That was the intention of designing & building this lantern. As i spent weeks traveling in areas with no electricity, camping, expeditions, wilderness explorations, back-woods search & rescue operations at base camps needing reliable portable area lighting from dusk to dawn non-stop, i got frustrated in the lack of a good off-grid/light lanterns available on the market that didn’t have any good run times on higher light outputs, any good modes, lack of good CRI tints, all are made out of plastic, used heavy,leaky, alkaline batteries that were always dead after storage and ruined many lanterns, the list goes on with the lacking of features for a good 360 degree light source.
I am excited about this lantern! Thanks for all the hard work everyone put in.
I am almost ready to put my name in for another one just because I know the first person I show it to is going to want mine!
I have heard this come up a couple of times and it’s not a huge deal, but it is easy to fix.
The logo lettering needs to be all the same font/boldness. The “B” and the “1” are inconsistent with the other letters.
It says a lot for this project if the only thing being pointed out is some lettering in the logo!
If I recall correctly, a test unit shipped to you, I’m guessing from China. Any idea when you will receive it? As is expressed often, I’m really looking forward to this lantern.
The logo font can be altered if the manufacturer can do the change easily. ( the original was a font i don’t remember, but below are two alterations using fonts in Adobe Illustrator - Photoshop. We can use one of these that seems to work using a single font type. (all uppercase)
Barry mentioned one was shipped to me a few days ago, but i’m awaiting for the tracking number. (i have no delivery date estimation at this time, but as soon as i know or receive it i will post here.
I personally like Hemihead426 for the font; it looks cleaner to me. Either way, the lantern is going to be awesome and I don’t really care what the font is.
Quick question though, the production sample looks to have a very heavily frosted/just white plastic globe; won’t that cut down a lot of the light output, while also making a very bright spot to glare in everyone’s eyes? I liked the medium frosted look of the 2nd prototype better for that. Granted, I’m not a lantern expert like DBSAR, nor am I involved in the design and production of it, so I bow out to greater people than I. Thanks for all your work DBSAR, have an awesome day.
I’m torn between fixing the kerning between the L and the T, and further throwing off the balance of the left and right side. But that is just the musing of someone with too much time and too few lanterns.
That is one of the concerns i seen, and i will look at once i see the sample to test. in the photos sent to me it does look very heavily frosted, (much more than my V1 & V2 builds) which i will determine once i get the test unit. if its a heavy frost I will request the globe to be much closer to the prototype builds.
Below are the additions since last Sunday 4/21. If you haven’t already done so please check that your BLF user name is correct on either of the 2 linked lists shown on post #1. The names on the spreadsheets are taken directly from my database and it is from that source that the PMs will be generated. An incorrect user name means that you won’t be getting a PM when the buy goes live.
I would also prefer the old/original font. The HemiHead426 font doesn’t look bad either, but is maybe a bit to “industrial” with those splitted letters, while the Ethnocentric font just looks fat.
Heavy diffusors will probably transmit less light than mild ones, but apart from that:
I’m still planning a write-up about the effect of diffusors on the spectrum (I measured quite a few types now), but the general effect is a lowering (because of scattering more) of the blue peak resulting in a considerably lower CCT, can be almost 1000K for a heavy diffusor on cool white light. Warmer tints are less affected because they already have less blue. The CRI is not much affected btw. So if you want to stay close to the original colour tempeature of the leds, just a mild diffusion is desired.
Btw, this is also a concern for folks who add diffusors to light measuring things.