Unintended handlebar moustache. Edit: Turns out someone knew the secret to this Geiger counter. It's not defective, the genius designers just decided that, for some reason, if you're on battery power you need to hold the power button down long after it wakes up or else it dies. Great design! Really excellent. I love inconsistency.
@@zachleblanc3476 Yeah, Geiger counters are pretty heavy on battery consumption, you'll drain it in a couple of hours if you turned it on by mistake, and it will be out of battery when you really need it...
On a channel ostensibly about technology. Yes, lanterns are a sort of technology, but not what most people think about. Not complaining, I've watched all 3 hours lol
Almost everything is better without scripts. Except Sylvester Stallone :) In general I actually prefer people's less scripted and edited second channels.
When I went camping (pronounced: drinking at camp) with friends when we were younger, half of the benefit of lanterns was the entertainment value of watching the most inebriated member of the group trying to get them going. Because of course, a party when you're young and indestructible is just no fun without the risk of catastrophic injury, self-immolation included.
@@adirondacker007 Ok so at least it would not have been _too_ difficult to light a lantern. Just pump it up, strike a match and turn the knob. (Funnily enough, no alcohol required to preheat a white gas lantern, unlike a kerosene one) Sounds so simple doing while inebriated 😂😂
Coleman's rock. If you live where the power is sketchy the propane ones are easy to use although the dual fuel ones an run unleaded gas outdoors. I grew up camping so its second nature. I have seen drunk people do stupid things.
The biggest advantage of white gas and the old=skool lantern - It's still going to work after 20 years in the garage. We lit up my granddad's 50+ year old Colman after sitting for at least a decade with no issues. Little oil on the pump and fresh mantels and it was making light and that glorious sound. I love my electric stuff, but the old stuff will still work in 100 years, no battery can claim that! Great series, thanks for the entertainment!
Yup. We live in such a throw away society, it's shameful. Those batteries will end up in a landfill, leeching toxic metals into the earth for centuries.
Damn straight. I’ve just pulled out an Austramax kerosene lantern from my dad’s shed which hasn’t been used since 1988. Replaced the mantle and fuelled it up and it runs like new. Meanwhile my 5yo headlamp is now in the bin due to leaking batteries.
@@wildtony79yeah, but how much did you pay for the headlamp vs what the lantern cost (accounting for inflation) I guarantee if you bought a good electric light it would still be working in 25, 50, or more years. I have a surefire light from 95 that's still running just fine, and recently I converted it to LED to get even more brightness (NOT using cheap Chinese kits) It's the same fallacy as the mid 2000s MacBook vs windows laptop thing, people compared nice MacBook to budget windows machines that cost a 10th the price.
@@ObamaoZedongThe problem isn't as much the batteries themselves, as the fact that rechargeable batteries often aren't interchangeable or removable. IMO, it should be illegal to sell devices with non-removable rechargeable batteries (including smartphones), and there should be a hefty tax on battery types that aren't standard.
Supercapacitors might last a hundred years. They won't store charge for that long, but they'll still work. Some of the less dense battery chemistries are also very stable, especially if we're talking about something that can power a building. Energy density and cost are often the most important reasons why generators are still common for backup power.
My grandfather was a miner and when he retired he brought home his Humphey Davy miners lamp. Would love to see you have a play with one of these. The "striking" mechanism was bruise inducing but these lamps were all about safety underground. I am sure you would be able to make a facinating video on WHY they were so safe.
As far as i can recall the davy lamp cools and diffuses so that flame doesnt escape the net. Flammable gas can still enter the net and ignite within the net but the net doesnt allow fire or too much heat to get out of the net and ignite the flammable gas outside. If the net has a break in it then it isnt safe anymore. Even a single wire out of place makes it more dangerous. It would be a very cool video to make and i hope he does.
Coleman also made fluorescent lanterns in the same style as these, with two 6-volt lantern batteries inside what looks like the fuel tank, and even a fake plunger.
Battery operated camping lanterns were useless before the widespread use of lithium batteries combined with highly efficient LEDs and even then, the fuel is just a MUCH better choice. You could keep 10 of these things lit all night long for 1 gallon of fuel and with plenty to spare. They are far less dangerous than what is being described here.
One of my jobs, as a wee guy, was to keep the white gas appliances pressurized during camping trips. I'm 62, and still remember that feeling of importance--plus the sound and the scent. I still use white gas, because of nostalgia.
Kerosene is much safer to store, transport, and handle in general terms, than gasoline and other fuels. Aside from gasoline which wasn't ubiquitous until later, the use of volitle or unpredictable fuels is why the use of kerosene became popular in the late 1800's in the first place. With the use of kerosene, the number of house and building fires went down dramatically.
Also remote areas or high ambient day temperatures...kerosene and diesel are cheaper and often running generators and therefore more practical for these lamps.
@@jizburg In an emergency, for a couple of hours, maybe. And only after a very, very, long priming preheat. Diesel is much heavier, more viscous, and dirtier than kerosene. And you'll be going through generators, or cleaning them, which is a tedious task, at a disgustingly high rate.
@@mikemorgan5015 Diesel vehicles at airports generally run on Jet A, which is (for all intents and purposes) kerosene. They can increase wear on the injector pumps, so you should throw in a quart if ATF or 2 stroke oil per tankful.
Connections feels like I'm attending an interesting presentation. Connextras feels like my friend excitedly called me over to show me something. I like them both
This level of semi-coherent rambling even after some edits and reshoots just makes us appreciate the scripting and production of your main channel videos even more. :)
Very good video. At 75 years of age, I can tell you that I have used all of them for decades. If camping, there is no reason not to carry both or all three, propane, duel fuel, and battery. I own three of the propane lanterns and at least 5 of the duel fuel lanterns. Night fishing is a niche use that requires either of the Coleman lanterns, propane or gas. The Coleman Powerhouse, holds more fuel and will last most of the night. Whereas the propane will only last about 4 hours or so. With the Powerhouse adjusted down to about 3/4 brightness it will last from sundown to the first crack of light. The light draws shiners and shad and this draws the crappie. We generally fire them up just before dark, do some bass fishing for a while to give the lanterns time to draw in the fish. Propane works but you will have to change out the bottle after 4 hours or so....scarring away the fish and having to go through the long wait of again attracting them. Duel fuel lanterns will pretty much get you through the night. As for camping, there is something about mantle lanterns that add to the experience. When camping I use Coleman lanterns and old school kerosene lanterns, as well as LED lights. Kerosene lanterns are ridiculously efficient and really add to the ambiance. As for emergency lighting, it makes sense to have battery lights, Coleman lanterns and kerosene lanterns. Living on the Gulf Coast, during hurricane season, I can tell you that you cannot rely solely on rechargable battery lights. The sun may not shine for a week or more. Always have a backup to your backups backup. I carry a backpacking propane stove and bottle in my boat as well as a single burner Coleman stove. When fishing during the winter I use them to warm my hands from time to time. If it is really cold....propane will not cut it. It becomes very difficult to get a good steady burn. This is why most mountaineers use the liquid fuel backpacking stoves. The Coleman single burner on the other hand, works like a charm. One of the older green ones saved my life and likely my wife as well. If not for it, I would have frozen to death.I kept one in my duck hunting bag at all times. One day while hunting from a ground blind on a small island...a freak storm blew in and the temps dropped from shirt sleeve weather to 6 degrees and just a few minutes. The wind howled as this freak front blasted through. The windchill was likely -20. I think it was in 1983 or so when forcasting was not at all like it is today. It set a record. We lost 5 or 6 hunters that morning...froze to death in their blinds or in attempts to get back to the landing. Living in Louisiana we never see such events and most were not prepared. I was prepared, but like an idiot, I attempted to gather my (expensive) decoys. I struggled against the wind and got wet from the spray. Clear ice formed on my hands and the paddle. Giving up on the decoys, I paddled back to shore. I hollered to my wife to fire up the stove and get the poncho ready to cover me. I knew I was fading fast and was in deep trouble. When I stepped out of the pirogue I passed out, hit the ground like a rock. Had I been alone and not had that stove, I would have perished or likely the both of us would have. After I recovered, and warming ourselves, we were able to put the stove in the pirogue and paddle to shore. The shore was just a short distance away. We left all of our gear there on the bank and headed to the truck. We nursed that stove all the way....our lives depended on it. So, the take away is, sometimes you need more than light and sometimes propane will not cut it.
Hello from Europe. Your experience with the near death freezing weather is teaching a lesson for survival. In what place in USA did that sudden freeze happen?
@@MarianLuca-rz5kk In Louisiana of all places. Here on the Gulf Coast we rarely experience severe cold. I can add that just last year we lost a local young man who was out squirrel hunting and a 12 degree front came through....they found him the next morning, frozen. He apparently had no method of making a fire. By the way, that freak front I wrote about, almost killed every woodcock in America. Most woodcock migrate to southern Louisiana. Almost all of them perished when they litterally froze to the ground. It took years for them to recover.
@@WayneTheSeine Thank you for explaining the weather variations in Louisiana by the Gulf Coast. We too have a big delta of the Danube River in my country, a Reservation of Biosphere. There is varied wild nature, there are no gators or venomous snakes, but we have sturgeons coming from the Black Sea, where there are no sharks. The weather varies between -20°C and +40°C. You might wish to see on the Net about the Danube's Delta.
