Anker LC 90: Butt button, very sturdy, multiple modes, difficult to go through the modes to find the mode I need. Hate strobe. Very bright mode. Wife likes.

Dorcy 41-2510 Floating Waterproof LED Flashlight: Great idea, nice in hand, unreliable. Just tossed.

Petzl - ACTIK CORE Headlamp rechargeable. Light weight, works well, too many modes, difficult to find mode needed. Wife likes it.

Petzl Tikka. Works, difficult to find mode. Pain in the butt.

Streamlight Enduro Pro: Sturdy light, works well, too many modes.

Hausbell T6 CD. Sturdy, too many modes incl strobe, SOS. good light output.

Number of old Maglights, C, D, AA. Sturdy, minimal light, seldom used.

Lanterns
Coleman Conquer Spin 550l Rechargeable LED Lantern, great light, a bit bulky.

Tough Light LED Rechargeable Lantern, like it, use it a lot when not plugged in to shore power.

Hurricane Lantern by WT Kirkman - Little Champ - 12. Works, not much light, not sure why I bought this.

UCO Candlelier Deluxe Candle Lantern. Use it a lot when not on shore power.

Coleman Twin LED Lantern. Another mistake. Don't use.

Coleman Premium Dual Fuel Lantern. Great light. Top notch, use outdoors only.

Hand crank dynamo solar lantern and a number of similar hand crank lights. Exterior got gummy, not worth the money, minimal light. All are worthless.

[minke]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

on my fenix, when the battery is run down, the turbo mode becomes no brighter than the regular mode... and if you run it down even harder than that, the low mode keeps working for many hours.

My usual uses for flashlights are 1) not stumbling, and 2) being seen. I almost always use the minimum light and on some of my flashlights I can't quickly remember how to adjust brightness.

[Bobbie Mayer]

Generally, none. I own a flashlight which is in the trailer; I almost never use it. In the summer, here, there is no need, it gets light at about 4 am and doesn't get dark until 10. But its rare any time there isn't enough ambient light to get around.

[WaltP]

I use the inexpensive 3 AAA headlamps and hand lamps. Like others here I prefer a light that warns me when the batteries are running down. I always have two available so I can switch over when needed. And I use only rechargeable batteries with a few extras on hand as needed. Of course I travel with a small battery charger.
On the rare occasion I have non-rechargeable, disposable batteries, usually that came with a new device, I save therm up till I can deposit them at a recycle station.

Walt

[LeeM89]

Originally Posted by Jon in AZ

"How much flashlight do you need for camping?" [emphasis added]

One.

I know two year old post and i;m posting, But I have some doubt,


First I'm confuse here, "if we take one branded or durable flashlight during camping, is it okay? "



Sometime we get struggle and flashlight is the one life survival tool too, So I'm getting confuse to carry one flashlight.



Or the another option I have found is to keep extra smallest one keychain small flashlight during camping.



Really it's helpful to carry extra small flashlight or its depend on requirement?