ASF did a vid a while ago “”all the lights at home depot”:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdjHhVhUOWY” and he got a rayovac light for $5 it was a D cell light but looked like it could take a 6v lantern battery. It had a not horrible beam and I was curious as to the run time. So I looked it up. There were a few different ones listed on rayovacs page. Oddly there is a 10 LED 85 Lm light with a runtime of 45 hours. There is also a 1 LED 40Lm light with a 20 hour run time. Both lights are rated with 6v “heavy duty” batteries.
The 45 https://www.rayovac.com/products/lights/general-purpose-lights/efl6v10led-brite-essentials-6v-led-floating-lantern.aspx
So I am just wondering how you can have a light with more than double the output and more than double the run time is the one driver or LED more than four times as efficient as the other?
I suspect it’s all “marketing magic.” Take that 20 hour/40 lumen one, for instance. I clicked through to Lowe’s and they show what appears to be the same blue lantern and same color battery, but now the mfr’s packaging proclaims “120 hours” and “35 lumens”. Maybe they package the same product differently according to whatever the store chain wants it to say? Whatever. Both of these cheap lanterns will be battery vampires, I’m pretty sure, which means at the tail end of those hours you won’t be getting anywhere near the claimed lumens output (which may, in turn, be more marketing BS).
The only other factor I see is, the two lanterns you’ve linked to have different color batteries. Maybe one is shipped with an Alkaline, the other with a “heavy duty” cell, and a difference in battery capacity could easily affect runtime.
I personally would not spend any money on these $5 lights. The 6V cells are monstrous-sized in relation to their (often D-cell equivalent) capacity. Anyway, my BLF Q8 can ceiling bounce any light level I wish, all the way up to about 5000 lumens; it might be able to put out 80 lumens of constant light for longer than those plastic, unregulated lights can put out their steadily diminishing beam.
That’s weird. I have one of the blue 6V lanterns form lowes and it was 35 lumens 120 hrs. as best I can remember - definitely runs a lot longer than 20 hrs. The beam on this one is a giant spill with a small but very intense/throwy hot spot. Tint is very cool and bluish.
The 85 lumen one dosn’t seem all that much brighter, if any. This one is a multi LED shower head and the beam is all flood.
My son has been using the same Rayovac 35lm 2/4D cell lantern from HD that xxo is talking about for years. Literally about 3 years of frequent, childs play type use off the same set of 4 duracell D cells. Still just as bright as when they were new (which isn’t THAT bright but as xxo mentioned the lux is disproportionately high). Reasonably durable, especially for the cost but after a few years of kids use the head contacts are a little finicky and I had to clean them with alcohol recently. Over all a very good value at $5.
I love these lights. I stick xhp70s in them with li-ion battery conversions and get 4500-5000lm out of them. I’m building another one that’s fully waterproof I got from WinCo foods for $7. It runs on C or D size batteries and had 85lm.