My experience with diffuser, lantern and wand attachment has led me to believe that that will perform the best by far. I should have figured that it would be since virtually every household light bulb, be it incandescent, fluorescent or LED has frosted glass or plastic. You might already have something you can use as a wand like a white film canister, or Airborne container, or a white pill bottle.
Floodier flashlights work better with wands. I'd be far more into floody flashlights if I could get long wands with them.
Are you in the US? I really like my 4AA Coleman collapsible lantern after doing the glass frosting mod posted over at CPF. Not huge output, but packs away small for camping trips. See more info and links I posted in this thread.
I had need of that sort of light last summer. I wrapped a sheet of ordinary white paper around the head of a conventional 1-18650 light for a ‘snoot’, snapped it in place with an elastic band, and simply stood it on its tail. Between the side light and considerable ceiling bounce, it worked perfectly. 100 lumens was adequate to fill a 200 sq. ft. room with adequate light to cook, eat and function normally.
Frankly, most lanterns I’ve seen force their light out to the sides with a reflective cone and glare quite badly if you look in their direction.
That’s the Coleman collapsible lantern that you can get at Walmart (in the camping section) for about $20. Target sells them too.
I have several of them for emergencies. What I did was wrap the entire thing in electrical tape until just the window is exposed; spray with 2-3 light coats of Krylon Matte Varnish… and viola! No more glare.
The light loss is minimal, contrary to how this dark, crummy photo might suggest (that I took with my cell phone).
I am curious about this as well. Has anyone used both a wand type diffuser and the solar force or fenix lantern attachment? I would like to buy one of them for a camping trip but am unsure as to which one.
Solarforce lantern is great. I use it all the time I have a 3 mode xmlu2 for it and the low mode is nice and bright and lights up a 400sq/f room in my basement no problem. For camping etc it would be great and looks cool.
A wand diffuser is cheap and solarforce sells them as well. I havent tried them because I wanted a lantern not a hollow plastic tube, regardless of its function its not a “lantern”.
I bought 2 of the Solarforce lanterns a couple of weeks ago, not impressed at all but I was using XP-G R5 dropin, the XM-L may be better. Will sell mine if you need it quick.
I do alot of car, primitive backwoods, canoe, boy scout and remote car camping…
I haven’t found a really good lantern yet. I hate coleman gas/propane lanterns. Often they just don’t fit - backpack or canoe/kayak camping. The RayOVacs are my favorite battery lantern at this point. There is a high output Coleman that I will buy when I can find it on sale. Heard good things about it.
For any/all car camping and home emergencies* I use a 12v LED system. Works like a charm. Lasts forever.
For all other uses, I have a few of the Solarforce lanterns - I think they are good. Since I normally bring my SF lights when I go, I save on some extra gear, batteries, etc.
You can hang them anywhere or put them into the stands. Choice of output levels and after a few years, I can’t complain, good quality, durable, well thought out, decent price. I also have a Fenix wand, its fine but the light doesn’t have the output of any of my SF units. I don’t have the SF wand, keep forgetting.
I have been hoping that some company would realize the need and bring out a 26650 or 18650 XML type lantern - think that would solve most of the problems with the units that are out there now - they are just too weak. Some of them are pretty slick and useful to use though, like the RayOVac and the Black Diamond units.
*3 weeks of storm outages in 13 months! No gas generator!!!
I suppose that's why I love my wand. I have it on a 460 lumen flashlight, so it's nice and bright. The way it disperses light is what has me sold; it's like what you'd expect out of a soft white incandescent light bulb. I wish I had it a couple years ago when I spent a couple months in the Sierras doing trail maintenance. All I had was the lantern and diffuser attachments for my Fenix, and it wasn't nice at all. The same light with a wand is so much better, especially for reading maps on my own or in a group.
I'm sure the type of wand can make a big difference. The Xeno wand has a thicker plastic that seems to help disperse the light. Some people have recommended using a film canister, and I didn't have one, so I tried using an Airborne canister with a different flashlight. The output isn't as nice. That could be because the canister plastic isn't well suited to use as a lantern, or because the flashlight is too throwy and it certainly has fewer lumens, or maybe it's because I haven't wiped the labeling off the canister.
I absolutely agree with you about a 26650 version. I'd love a wand for my BLF A8. There are some wands out there, and I'd love it if they came in more sizes. They're cheap enough that I'd get one for all my lights, even my bike lights. :) I think a wand wouldn't be good on a throwy light though, as it probably wouldn't get enough light on the sides of the wand.
I really like the two I show in this thread. The Cyba-Lite is a bit heavy with 3 D-cells but the build quality, output and even light profile makes it a winner in my book.