@@MarianLuca-rz5kk Thank you for the response. I will indeed check out the Danube Delta. I am sure there should be some Nature series on it. I do love the outdoors. I just came back from a 10 day campout on a small local lake and saw several gators, had a pack of coyotes near my camp at night, and was treated to the errie sound of the demunitive screech owl, nightly, near my tent. The weather was incredible, clear and cool the entire trip. My daughter lives in East Texas and recently encountered numerous copperheads in her yard. She spread the word to her neighbors and church members. She received a call yesterday to inform her one of her church members young daughters was bitten by a copperhead the day after she warned them about them. The girl has apparently recovered just fine. Copperheads breed in late Sept. and early Oct. then bare their young live, in latter Oct. They seem to be everywhere this year.....more than usual. Personally, I think it is a result of all of the hurricane damage to our forests. With so many trees on the ground, they have plenty of cover which protects them from wild hogs which feed voraciously on them. I will definitely check out the Danube and again thank you for telling me about it.
If you ever want to have a fun conversation, start explaining what a "banana equivalent dose" of radiation is to someone who is paranoid about radiation, and point out that containers of bananas regularly set off Geiger counters at ports.
"Otherwise I am just talking about nothing" I don't mind. I like listening to you. I'd even listen to you talk about something as boring as ,say, ... the colour brown. Oh. Wait.
lol, hey don't think it hasn't already been happening. I seen some channels where they will go DEEP into how and why we see colors and why they are the color they are. lol
I think you may have under estimated the value of the heat that these things generate in a winter hunting camp. Many times I felt that the heat was just as important as the light. I was never far away from my Coleman Lantern when I was in camp.
Yes. The radiant heat they throw is great. Also, if you're bringing fuel, whether white gas or propane for cooking, it takes very little more to run a lantern as well.
@russlehman2070 BUT the heat is a hassle if it’s a hot summer night. You don’t want your light source making you even more hot. You want a cool source like LED lanterns .
@@WilliamWallace14051 that's what I was thinking, it means you can get the plunger back in if you've taken the pressure all the way up and not realized it until you tried to pump in.
@@WilliamWallace14051 I think this is actually the only correct answer. The hole is much too small for the pressure to blow past your thumb. The smaller the hole the more pressure it takes to blow past your thumb. Try plugging your garden hose at only around 30psi and its very hard to do, but with a small diameter air nozzle on an air hose even at 150psi is fairly easy to seal off with your thumb. the hole on the lantern is even smaller. Also the surface area on the inside of the plunger causing resistance to you pushing against the compressing air is exponentially higher than the force to seal the hole. Basically the more pressure in the tank the better seal your thumb will make.
@@jasonjayalap no. Cause you don't need it to be food-grade. The flame doesn't mind burning a little tin that went in solution in the fuel. Human bodys would.
In the area of Oklahoma where I live there was a fad of building all-electric a few decades ago, but then most of those folks got either propane tanks or a natural gas hookup for some mysterious reason...
@@absalomdraconis That was common in a lot of states during the early ‘70s. The oil embargo made a lot of people go electric. Colder winters and lower fuel prices a few years later made them go to natural gas and propane.
I collect and repair Coleman lanterns and stoves. It’s good to see respect for these older designs. There are several interesting mechanisms inside them. The way they draw vapor from the top of the fuel tank for easier lighting but then draw from the bottom of the tank for running, with a single valve is very clever.
He didn't mention how you could add a flint Igniter that you can slide up to the Mantle spin the wheel light it and then pull it back down out of the way great edition the lantern so you don't even need a match It's permanently attached to the lantern
I think you're spot on about emergency use being realistically the primary need for this kind of lighting. I have 2 aladdin lamps in the cellar and during the last power outage they where quiet useful. Of course I used the torch function on my phone to find them. The extra heat was welcome as it was November so not freezing but far from warm when the gas heating shuts down due to no power to run the control electronics and the circulation pump. I have an old propane lamp that goes camping with us in the back of the van, which I've used to light the motorhome when its power system failed, as a fair amount of light for a sort period while fixing stuff is useful. Once the emergency is over it gets packed away agian and everything runs off the vans batteries.
We used to have a kerosene stove on the boat. Alot of old boats do. Other gasses are dangerous to have in a sealed hull and it burns nice and clean. Anyway becuase you already have all the stuff on hand kerosene lamps are a usefull thing. Save the batteries and are just abit prettier. Warms the boat up too which is nice at bedtime.
The Kerosene mantle lanterns were a feature of Sudanese life during my childhood. They were very carefully handled by all. I had always wondered how they worked. There was a funeral that went through our street in Gadarif Sudan. For some reason, it was held at night, and people, including my father and I, did line the street. It was lit by portable Kerosene lights ... they turned the electricity free night into day. Today, LED lights and attached solar batteries make these superfluous as you indicate, and I hope that they are replaced soon. The only remaining issue is dual use lanterns ... some were modified to boil water and cook. Thank you for explaining this in detail.
I used to love the shutoff delay on gas lanterns, it gives you time to shut the valve off and then get to your tent with light, or settle in by the campfire, and then gradually get dimmer allowing your eyes to gently adjust to the dark.
The best kerosene lanterns have a blowtorch starter built in that preheats the generator without needing alcohol. These would be the petromax or clones. Kerosene also has a very long storage life when the container is sealed properly. I switched over all my emergency backup stoves and lanterns to kerosene.
I would think it would be simpler just to design the bottom so it would funnel any liquid fuel that's squirted out to the base of the generator, and then have a fiberglass wick around the generator. Kerosene will ignite readily with the aid of a wick, and the flow of fuel to the wick would automatically stop once the generator started vaporizing the fuel.
Kerosene's also a lot safer: gasoline emits heavier-than-air flammable vapours which can be difficult to vent from, say, a boat's bilge, and kerosene doesn't. My father had a small (7m) yacht and gasoline (which we called petrol) was strictly forbidden in the cabin. Instead there was a special locker in the cockpit with air vents at the bottom. For cooking and light, we used kerosene (which we called paraffin), which was allowed into the cabin.
Well it is true that kerosene is more stable over the Long haul than gasoline. When all hell breaks loose it's probably going to be a lot easier to get your hands on gasoline. And that's one of the primary uses of these lanterns is during the times that may look a lot like a zombie apocalypse without the actual zombies.
You touched on the real reason they are still available: the ritual involved. I have one of these little white gas lanterns, and sometimes I use it. Even though I know my little solar Luci lantern thing is better in every way. It just makes me happy to hear it hissing and glowing and whatnot.
You know, becoming older I can appreciate this sentiment. Been living with central heating for two decades now. But had to use an old-timey gas heater in an old timey building today (literally pre-war, in europe). No thermostat. Just spark a pilot-light and turn up gas valve to hear the thing silently hiss to life, and snap and groan with the heat. I could enjoy that _(If not for the old-timers groaning over the heater how they were_ still _cold, sitting at the_ faaar _corner of the room while I was sweating my socks off)._ Some things never change ; )
I used to have a kerosene fuelled Tilly Lamp that was bought by a collector in Japan. They were a faff to light with an alcohol preburner and lots of waiting.
I have found more problems batteries and solar. Also not as bright. One gasoline lantern can last 3 days. One battery lantern will last one night. If you have a solar and it’s cloudy yer boned.
I think a lot of us use the lanterns because we just like them more than LED's. A certain part of it is the history of them too. The faint hiss as it's running, the perfect color and brightness. There's just something about it that we prefer over LED when camping. It sets the mood
As an LED enthusiast I completely agree. LED camp lights just ruin the atmosphere and I haven't figured out why. I'll break these out for my lighting while camping even though they are, in every possible metric, inferior to my lighter, smaller, brighter and longer lasting LED camp lights. I really don't know why, because I LOVE LED lighting. I guess it's because of the memories of camping with my grandpa and the feeling of being out, truly disconnected from society.
@@BigPanda096 but how is a lantern more disconnected from society than a led light? Nostalgia i get, as well as a bizzare but understandable sense of vibe or association of lantern with rushticness
@@BigPanda096I don't go camping anymore, but I assume its due to most LED camping lights being blue light, rather than orange (6400k vs 3000k, for example). Blue light isn't really common "in nature", so suddenly changing the color temperature throws off the vibe.
@@DimT670 More about the simple technology behind the working mechanism of the apparatus. It's simple and "feels," less "modern," so to say. I am bad at articulating my feelings so I apologize.
The pump seal acts like a check valve to let air in on the upstroke, and force it into the tank on the downstroke. It's a cup-looking thing on the end of the pump rod. Probably plastic, the old ones were leather. Pop the black cap off and it should come right out if you're curious.
huh, interesting. i just thought it was there so if you over-pressurized it a little too much, it won't be a pain in the ass to push it all the way in and screw it shut.
The Petromax lanterns still use a leather patch inside the pump, even the ones that are being made today. Source: I own one and recently had to replace the leather patch inside the pump. It is available as a spare part and also is part of the maintenance kit.
Yeah. Covering the valve just makes the pump work. The pump is useless without covering the hole to allow you to easily put away the pump arm while the tank is fully pressurized.
No, that’s incorrect. There is a ball bearing check valve located at the bottom of the pump cylinder which keeps the pressure inside the fount. when you turn to open to start pumping air only flows into the fount. The pump has an inner rod that screws down into the check valve. watch Frank from Old Towne Coleman repairs on TH-cam- he’s the best
Coleman has a “quad led lantern” that runs on D-cell batteries. It says it will run for 24 hours, but I have left mine on continuously for a week (over 150 hours) and it was still putting out a useable amount of light. Pretty hard to beat for an emergency light source.
If you're at all like me, though, you'll have some D-cells for it when you buy it and then when you next need it they'll be a decade old and either leaking in the device or dead. For an emergency lamp, keep those D-cells in the freezer until you need them.
Fun fact: Tin cans are actually not made of tin. They’re coated with tin as an anti-rust system, and are largely made of steel (which is why some electric can openers have magnets to catch the lid). But because of that anti-rust coating, sheet metal is often referred to as “tin” even if it doesn’t even have a tin coating.
I know the coleman fuel cans are made of steel, with some kind of plating, either chrome or tin is my guess. Whatever the plating is, they do get rusty with age.
