I mentioned in my last post that Brunton had a new LED lantern
for sale at Academy.
I tested this lantern this weekend. It is by far, the best on the
market.
http://www.backcountry.com/images/items/large/BRU/BRU0195/LE.jpg
The light pattern is excellent. It doesn't have the dark spots and
rings that I have
complained about in the previous LED test.
This lamp is not as bright as the good ole gas lanterns; however, it is a
whole
lot more practical. You could easily put 2 or 3 of these around the
camp
to light up the whole area if you needed.
The lamp is far from perfect however. It is not rechargeable. It
is probably
to heavy for a long backpacking trip, or for a caving expedition.
Some people
might find using "C" size batteries inconvenient, especially since it uses
the
odd number 3, and batteries come in 2 packs or 4 packs.
This lamp is ideal for hurricane preparedness.
You can dim the light to save battery life. However, I wish it had a
dimmer setting
for use as a night light. I also wish it had a turbo button, so you
could push the
LED to it's limit, in case you had an emergency and needed a whole lot of
light.
The lamp appears barely water resistant. There is no 0-ring on the
battery compartment.
Choice of batteries is limited as they don't make Energizer lithiums or
rechargeable
lithium-ions in the "C" size.
The cost is also high at $ 40.00.
David
P.S. Someone needs to look to see if there is a way to incorporate the
LED design
of this lantern into a caver's headlamp. For example. nearly all
LED headlamps
aim the LED straight out away from the helmet. Using this design,
you would
have a lamp shaped like a carbide reflector, but with a frosty silverized
coating. The
LED light ( or lights ) would bounce backward into the reflector. You
would need
replaceable reflectors as they would get muddy and banged up. And you
could
have different size reflectors depending on the type of trip you were going
on.
