Dorcy Lantern upgrade and recent storms

During the recent storms and power outages in the Southeast, I've had the chance to see how well lights did or did not work. I must say there were some definite winners and losers in the bunch.

Winners:

Surefire G2 with Malkoff LED - lasted through the storms and still running strong with out changing batteries yet.

Dorcy Camp lantern with the bulb replaced wtih a Nite-ize 1 watt LED (designed for maglite) Lasted 39 hours on 4 energizer D cells.

Losers:

brinkman Legend LX - lasted 37 minutes (roughly) on 2 CR123s

Rocky Brand (Sams club special 2 for $29) Cree Xr-E lights. These run on 6 AAA batteries and got notably dimmer after the first 20 minutes of usage. Even when set at the lower mode, they dim after 20 minutes to half an hour of use. Very poor regulation on these even at $15 each, I'd pass.

The surprise in all this to me, the Dorcy at $9 for the lantern and $7 for the bulb did as well as any light I had and better than most. If you are looking for a camp lantern or a light to have around the house when the power goes out. This one would be worth looking into with the upgraded LED.

Pros:

Long battery life with LED upgrade

Lots of spill and adjustable focus. (Definitely not a thrower but we are talking lantern here)

built in stand so aiming is easy to do and maintain.

Cons:

Cheaply built. (It probably wont survive too many drops from much of a height)

Bulb it comes with is feable and eats batteries.

Thinking about buying a couple more of the dorcy lanterns and nite ize LEDs for the cabin and the house.

Welcome Wilgen! Glad to have you here. (I don't think I've mentioned that yet...)

I wholeheartedly agree on the nite-ize 1w replacement bulbs...The color has a terrible blue tint, the output is mediocre, but the runtime is absolutely fantastic! I have a dedicated D mag with this bulb in there just for hurricanes/power-outages.

I have not tried the Dorcy camp lantern yet....that looks like it may be even better (And of course would free up the aforementioned Mag for other dutiesTongue out). Where did you get it?

Its been long enough back I'm not sure if it was Walmart or Target. It was one of the big box stores around locally. The nite-ize I know walmart had for $7 at one point so I bought a couple just to have handy.

Aloha and welcome to BLF Wilgen!

Sadly have to disagree wirh you on the Dorcy ..IMHO .. biggest POS ever made ..Battery killer takes 4 D cell batteries and produces absolutely zero light ..We have 4 of them and my thought on modifying them is to hit the back side of the trash can with them ..I took 4 wasted D's from them and stuck them in a led light and got another 60 more lumens out of them for a week.I give this company and design a zero for poor design, bulky stupid and pathetic output on 4 expensive batteries .

I have no doubt iot could be improved with an upgrade .. just wonder if it's worth spending a dime on these ugly pathetic animals ..Do ya'all have any idea how stinking expensive D cell batteries are ?? I'm nbot sure how deeply invested I want to be in imr or lithium ion D sized cells either .I'd rather modify a led stick ansd run it on a real 12 volt battery and a solar panel for the cabin instead of playing with D's at least at the end of teh season you can put it in your car or fire up the boat with it .a half pound D cell hitting the bottom of the trash can is just sad ..much less 4 of them .

And if I could do that for $16, I'd completely agree with you.

Welcome to BLF wiljen! And thanks for the mini review.

I have several Dorcy lights and like all of them but for the Camp Lanterns. They have a similar smaller one that runs on AAs. Both lights impressed me with their mediocrity: fragile construction and battery eating, yet low output.

I'm still looking for a decent camp lantern and have placed my hopes on the $20 SolarForce lantern attachment I have yet to receive. Good on you wiljen, for turning a poor light into something useful without spending a lot of money.

wiljen, it's not a bad light at all with a little bit of work. I have one with the maglite 4d bulb in it.

i want a couple in bulb form

anyone else make something like this but better ?

did you ever do anything with the rocky?
putting one under the knife here.
will let you know if mine sags on an 18650.
tried taking mine apart to see how its built but no luck YET.
btw this is a sams club brand.

The rocky is glued together on the ones I had. Took a heat gun to break the glue loose to get them apart. Best I could tell they are direct drive as they had no circuitry t o speak of (1 resistor). I was able to put a XPg and a 16mm driver in one and run it on 2x18500. The tube is too long for a single 18650 and too short for the 18500s by about 4mm so made a short extension for it by making a new tailcap with the inside hollowed out to provide the additional space.

That was my next step.
btw the controller is in the tail on mine.
was just going to do up a dummy spacer and feed it 18650’s as they are standard with me,the shop,and my business partner who owns the light.
I suspect the sag you report is just typicall of aaa cells.