Tin cans originally WERE tin. It is a easily worked type of metal sheet that was comparatively cheap in the 18th Century when canning food was being developed.
@@occamraiserNo. Food canning started with glass bottles, but it quickly moved to tin-coated iron cans made from "tinplate". Tin is too soft to make good cans, so they combined its low reactivity with food and the strength of steel. Tin snips so.ilarly would have gotten their name from the use of tinplate, not elemental tin.
We primarily use a propane lantern at late season hunting camp. They have the added bonus of heat. It can quickly heat a six man teepee tent in a snow storm.
I am sure that the propane one is worth the premium cost too, it is so much easier, and in the cold, does anyone want to fiddle with these lamps, or just hit a button and have light and heat going asap?
Pretty much I think this is the answer to all cases where these are relevant : when you are in a situation where you can't carry much AND you need heating and lighting all into one object
Be extremely careful using your propane lantern as a tent heater. Even the cleanest catalytic burner puts out carbon dioxide as well as carbon monoxide. I didn't read about this until recently but apparently the effects of carbon monoxide can stay in your body for *months or perhaps even years*, it bonds into you on a cellular level. I would recommend that you use a battery powered battery powered carbon monoxide detector, and obviously if the tent leaks air a little bit you can consider it a good thing for health and safety. I have to wonder which is cleaner burning, a Little Buddy heater or a catalytic? propane lantern (does the mantle provide a catalytic effect as well, or merely the incandescent glow?). I have used the Little Buddy heaters in my garage, or in the house during power failures in the times before I had a generator, but I did make sure to have a CO detector in each room, and I would crack a window periodically to let fresh air in. The same thing goes for using my portable propane camping stove to cook with in the house, I wouldn't run it for more than 15 to 20 minutes or so at a time.
@@goodun2974 This is true, thank you for bringing it up. I am aware of the dangers. We used it when getting ready for bed and when getting dressed in the morning. The rest of the time in the tent we kept warm in our sleeping bags. The lantern was on for maybe half an hour at a time and nobody slept with it on. I should have mentioned the risks though.
@@JasonLooseArrowAlso Pump gas life can be extended by making sure to buy ethanol-free and/or adding stabilizer, and making sure you store it in an airtight container. But... If you're looking for post-apocalyptic power, look into wood gas generators. They basically burn wood with too little oxygen and output a nicely combustible gas that can be used to run propane/natural gas appliances and internal combustion engines. Some assembly required.
On our sailboat, we've moved completely to LED lighting, and it makes a world of difference. Basically the lighting load down below is nil. Conversely, for heating, we use a kerosene heater that behaves a lot like that lamp, minus the mantle. Works a treat and 8 to 12 litres of kerosene will keep the boat warm for a winter's worth of sailing trips. (Yes, we're that hardcore, that we go sailing in the winter in Canada, on a small boat).
I still run a hurricane lamp as an anchor light hung off the back stay. It's a much more pleasant light to be around while up on deck and the color and nature of the flame catches your eye much quicker than a single point LED light source. I'm sure you know all too well how easily sailboats can disappear in the dark.
@@collinbarker We sail the waters of the Sailish Sea (the waters of the Strait of Georgia, Burrard Inlet, Puget Sound, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca) on the west coast of the country. As long as you're dressed properly, winter sailing has better wind, emptier anchorages, and fewer idiots on the water.
@@otm646 We've actually thought about getting one for our cockpit, as yeah... the LED anchor light that we use on an official basis up on top of our mast is efficient, but it looks like everyone else in the anchorage. That said, we do have a little 2300k LED lamp with a diffuser for the cockpit, so it's not too bad.
They're just fun, camping is about 80% nostalgia for me and when I was a kid everyone had a Coleman lantern so when I see one of those lanterns I get a warm fuzzy feeling. They also will put out a ton of light for many hours, and they double as a very effective hand warmer for those chilly evenings. I find the hissing sound they make relaxing too. Not to mention it's great entertainment when the drunk guy decides pouring white gas on the logs is a good way to get the campfire going.
BUT the heat is a hassle if it’s a hot summer night. You don’t want your light source making you even more hot. You want a cool source like LED lanterns .
I like using liquid fuel lanterns because they are built sturdier than their propane counterparts, and the waste propane bottles that you end up with after use are nearly impossible to recycle or dispose of correctly. Whereas, white gas/pump gas/ kerosine creates less waste containers that can be either disposed of or recycled.
They have to take them back if they sell them here in EU so if you're in a shop that sells replacement bottles you can leave them your old ones. Larger bottles (5kg, 10kg etc.) usually have some small extra cost that you get back if you return them and those are almost 100% refilled and sold again.
@@audioacrylix5005 You can, and I do, but not legally and you have to know what you are doing and use a scale to weigh them and determine the tare/gross/net to make sure that they have been filled properly, not under and certainly not overfilled. There are ones rated for refilling too.
I use my white gas Colman lanterns for night fishing trips down to the river. They give a consistent light and all I have to contend with is the cool down time. Great series, I must say.
I came across these videos after looking up some information to service our antique lanterns. They still work with torn bulbs and old gas! They even have a built in sparker! Gas flowing sound is #2 relaxing sound, right behind a babbling brook while camping
We must consider the idea that READ and follow ALL directions fully and letter for letter somehow doesn't soak in and people feel exempted or want to be exempted . This is FIRE. Do it outside on a level surface AWAY from stuff that catches on fire if possible. Same with old school lighter fluid based lighters, wipe your hands and the lighter after filling and don't overfill😂
A kerosene lantern makes a ton of sense as emergency lighting if you are planning to use it in conjuction with an emergency kerosene heater to provide heating during cold weather. Since kerosene has a long life expectancy and is cheap.
And you can get it virtually anywhere in the world. Downtown in a major city, in a little hick town in flyover country, a village in the Australian outback or the Congo, they'll have kerosene.
In the climate today, with price hikes, and the potential of no availability of petrol then having another lantern that can use an alternative fuel is always handy.
Realistically if you are an emergency prepper, you're going to have one each of the dual gas, the kerosene, the propane, and a battery op one. You're also going to have the equivalent heaters and camp stoves available as well. Because in an emergency you don't actually know which one is going to be available. Kerosene is very stable and can store for quite long as well, as you mentioned, but so can propane which also works for emergency grills and heaters. I would generally pick both over the dual gas option. Personally living in an area that can get bad winter power outages that last several days, I have propane heaters, a propane camp stove, several propane lanterns like these, several battery op lanterns, and even some chemical light sources (glow sticks) to cover most emergency lighting needs. We also keep a good stock of propane in winter, which we'll burn in summer over cookouts and then get cylinder refills again late fall.
@@gedeon2696 i have a about 120$ semi diy solar charging port. It's basically a mediocore photocell, a small battery bank and a bunch of charger outlets. I didn't even have to solder anything because, while not made for each other, modern gadget tinkering crazyness has made them all completely compatible out of the box. It doesn't deliver nearly enough power to provide lighting on its own or run any appliance, but if you have to cycle batteries or charge phones and laptops and the like while they are not in use, it's able to cover plenty. And thanks to the reservoire power bank, even multiple things at once for quite an extended period of time. And aside from the starting investment it's completely free. It can also be upscaled quite a bit without any real additional hassle if you find you need twice or thrice the power. But really, for daily use for my phone or to keep my emergency stuff charged in, you know, an emergency, even an overcast winter day delivers more than enough juice for all of your off the grid survival needs.
I really enjoy these extra videos because they feel a bit more personal to me. Like a friendly conversation after the main presentation. I think both of your channels complements the other nicely. :)
The requirement for covering the hole to pump the lantern is a safety feature. It helps prevent accidental pressurization. Just vibration from transportation could cause the tank to get pressure and possibly cause a safety hazard. So they increased the requirements to pressurize the fuel to make them safer.
Funnily enough, Petromax lanterns don't come with that hole, but also I wasn't aware up until now of the accidental pressurization hazard. (And fyi I don't have any lanterns up to this day and if I were to buy one it would be either a dual fuel Coleman one or a butane one that can be found for a reasonable price in my country.
Safety feature? No. The hole is simply there to seat the pump shaft without fighting the pressure. Just don't cover the hole at any time while pumping and you can easily seat and secure the pump shaft. Was this really a mystery.
When I went to upgrade my headlamp, I had the good fortune/curse to stumble across the Flashlight subreddit. Absolutely insane how many lumens can be packed into such small packages.
Years ago the first custom flashlight I made was bright as hell but got so hot it repeatedly de-soldered itself no matter what I did if I used it for more than 5 minutes. Guess that's what I get for taking parts recommendations from the fasttech forum 😅
@@jamesharding3459 Yes, that's very true. I build a flashlight with one of those 100w cob led chips and rarely use it on full brightness since I ran into a similar problem.
I really appreciate when you compare and contrast different options! Thank you for doing that math! Super helpful! I would like to say that everytime I have been car camping (in Ontario) battery operated lights are by far the norm. Almost no one uses kerosene or propane lights. I usually do back country camping and those folks use battery flashlights because they are small and lightweight. The only places I see kerosene lamps these days are at people's off grid camps and cottages.
For me it’s the fact that they are extremely rugged. I have lanterns that are over 70 years old. And they still work just fine. Even after sitting for decades these things can fire up with minimal work. Propane can sit in it’s tank indefinitely it will never go bad. I’ve used Coleman fuel that’s over 20 years old. And it works just fine.
um i had a small propane bottle go bad in 5 years or less as i forgot about it in garage aka should have been stored correctly NOS factory tampering sealed but all of it leaked out and wouldn't work for my blowtorch or the bbq 🍖 ( and im first though was cool 😎 i don't need to run to the store what a bad find after feeling lucky 🍀 and rummaging in the garage a hour later ) all gone and ended up buy a new bottle instead and kinda had the same experience with the bigger 20lb container 15 years later as i got a bigger bbq and a year later it had a shorter run time than I was planning on as some of it leaked out over the winter ❄️ well not in use now diesel ( probably is the same thing for kerosene but i don't have any on around year basics or know somebody who does ) in my experience in my area rarely goes bad so id pick it over propane and regular E20~ gasoline that evaporates or turns into a gummy 😉 mess a year later or so if i need longer storage life ( except AV gas i use in my classics because it stores well but it stinks 😷 and not good for lighting 💡 lamps inside ) if not gas would work two
You are 100% right. I have a 1918 Air-o-lantern that works just fine, though lighting the old quick-lights can be an adventure. They are safe, but you have to respect them. I usually tell newbies to get a modern lantern (a little safer and adjustable) or to go electric. Keep the air tube clean and a good generator and you are usually good to go.
I love your channel. Your honesty when making mistakes and level of information you provide on all subjects is absolutely beautiful. Thank you for doing these shows.
I swear my old Coleman type lantern pump needed to remove the thumb from the hole to introduce the next breath of to pump. If you sealed on both halves of stroke you'd get nowhere.
@@frederf3227 That's never been a thing with Coleman pumps, I have one that's 40 or 50 years old that you can hold your thumb over the pump hole. Try maintaining or replacing the pump assembly.
Lanterns are also useful for heat. We used to use them at a hunting cabin we'd go to in the winter. They can produce nearly white light (they are extremely bright), and they give off a ton of heat - so if it's early spring or early fall, they are a nice addition to warm up the space. I grew up in a very remote area in Northern NY. We'd have power outages in the winter that could last for days. With a Coleman Lantern, we'd play monopoly in the kitchen and it would get sweltering - but the rest of the house would be cold. We had 2 fireplaces, but they were as far away from the bedrooms as you could get. We'd be heating the place as best we could to prevent the pipes from freezing (would have taken days frankly).
My in laws are from NY state and they said there is a region where you need to get a floating door on your second floor because they get so much snow you cannot open the ground floor door, recalled hospitals being staffed by snowmobile and being tasked with sledding snow because the snow was too high to pile any higher. It's a surprisingly inhospitable place. I have had electricity down for days in wind storms (including one incident where the power pole in front of the neighbors lit on fire) and during that time we have a kerosene lantern and use candles and you better hope it isn't too hot or cold. If I ever built my own home I would scrape my pennies together to put fireplaces in the bedrooms and living area. This is a fear for me that having a fireplace would dissapate; although I would be more than happy to just sleep where the fireplace is. I imagine using electricity for cooking would make you insecure for that purpose as well but my stove can be manually lit. I have heard of stoves in Scotland being capable of not only cooking but heating an entire home, though it does not get as cold in Scotland as it does near the great lakes.
@@xSwordLilyx I'm from NY and I've never heard of this. My family just got 4 feet of snow a few weeks ago, over night from lake effect. Lake effect snow is something to behold. Snowflakes that are larger than quarters. When I was in college in Buffalo, I'd go out running during lake effect storms, I literally could not see the street lamps just the light from them. All I could see around me was the sidewalk and white. I couldn't even see the houses.
@xSwordLilyx BUT the heat is a hassle if it’s a hot summer night. You don’t want your light source making you even more hot. You want a cool source like LED lanterns .
One senario that i really like the duel fule option is motorcycle camping, as i can always get extra fule for my stove or lantern. Just pull a little from the gas tank and im good to go.
That is 100% valid for your stove... but I'd be inclined to charge a normal USB power brick from the bike whilst you're riding (assume you've got an accessory socket and you're not using that 100% of the time for heated gloves/ jacket) and you'll be good for power for lighting.
I used a Coleman every day on the road for 5 months back in the late 90s. Yes the fuel is cheap and available everywhere but so much can go wrong and you can't take it inside your tent so you need batteries and LED anyway. Plus on a motorbike, surely you need a new mantle every time you ride. They might be cheap in America but here in Australia they are like six bucks each.
Uncovering the hole on the pump is an old urban legend people thought was necessary because they assumed that hole was the intake valve. Makes sense, but that’s not the case.
The hole is there to allow air to escape after you twist the knob and close off the pump outlet into the fuel tank. Without the hole to allow air to escape you would not be able to press the pump handle back into the pump body after the valve is closed.
I used to use a coleman backpack stove, and I never uncovered the hole on the return stroke. It is not necessary. The hole is either a pressure limit, or just there to make it easier to push the plunger in when you're done pumping.
@@spugintrntl The hole is there so that you are able to leave it uncovered and push the pump all the way in to stow it when you're done pumping. If it wasn't there you would have trouble getting the plunger all the way back in and it could become damaged or dirty.
The most practical thing about Coleman lanterns is their nostalgia, at least in my opinion. The stoves are great though, and both are fun to tinker with and restore. I appreciate your content!
These white gas lanterns are great for ice fishing. I use mine every winter. Gives my light to fish by in the evening and provides a way to warm up my hands as well.
The issue I seem to run into with electric products is something always seems to break on them and repair/replacement of what broke seems to be impossible after just a couple of years. Meanwhile the pressure lantern my father gave me, that he probably bought in the '70s, still works and I can repair it if necessary. For the limited camping I do, I like knowing I won't need to buy new batteries or a new light whenever I decide to go out next. And yes, there is certainly some nostalgia knowing its the same light my father used before I was even born.
I've used that tiny Coleman stove he had in the video on several solo car-camping trips, and on team-based hikes. They're heavier than those canister gas stoves, but they have a much better heat output, work better in cold weather (canister stoves don't work too good on cold mornings when they're below half full & perform badly in wind), plus gasoline or white gas is relatively easier & cheaper to get than refill canisters.
The kerosene lantern is the sort of thing you would use in a place like Cuba, where you have way too many blackouts and gasoline or even propane is hard to come by. Back in my house in Cuba we had three kerosene lamps and one Dietz lantern that my family had for decades. By the time I was born it was difficult to get a hold of a kerosene lamp/lantern and if you saw one in the market it was very expensive.
It's funny listening to you talk about the energy content versus density of various fuels because I'm very used to those discussions, but usually in the context of rocketry rather than heating and lighting!
Well for most applications liquid fuels are close enough to each other that it doesn't really matter, the most striking example is in cars where as long as you can adjust the injectors correctly the difference between ethanol and gasoline isn't really that big of a deal you will lose a little bit of range, but you can still go hundreds of miles on a tank.
@@psirvent8 Yes, it's not strong but they do have a slight odor not too unlike exhaust from a small engine, which is not too surprising since white gas is essentially gasoline without the various additives.
Enjoyed the content! A cold start technique that I was that I was taught for white gas/unleaded fuel lamps was to pressurize the tank a bit (not too much), light and insert your match, quickly open the valve full open then fully close the valve. The spurt of fuel will of course not be atomized yet due to the cold generator, but there will be enough liquid fuel in the mantle and inside the glass to act like the cup of alcohol in a kerosene lamp to heat the generator tube. Once the fuel has almost burned completely out ( so you don't need to strike another match) crack open the fuel valve and close it. If you get nothing but atomized fuel vapor you are good to go to begin slowly opening the valve bit by bit until the generator tube continues to heat up. If you get another burst of liquid fuel, then again wait until it is almost completely burned out and crack again. Once everything is running in vaporized mode then pump up the pressure on the tank for the "Afterburner" mode. Note the first open of the fuel valve is to the full open to full closed to actuate the self-cleaning pin through the fuel jet orifice to clean out the carbon build up from the last time the lantern was shut off and the dying flickering flame burned inefficiently and probably left carbon deposits in the jet. Hope this helps with your safe enjoyment of lantern fun. I think kerosene lanterns make sense in areas where the fuel will potentially be stored for extended periods of time. Kerosene/JetA and diesel last way beyond the one year of life of modern gasoline. Propane will not go bad. The tank just gets rusty. Major downside to propane fuel is that it has "a lot of quit in it" in really cold weather and won't burn well. More so it seems than the other fuels. Batteries in general especially lithium rechargeable batteries are also susceptible to below freezing temperatures. I bring up cold because if you are depending upon these devices when it's Yukon cold outside when the power goes out for extended periods of time you may need them to help save your life. For just short term fun camping in nice weather, absolutely, rechargeable batteries are the way to go.
The carbon build up is caused by the rubbing alcohol, switch to the yellow bottle of Heat and you will not see nearly the carbon build up. Great video and keep up the good work.
Heat is the best white gas I know of for these applications. I carry a white gas esbit stove on hikes and yellow heat has been a godsend for it, wouldn't use anything else for getting a clean, hot flame.
I think that’s why there’s a thumb hole- so you can push the stem all the way in to secure it (if it was solid, you’d need to be fighting the pressure you pumped in while you twist-lock it).
@@kentkirkpatrick7953 this video disproves that, though. He clearly pumps up the lantern just fine while leaving his thumb on the hole the whole time. If it were a check valve for pumping, that shouldn't have worked. The actual check valve is the cup-shaped bit on the end of the pump rod, inside.
@@ChadHadsell You're wrong. The hole is the check valve. The rubber cup on modern pumps, or leather on older models is the seal that holds the air to pressurize the tank on the down stroke. On the up stroke, it collapses some and allows air to enter the pump from the oil hole and around the cover of the pump. The hole on the end that you cover ensures that you don't over-pump the tank, as was suggested before.
@@HunterAtheist ah, I thought he was saying it was where the pumped air comes in, which it clearly isn't. I'm curious, if the thumbhole is a check valve for overpressure, that means that the pressure in the tank is pushing on his thumb, right? And if the pressure goes too high, his thumb won't be able to contain it. So... Why doesn't the pressure all just bleed off when he takes his thumb off the hole?
Oh yeah? A video by someone who has no experience with lanterns or,, Me with well over 100 lanterns 60 stoves dozen of lamps many irons lots torches and many other GPA related items. Think I'll believe what the Coleman manufacturer says it for.
In some parts of the US, especially out west, yiu'll find a lot of areas where you can get Kerosene delivered in bulk to a tank on your property, you can't get natural gas or electricity. That's where having a kerosene lantern, or lamps, would make sense. Though, to be honest, I see a lot of people who live in these very rural areas are switching over to small scale solar/battery installations.
Even in NC, we used to have all sorts of stuff on the farm... (no-road-tax) diesel, fuel oil, kerosene, LPG/propane. The house still has a fuel oil furnace, and gas logs in the fireplace. The tractor runs on gasoline, so we just fill a few cans at the local pumps. (keep the receipt to get that f'ing road tax back.) You have to get _way_ out in the sticks to not have power. Today I'd opt for solar in a lot of places. (barns, well pumps, etc.)
Bulk delivery of kerosene is still a thing in Maine too. "Home heating oil" with a red dye added so they can catch the people dodging the diesel road taxes.
@@Kineth1 Home heating oil these days is typically ULS red dyed diesel, not kerosene. You can also burn kerosene in oil fired heating equipment, but it's typically 50¢ to a dollar a gallon more expensive. The only people who might need to use Kero is those who store their fuel outside. Kero is less likely to gel cold weather than untreated diesel.
@@erikj.2066 Beat me to it -- I've even seen it delivered from the same exact truck, and talked to the driver to confirm. Home heating oil is in fact just whatever the current seasonal road diesel formulation is with red dye added. It's still a thing in the entire Northeastern US as far as I know.
One lantern also produces six hours of light on a tank of white gas, and a single mantle lantern can run for 8. There is also a huge nostalgia aspect, plus batteries also don't operate well in inclement conditions (especially cold, where white gas outperforms)
Well I'll be. I just tired that and yeah it came on. That's an incredibly stupid design, though. Once the screen lights when it's plugged in you can release the button. Why there would be a need to keep holding it on battery power is beyond me.
You still have to hold it a while before it even begins to wake up as you can see in this video, plus those buttons are very stiff and unlikely to be accidentally pressed. I really think it's a bug in the software or perhaps the startup of the Geiger-Muller tube pulls enough current that the button needs to be held down. It's just silly.
@@TechnologyConnextras In that case yeah, it's definetly silly and even if accidentally turning it on was a concern making how it works when powered and on battery consistent would be better.
@@TechnologyConnextras as far as I could test it, they intentionally programmed it that way. It has to do with several things, probably. 1. the more obvious part: The overall design is such, that it needs the button press on battery until the HV-generator-circuit is fully charged and stable. Battery is, i think, current limited on the PCB, so releasing the button too early makes the voltage for the CPU go down too much. Think of the button as a temporary override. 2. The CPU checks for serial connections and does the initial self-check. If written in C-like programming language, this part will be done separately. If the button is released in that time (until the beep), it will shut off.
The check valve closes and seals the pressure in the tank every time you raise the pump plunger. So what you are really doing is releasing the pressure between the leather or rubber seal and the check valve. Push down check valve opens. Pull plunger up and the check valve seals.
Disassemble the pump and you will see that it is a cup piston. Pushing the plunger in causes the cup to expand, sealing the cup against the pump walls and forcing the air into the tank. Pulling the plunger out allows the cup to relax and allow air into the piston area as it leaks around the cup seal. Once the valve is closed you must uncover the thumb hole in the plunger to allow the air in the piston to exit the thumb hole and allow the plunger to be stowed in the inserted position.
I cannot believe people actually complain about any aspect of your video productions! They’re all so incredibly ironed out/smooth, entertaining, INFORMATIONAL and funny to boot! I assume it’s out of ignorance to the immense effort and time you put in to your channels, as well as the truly difficult process of video editing and production. I can tell you obsess over accuracy and fluidity (to a healthy extent I hope) and you even take the effort respond to your audience incredibly quickly! Thank you for the time and energy you put in to productions like this one. The sane humans who can grasp and appreciate the concept of your channels will remain for years ahead, as I have, even if you ‘make mistakes’ because you’re a genuinely great human and content creator with endless practical knowledge we crave. at least the adults here at Tech Conns (both channels) can see your genius and that certainly overrides complaints about a TINY ticking sound in the background. Like if you hate noise, TURN THE VOLUME OFF. Watch Closed captions if you can’t handle the amazing sound work on this channel. Otherwise, shut ur trap and be thankful you get professionally produced videos basically for free all the time. Nobody is forcing you to watch with the sound so loud you are pissed off by like 10 quiet ticking sounds. No one cares about your unhelpful complaints about the video production void of any encouragement or positive recognition of the effort this guy puts into this love of labor. Go away and complain somewhere else. I love these videos through and through. Have a great day and continue your genius plz
The reason for the hole is shown pretty well in the segment at about 3:36. It allows you to give the air that is trapped in the piston a patch way out. As the pressure in the pump must exceed that of the tank to put air into it, you can never get all of the air from the piston to the tank. This become more noticeable the higher the tank pressure is. You need to compress more air to reach the tank pressure before it will start moving into the tank. When done, the hole allows you to, when not covered, seat the pump and secure it by letting that trapped air out.
42:33 you accidentally touched on on why kerosene has a foot hold, unlike gas which can go bad or corrode, kerosene lamps and fuel can be stored without much room for an extended time.
I suspect that many a farmer or other user of "red" (untaxed) diesel has one or two just because they keep a relevant fuel in conveniently located tanks on their property...
@@goodun2974 I've used vegetable oil and kerosene in tiki/mosquito torches, as the regular fuel for those is crazy expensive. Kerosene worked really well and served as a good carrier oil for some homebrew additives to keep the bugs away (I added small amounts of cedar and citronella oil to the kerosene to add a nice scent and deter the bugs). The vege oil I used didn't burn too well, as it was a bit thick for the wicks and didn't wick up them, but a thinner vegetable oil could probably be made to work well. All of that is assuming that you don't care about efficiency, as with bug/tiki torches you are burning them mich more for smoke (to deter bugs) and ambiance than for light.
OK, I didn't pay attention to the fact that this was a "Connextras" video. AH!!! So THAT's why it seemed more like a ramble stream!!! :D Please keep making these. I like the raw feel of this format. I also watched your "Production Quality" version, and actually like this one better. Good Stuff!
I finally have enough money that hobbies don't have to make sense. Mantle lamps and lanterns bring joy, wonder, and precious memories. That's justification enough.
Yep, they all have their use cases... like the duel fuel in emergencies can just use the same as the car... had to do that a few times. But yes LEDs for pure light you can beat it, but if you need/want any warmth then the others are good also. I love this b-roll/behinds, how it was made/thought process behind the videos as it is nice and raw.
I'mma be real with you Mr. Connections, the reason why I use an oil lamp instead of a battery-powered lantern while camping isn't efficiency, warmth or the fact that it works in extremely low temperatures. It's because small flame trapped in a glass ball makes me feel nostalgic. It's like vinyl records, can't really explain that :D
The best use-case for the Coleman mantle lantern is if you have a very remote cabin away from electricity. I've seen many cabins in the woods where they have no electricity and for the owners, the opportunity to visit them is sporadic. So it makes sense to leave a Coleman lantern with a fuel can in the cabin for when you get there, or in an emergency. They aren't the primary light source, or primary heat source, but they do both, and can be left in a cabin for years and could save your life.
Alec, I went camping this past weekend and took two Dietz lanterns because of your video. It was great, I left the LED nonsense in the bag. Ambiance level 100, convienece and efficiency be damned. Plus, it was fun.
This. I found an old cold blast lantern in the attic a year ago and I've been using it a lot instead of a flashlight. But I like its convenience, too. Is it "discharged"? Just pour in some kerosene, bam, off you go. And it never fails.
If you need a replacement bottle for filling the Kerosene lamp with the alcohol, You can find those filling bottles with the bent neck searching for PC watercooling fill bottles.
technically you should use the colman filter funnel because it doesn't spill, has a siphon, and keeps crud from fouling up the tank which can block that nozzle
@@AsbestosMuffins for the main tank I agree but we are talking about the squeeze bottle with long curved spout for the alcohol without disassembling the lantern
I have Colman equipment that is 40 years old and I still use them. They haven't deteriorated in time with proper maintenance. Nor have they become obsolete in the way that electronics do. I can fix them if there is a problem. Not so much with electrical gadgets. But you also make some great points about LED's and Batteries. Fun Video full of thought provoking information. Best Wishes ! M.H
That fact that we got a whole series about lanterns (1) without anything dangerously on fire and (2) with a small radioactive substance that wasn't a type of fuel or a source of light has been both delightful and illuminating. me: 😁💡 you all, over my pun: 😒 Alec: you call that a pun? that's not a pun. 😏 this is a pun...
Dev! It's great that one of my favorite TH-camrs is a viewer & supporter of one of my other favorite TH-camrs. You have a lot of great content, but your presentation on elevators with Howard is one of my favorite TH-cam videos of all time.
@@PsRohrbaugh so glad you liked that! you saw the main presentation but did you see the lesser-known facts and topics we called "Elevator Obscura" ? th-cam.com/video/EqttQ3U-w-s/w-d-xo.html
The hole on the end of the pump plunger isn't where air gets pulled into the pump. There's a hole to the side of the plunger shaft, in the "cap" of the pump, and that's where the air (and oil, which should occasionally be added) comes in. I believe the hole in the end of the plunger is there so that you can push the plunger down to its "retracted" position when there's enough pressure in the fuel tank to make it impossible to push it any more with the hole covered.
@@HunterAtheist It's to allow you to push the pump all the way in easily to lock it, when you have finished pumping. The pumps on Tilleys and Vapalux tend to creep out again.
The Petromax kerosene lamps have a build in pilot burner which also run on kerosene. You can even light them with a normal lighter without disassemble half of the lamp. The german Army switched their Petromax lamps in the 60s from white fuel to kerosene because to safety concerns. Fun fact: the english "kerosene" is "Petroleum" in german while the german "Kerosin" means "jet fuel". That caused a little bit of confusion for me.
One of the best tech breakdown channels. The preparation, detail, sarcasm, poetry, comedy, everything you put in your videos is such a pleasure to experience on your channel. Thanks for everything you do.
There's two major thing your overlooking for those of us that winter camp. Propane doesnt perform well in near freezing conditions or at higher altitude. Using the duel fuel in those conditions are ideal.
It is butane, that doesnt perform well near freezing conditions. Propane boils at -40° and is, therefore, used in colder climates and at high altitudes.
Propane does just fine in cold weather or high altitude. It is butane that has problems in cold temperatures. High altitude will actually allow butane to work at slightly colder temperatures, as it lowers the boiling point. The burner may run a bit rich though.
@@russlehman2070 For lanterns, propane is find at cold temperatures. But if you use gas too rapidly, the boiling will drop the temperature too low. Can even happen in fairly warm climes if too much is used from a small bottle.
@@DTXBrian Yup. This is why "canned air" (for dusting off electronics and keyboards) or even CO2 tanks used for paintball guns will get very cold to the touch (and often have condensation dorm on the outside of them) when you use them a lot in a short period of time.
Battery capacity suffers in cold weather, while the gas mantle gets harder to light rather than losing energy density. In such an environment, the waste heat from the flame is also a desirable feature. If you factor in the costs of heating, there might be some corner cases where the gas mantle lamp costs slightly less to operate. But that's all they are, corner cases.
30 years in the Canadian military and I agree. If you need to start using batteries to produce heat as well as light the energy economy swings heavily in the other direction.
We have a long winter weekend in the woods every winter, no power. The only thing that works reliably at -30 we found is white gas. Plus you put the lantern in the outhouse for 2 to 3 hours to heat it up a bit
Cold weather is not a "corner case" it is a substantial portion of the year across much of the US. Furthermore, cold weather is also correlated with the time of the year where supplemental light is most needed. In June at summer solstice you can often get away without much supplemental lighting but good luck doing that in December.
I just love to hear an intelligent person talk in-depth about something they're passionate and knowledgeable about. It's also fun to hear about your learning process and the trial and errors of your projects. Thank you for your hard work!
I love this channel and these videos because I feel like I’m listening to a friend. You have no idea how happy I was to be talking to someone at a bar about your videos.
@8:30 In the last >4000 comments someone has probably mentioned, that hole is also used to mount a spark wheel for lighting the lantern. Much nicer than fiddling with a match.
I was wondering if the soot in the kerosene lamp was because you're using isopropyl alcohol which tends to burn with a sooty flame. Better alternatives would be denatured alcohol (mostly ethanol) or HEET in the yellow bottle (methanol).
Just to clarify for readers who might get the wrong idea - John is talking about the alcohol used to start the pressurized kerosene Coleman, and not suggesting using alcohol as a main fuel. Anyway, interesting theory - I use denatured alcohol to start mine, and don't have any buildup like that. Of course, I've only used mine a handful of times, because yeah, it's it's a pretty bad user experience compared to a white gas or propane lantern.
@@Kromaatikse Methylated spirits in the UK, denatured alcohol in the US and _Alcool à brûler_ in France. It's basically the same thing: Denatured ethanol ! (ie ethanol with toxic and bad tasting additives to prevent human consumption). Purple dye being optional. (Here in France the "Alcool à brûler", literally alcohol to burn, used in alcohol stoves and as a cleaner, solvent or whatever... is clear and smells horrible.) Don't know if it has a dye in the US and other countries though.
For me it's the nostalgia. Cant beat a couple of those gas lanterns burning away with the distinctive jet-like sound while you're sitting around playing cards, drinking, BSing, whatever while you're camping...
Parachutist pulls cord and nothing happens. Pulls backup and nothing happens. Pulls emergency. Nothing happens. Starts looking at where he will land. Sees flash. Someone is flying up at him. As he passes by the camper, he asks him if he knows anything about parachutes. The camper replies, ‘No! Do you know anything about Coleman stoves?!’
Alec, I'm pretty sure you made this channel so you CAN ramble and be off script. We wouldn't watch it otherwise. Thank you for more content. Never stress over this channel.
A good addition to the subject would be the Optimus 00 kerosene stove. I've used one for 50 years while motorcycle touring because a tank of kerosene lasts so long.
They’re fun to work on and tinker with. A good toy for anyone who’s interested in engineering, plus some of them are very pretty too. Granted, you’re right. Compared to flipping a switch, getting these things to turn on feels like a part time job
@@heronimousbrapson863 there is even propane heaters that are considered safe for indoor spaces, these units essentially make the most sense for really really cold camping, or as a backup system if electricity fails, a lot of people will say the kerosene for that because of its long shelf life, but i still think the dual fuel is a better option because if you have a car, or any small garden equipment that you use around your house your going to have a supply of gasoline that wont turn bad
I use a much larger propane mantle lamp off a 20lb grill tank in my garage during the winter. The primary purpose is to generate heat, the extra light in addition to the electric lighting is a nice bonus.
I use my Coleman lantern simply for the vintage look and feel. Plus I find it to give off more light than some of the LEDs I have (which are admittedly dim for LEDs). The heat is the nice thing as well. It is great to have at night when you're having a campfire, camping, etc.
I was about to buy a new led lantern for a camp trip, then I remembered our old pressure lanterns. Literal antiques, and they still work! Already more reliable and efficient than a new one in my book
I've got a few Coleman lanterns inherited from my late grandparents. They're all working, even the rustiest and most cobweb-covered. Still handy in a power outage! Thank god the floors they're at is made of pure concrete, thus easily preventing fires from spreading and causing trouble!
IMO, if most of the things are 90 degrees off from the "front" of the lantern... you have incorrectly identified the front of the lantern! I think you're assuming the dial is on the "front", but I have always thought they go on the right side on models like that.
I'm guessing that the assumption is someone would be holding it in their left hand (for righties) so that the right hand (dominant) is free to do stuff and thus the also putting the dials on the right as well to be easy to access?
I've used the camping gas lights and stoves for a month long camping trip. I honestly love them. They give so much light and the sound isn't even that bad when all the modern sounds you're used to are all gone.
Unintended handlebar moustache.
Edit: Turns out someone knew the secret to this Geiger counter. It's not defective, the genius designers just decided that, for some reason, if you're on battery power you need to hold the power button down long after it wakes up or else it dies. Great design! Really excellent. I love inconsistency.
But a gorgeous one none the less lol
Read the manual, boy?
Ohhhh it's to prevent it being turned on accidentally!
@@zachleblanc3476 yep
@@zachleblanc3476 Yeah, Geiger counters are pretty heavy on battery consumption, you'll drain it in a couple of hours if you turned it on by mistake, and it will be out of battery when you really need it...
When you get your audience to watch over a combined 3hrs about lanterns. You're doing something right.
On a channel ostensibly about technology. Yes, lanterns are a sort of technology, but not what most people think about. Not complaining, I've watched all 3 hours lol
Jesus makes me want to reevaluate what I’m doing with my time. Although I did enjoy enjoy the lantern series and most of his content
He is also doing something light... xD
I'll show myself out
When you separate a conditional sentence with a period, you're doing something wrong. (Sorry - couldn't resist.)
@@lukahutinski9075 😄
"Hope you like rambling!"
Alec, it's Connextras. If we didn't like rambling, we wouldn't be here. :D
Yes Robert, You're on point. Also the "information Density" of Connextras is way higher than the main channel, which is another big plus.
I like this
Almost everything is better without scripts. Except Sylvester Stallone :)
In general I actually prefer people's less scripted and edited second channels.
I do enjoy it when Alec "rambles"
When he said that I pictured the Obi-Wan meme: "That's... why I'm here."
When I went camping (pronounced: drinking at camp) with friends when we were younger, half of the benefit of lanterns was the entertainment value of watching the most inebriated member of the group trying to get them going. Because of course, a party when you're young and indestructible is just no fun without the risk of catastrophic injury, self-immolation included.
Were you using white gas or kerosene lanterns back then ?
@@psirvent8 white gas for the lantern. Molson, blackberry brandy, and vodka for us.
@@adirondacker007 Ok so at least it would not have been _too_ difficult to light a lantern.
Just pump it up, strike a match and turn the knob.
(Funnily enough, no alcohol required to preheat a white gas lantern, unlike a kerosene one)
Sounds so simple doing while inebriated 😂😂
Can totally relate
Coleman's rock. If you live where the power is sketchy the propane ones are easy to use although the dual fuel ones an run unleaded gas outdoors. I grew up camping so its second nature. I have seen drunk people do stupid things.
The biggest advantage of white gas and the old=skool lantern - It's still going to work after 20 years in the garage. We lit up my granddad's 50+ year old Colman after sitting for at least a decade with no issues. Little oil on the pump and fresh mantels and it was making light and that glorious sound. I love my electric stuff, but the old stuff will still work in 100 years, no battery can claim that! Great series, thanks for the entertainment!
Yup. We live in such a throw away society, it's shameful. Those batteries will end up in a landfill, leeching toxic metals into the earth for centuries.
Damn straight. I’ve just pulled out an Austramax kerosene lantern from my dad’s shed which hasn’t been used since 1988. Replaced the mantle and fuelled it up and it runs like new. Meanwhile my 5yo headlamp is now in the bin due to leaking batteries.
@@wildtony79yeah, but how much did you pay for the headlamp vs what the lantern cost (accounting for inflation)
I guarantee if you bought a good electric light it would still be working in 25, 50, or more years.
I have a surefire light from 95 that's still running just fine, and recently I converted it to LED to get even more brightness (NOT using cheap Chinese kits)
It's the same fallacy as the mid 2000s MacBook vs windows laptop thing, people compared nice MacBook to budget windows machines that cost a 10th the price.
@@ObamaoZedongThe problem isn't as much the batteries themselves, as the fact that rechargeable batteries often aren't interchangeable or removable.
IMO, it should be illegal to sell devices with non-removable rechargeable batteries (including smartphones), and there should be a hefty tax on battery types that aren't standard.
Supercapacitors might last a hundred years. They won't store charge for that long, but they'll still work. Some of the less dense battery chemistries are also very stable, especially if we're talking about something that can power a building. Energy density and cost are often the most important reasons why generators are still common for backup power.
My grandfather was a miner and when he retired he brought home his Humphey Davy miners lamp. Would love to see you have a play with one of these. The "striking" mechanism was bruise inducing but these lamps were all about safety underground. I am sure you would be able to make a facinating video on WHY they were so safe.
heard about those. seems facinating
Is it an acetaline lamp?
@@reikyfoxxe1847 * Acetylene
Carbide lamps are really neat. I have one and it makes a really nice white flame.
As far as i can recall the davy lamp cools and diffuses so that flame doesnt escape the net. Flammable gas can still enter the net and ignite within the net but the net doesnt allow fire or too much heat to get out of the net and ignite the flammable gas outside. If the net has a break in it then it isnt safe anymore. Even a single wire out of place makes it more dangerous.
It would be a very cool video to make and i hope he does.
Coleman also made fluorescent lanterns in the same style as these, with two 6-volt lantern batteries inside what looks like the fuel tank, and even a fake plunger.
I had one, it was pretty alright. Very usable before LEDs were common.
LEDs too.
And they suck...because of that batteries..
We had this too growing up! I saw it in my parent's garage recently and it still turns on
Battery operated camping lanterns were useless before the widespread use of lithium batteries combined with highly efficient LEDs and even then, the fuel is just a MUCH better choice. You could keep 10 of these things lit all night long for 1 gallon of fuel and with plenty to spare.
They are far less dangerous than what is being described here.
One of my jobs, as a wee guy, was to keep the white gas appliances pressurized during camping trips. I'm 62, and still remember that feeling of importance--plus the sound and the scent. I still use white gas, because of nostalgia.
Kerosene is much safer to store, transport, and handle in general terms, than gasoline and other fuels. Aside from gasoline which wasn't ubiquitous until later, the use of volitle or unpredictable fuels is why the use of kerosene became popular in the late 1800's in the first place. With the use of kerosene, the number of house and building fires went down dramatically.
Also remote areas or high ambient day temperatures...kerosene and diesel are cheaper and often running generators and therefore more practical for these lamps.
also kerosene is essentialy diesel oil. so you could just run the lamp on that if you realy wanted to.
@@jizburg In an emergency, for a couple of hours, maybe. And only after a very, very, long priming preheat. Diesel is much heavier, more viscous, and dirtier than kerosene. And you'll be going through generators, or cleaning them, which is a tedious task, at a disgustingly high rate.
@@mikemorgan5015 with enough fuel you could use it for weeks from what i understand.
Diesel has pretty much the same viskosity from what i understand.
@@mikemorgan5015 Diesel vehicles at airports generally run on Jet A, which is (for all intents and purposes) kerosene.
They can increase wear on the injector pumps, so you should throw in a quart if ATF or 2 stroke oil per tankful.
Connections feels like I'm attending an interesting presentation. Connextras feels like my friend excitedly called me over to show me something. I like them both
This nails the feeling on the head perfectly. It's gold.
This level of semi-coherent rambling even after some edits and reshoots just makes us appreciate the scripting and production of your main channel videos even more. :)
Oh come on, he ain't THAT bad unscripted :P
Very good video. At 75 years of age, I can tell you that I have used all of them for decades. If camping, there is no reason not to carry both or all three, propane, duel fuel, and battery. I own three of the propane lanterns and at least 5 of the duel fuel lanterns. Night fishing is a niche use that requires either of the Coleman lanterns, propane or gas. The Coleman Powerhouse, holds more fuel and will last most of the night. Whereas the propane will only last about 4 hours or so. With the Powerhouse adjusted down to about 3/4 brightness it will last from sundown to the first crack of light. The light draws shiners and shad and this draws the crappie. We generally fire them up just before dark, do some bass fishing for a while to give the lanterns time to draw in the fish. Propane works but you will have to change out the bottle after 4 hours or so....scarring away the fish and having to go through the long wait of again attracting them.
Duel fuel lanterns will pretty much get you through the night. As for camping, there is something about mantle lanterns that add to the experience. When camping I use Coleman lanterns and old school kerosene lanterns, as well as LED lights. Kerosene lanterns are ridiculously efficient and really add to the ambiance. As for emergency lighting, it makes sense to have battery lights, Coleman lanterns and kerosene lanterns. Living on the Gulf Coast, during hurricane season, I can tell you that you cannot rely solely on rechargable battery lights. The sun may not shine for a week or more. Always have a backup to your backups backup.
I carry a backpacking propane stove and bottle in my boat as well as a single burner Coleman stove. When fishing during the winter I use them to warm my hands from time to time. If it is really cold....propane will not cut it. It becomes very difficult to get a good steady burn. This is why most mountaineers use the liquid fuel backpacking stoves. The Coleman single burner on the other hand, works like a charm.
One of the older green ones saved my life and likely my wife as well. If not for it, I would have frozen to death.I kept one in my duck hunting bag at all times. One day while hunting from a ground blind on a small island...a freak storm blew in and the temps dropped from shirt sleeve weather to 6 degrees and just a few minutes. The wind howled as this freak front blasted through. The windchill was likely -20. I think it was in 1983 or so when forcasting was not at all like it is today. It set a record. We lost 5 or 6 hunters that morning...froze to death in their blinds or in attempts to get back to the landing. Living in Louisiana we never see such events and most were not prepared. I was prepared, but like an idiot, I attempted to gather my (expensive) decoys. I struggled against the wind and got wet from the spray. Clear ice formed on my hands and the paddle. Giving up on the decoys, I paddled back to shore. I hollered to my wife to fire up the stove and get the poncho ready to cover me. I knew I was fading fast and was in deep trouble. When I stepped out of the pirogue I passed out, hit the ground like a rock. Had I been alone and not had that stove, I would have perished or likely the both of us would have. After I recovered, and warming ourselves, we were able to put the stove in the pirogue and paddle to shore. The shore was just a short distance away. We left all of our gear there on the bank and headed to the truck. We nursed that stove all the way....our lives depended on it. So, the take away is, sometimes you need more than light and sometimes propane will not cut it.
Hello from Europe. Your experience with the near death freezing weather is teaching a lesson for survival. In what place in USA did that sudden freeze happen?
@@MarianLuca-rz5kk In Louisiana of all places. Here on the Gulf Coast we rarely experience severe cold. I can add that just last year we lost a local young man who was out squirrel hunting and a 12 degree front came through....they found him the next morning, frozen. He apparently had no method of making a fire. By the way, that freak front I wrote about, almost killed every woodcock in America. Most woodcock migrate to southern Louisiana. Almost all of them perished when they litterally froze to the ground. It took years for them to recover.
@@WayneTheSeine
Thank you for explaining the weather variations in Louisiana by the Gulf Coast. We too have a big delta of the Danube River in my country, a Reservation of Biosphere. There is varied wild nature, there are no gators or venomous snakes, but we have sturgeons coming from the Black Sea, where there are no sharks. The weather varies between -20°C and +40°C. You might wish to see on the Net about the Danube's Delta.
@@MarianLuca-rz5kk Thank you for the response. I will indeed check out the Danube Delta. I am sure there should be some Nature series on it. I do love the outdoors. I just came back from a 10 day campout on a small local lake and saw several gators, had a pack of coyotes near my camp at night, and was treated to the errie sound of the demunitive screech owl, nightly, near my tent. The weather was incredible, clear and cool the entire trip. My daughter lives in East Texas and recently encountered numerous copperheads in her yard. She spread the word to her neighbors and church members. She received a call yesterday to inform her one of her church members young daughters was bitten by a copperhead the day after she warned them about them. The girl has apparently recovered just fine. Copperheads breed in late Sept. and early Oct. then bare their young live, in latter Oct. They seem to be everywhere this year.....more than usual. Personally, I think it is a result of all of the hurricane damage to our forests. With so many trees on the ground, they have plenty of cover which protects them from wild hogs which feed voraciously on them. I will definitely check out the Danube and again thank you for telling me about it.
Bro, you wrote a book.
You know you're deep down the rabbit hole when you start inventing new units.
I'm shocked he had to INVENT the lumen/hour .... I'd have thought back packers would have wanted that years ago ???????
We need more using SI prefixes in nonstandard ways.
the germans made a kerosene lantern that doesn't need alcohol, they put a jet flame nozzle under the generator to heat it up
@@tedundercarriage8183 That's the most German thing I've heard in a while
@@edgeeffect I believe it's "lumen-hour" (ie. not "lumens per hour"). Lumen-hours are the output energy analog of the stored energy (Watt-hours)
It's good that you left the Geiger counter on - demonstrates your point about background radiation well for those not familiar with the concept.
If you ever want to have a fun conversation, start explaining what a "banana equivalent dose" of radiation is to someone who is paranoid about radiation, and point out that containers of bananas regularly set off Geiger counters at ports.
My thoughts exactly!
"Otherwise I am just talking about nothing"
I don't mind. I like listening to you. I'd even listen to you talk about something as boring as ,say, ... the colour brown.
Oh. Wait.
lol, hey don't think it hasn't already been happening. I seen some channels where they will go DEEP into how and why we see colors and why they are the color they are. lol
I just re-watched the color brown like a few days ago...... :D maybe for the third or fourth time :D
I think you may have under estimated the value of the heat that these things generate in a winter hunting camp. Many times I felt that the heat was just as important as the light. I was never far away from my Coleman Lantern when I was in camp.
Yes. The radiant heat they throw is great. Also, if you're bringing fuel, whether white gas or propane for cooking, it takes very little more to run a lantern as well.
41:10 ?
Bring one of the fire-to-electric chargers 🤪
Candles can also produce a shocking amount of heat
43:57 ?
@russlehman2070 BUT the heat is a hassle if it’s a hot summer night. You don’t want your light source making you even more hot. You want a cool source like LED lanterns
.
The reason for putting your thumb on the end of the plunger is your thumb can only hold back soo much pressure. This prevents over pressuring the tank
It also allows the pump to be closed without fighting the pressure in the tank.
@@WilliamWallace14051 that's what I was thinking, it means you can get the plunger back in if you've taken the pressure all the way up and not realized it until you tried to pump in.
Well, isn't this a brilliant solution.
@@WilliamWallace14051 I think this is actually the only correct answer. The hole is much too small for the pressure to blow past your thumb. The smaller the hole the more pressure it takes to blow past your thumb. Try plugging your garden hose at only around 30psi and its very hard to do, but with a small diameter air nozzle on an air hose even at 150psi is fairly easy to seal off with your thumb. the hole on the lantern is even smaller. Also the surface area on the inside of the plunger causing resistance to you pushing against the compressing air is exponentially higher than the force to seal the hole. Basically the more pressure in the tank the better seal your thumb will make.
The Kanister is made of "Tinplate" ("white sheet metal"/"Weißblech" in German), sheets of steel, coated with tin, as protection against corrosion.
Jawohl, exakt, Weissblech. 👍 Dass er das nicht sicher wusste?
Is the inside (BPA) resin like food/aluminum cans?
@@jasonjayalap No
@@jasonjayalap Yes, maybe
@@jasonjayalap no. Cause you don't need it to be food-grade.
The flame doesn't mind burning a little tin that went in solution in the fuel. Human bodys would.
It is always a good idea to have backups. As a Texan I have a new appreciation for the need to have a source of heat not reliant on the electric grid.
In the area of Oklahoma where I live there was a fad of building all-electric a few decades ago, but then most of those folks got either propane tanks or a natural gas hookup for some mysterious reason...
@@absalomdraconis That was common in a lot of states during the early ‘70s. The oil embargo made a lot of people go electric. Colder winters and lower fuel prices a few years later made them go to natural gas and propane.
I collect and repair Coleman lanterns and stoves. It’s good to see respect for these older designs. There are several interesting mechanisms inside them. The way they draw vapor from the top of the fuel tank for easier lighting but then draw from the bottom of the tank for running, with a single valve is very clever.
He didn't mention how you could add a flint Igniter that you can slide up to the Mantle spin the wheel light it and then pull it back down out of the way great edition the lantern so you don't even need a match It's permanently attached to the lantern
@@kennethparker2168 that’s just an accessory, (that I add to about half of mine).
"Connextras - the standards are lower!" That's a great slogan.
Krusty Band Seal of Approval: "It's not just good, it's good enough!"
I love the raw and real of this chanel
I think you're spot on about emergency use being realistically the primary need for this kind of lighting. I have 2 aladdin lamps in the cellar and during the last power outage they where quiet useful. Of course I used the torch function on my phone to find them. The extra heat was welcome as it was November so not freezing but far from warm when the gas heating shuts down due to no power to run the control electronics and the circulation pump. I have an old propane lamp that goes camping with us in the back of the van, which I've used to light the motorhome when its power system failed, as a fair amount of light for a sort period while fixing stuff is useful. Once the emergency is over it gets packed away agian and everything runs off the vans batteries.
We used to have a kerosene stove on the boat. Alot of old boats do. Other gasses are dangerous to have in a sealed hull and it burns nice and clean. Anyway becuase you already have all the stuff on hand kerosene lamps are a usefull thing. Save the batteries and are just abit prettier. Warms the boat up too which is nice at bedtime.
@John Brown not freezing in November? Northern Minnesnowta just stepped in to chat.
Yawn
@@ducewags I'm in the UK, November can be cold but we tend not to get temperatures below freezing until December.
@@johnbrown3155 That would be nice, then again the -40's in the winter kills' off the summer bugs. -40f is very close to -40c if you were wondering.
i like that you can speak about inefficiency of gasoline/kerosene lamps for 40 mins and 10 thousand people would want to watch it in first two hours
I always wondered what happened to the actor that play Eddy Munster...
The Kerosene mantle lanterns were a feature of Sudanese life during my childhood. They were very carefully handled by all. I had always wondered how they worked. There was a funeral that went through our street in Gadarif Sudan. For some reason, it was held at night, and people, including my father and I, did line the street. It was lit by portable Kerosene lights ... they turned the electricity free night into day. Today, LED lights and attached solar batteries make these superfluous as you indicate, and I hope that they are replaced soon. The only remaining issue is dual use lanterns ... some were modified to boil water and cook. Thank you for explaining this in detail.
I used to love the shutoff delay on gas lanterns, it gives you time to shut the valve off and then get to your tent with light, or settle in by the campfire, and then gradually get dimmer allowing your eyes to gently adjust to the dark.
Oh my gosh, I was going to just write the same thing! Yes, it's an ideal behavior and I've done that many many times camping.
The best kerosene lanterns have a blowtorch starter built in that preheats the generator without needing alcohol. These would be the petromax or clones. Kerosene also has a very long storage life when the container is sealed properly. I switched over all my emergency backup stoves and lanterns to kerosene.
I would think it would be simpler just to design the bottom so it would funnel any liquid fuel that's squirted out to the base of the generator, and then have a fiberglass wick around the generator. Kerosene will ignite readily with the aid of a wick, and the flow of fuel to the wick would automatically stop once the generator started vaporizing the fuel.
Kerosene's also a lot safer: gasoline emits heavier-than-air flammable vapours which can be difficult to vent from, say, a boat's bilge, and kerosene doesn't. My father had a small (7m) yacht and gasoline (which we called petrol) was strictly forbidden in the cabin. Instead there was a special locker in the cockpit with air vents at the bottom. For cooking and light, we used kerosene (which we called paraffin), which was allowed into the cabin.
Well it is true that kerosene is more stable over the Long haul than gasoline. When all hell breaks loose it's probably going to be a lot easier to get your hands on gasoline. And that's one of the primary uses of these lanterns is during the times that may look a lot like a zombie apocalypse without the actual zombies.
@@flatfingertuning727 That would be smelly and smoky though.
Kerosene is great but the lack of risk to my life and face make it much less exciting.
You touched on the real reason they are still available: the ritual involved. I have one of these little white gas lanterns, and sometimes I use it. Even though I know my little solar Luci lantern thing is better in every way. It just makes me happy to hear it hissing and glowing and whatnot.
You know, becoming older I can appreciate this sentiment. Been living with central heating for two decades now. But had to use an old-timey gas heater in an old timey building today (literally pre-war, in europe). No thermostat. Just spark a pilot-light and turn up gas valve to hear the thing silently hiss to life, and snap and groan with the heat. I could enjoy that _(If not for the old-timers groaning over the heater how they were_ still _cold, sitting at the_ faaar _corner of the room while I was sweating my socks off)._
Some things never change ; )
I used to have a kerosene fuelled Tilly Lamp that was bought by a collector in Japan. They were a faff to light with an alcohol preburner and lots of waiting.
Not better in *every* way - in colder conditions , the heat they give off can be a huge plus.
I have found more problems batteries and solar. Also not as bright. One gasoline lantern can last 3 days. One battery lantern will last one night. If you have a solar and it’s cloudy yer boned.
@@timesthree5757 Cheap lanterns perhaps, I have a battery and solar lantern which gives WAY more light than my Coleman does and lasts 4 to 5 nights.
I think a lot of us use the lanterns because we just like them more than LED's. A certain part of it is the history of them too. The faint hiss as it's running, the perfect color and brightness. There's just something about it that we prefer over LED when camping. It sets the mood
As an LED enthusiast I completely agree. LED camp lights just ruin the atmosphere and I haven't figured out why. I'll break these out for my lighting while camping even though they are, in every possible metric, inferior to my lighter, smaller, brighter and longer lasting LED camp lights.
I really don't know why, because I LOVE LED lighting. I guess it's because of the memories of camping with my grandpa and the feeling of being out, truly disconnected from society.
@@BigPanda096 but how is a lantern more disconnected from society than a led light? Nostalgia i get, as well as a bizzare but understandable sense of vibe or association of lantern with rushticness
@@BigPanda096I don't go camping anymore, but I assume its due to most LED camping lights being blue light, rather than orange (6400k vs 3000k, for example). Blue light isn't really common "in nature", so suddenly changing the color temperature throws off the vibe.
@@BigPanda096 I think itmay be a combination of color and "point" intensity / britghtness
@@DimT670 More about the simple technology behind the working mechanism of the apparatus. It's simple and "feels," less "modern," so to say. I am bad at articulating my feelings so I apologize.
"The standards are lower"
Never change man.
The pump seal acts like a check valve to let air in on the upstroke, and force it into the tank on the downstroke. It's a cup-looking thing on the end of the pump rod. Probably plastic, the old ones were leather. Pop the black cap off and it should come right out if you're curious.
huh, interesting. i just thought it was there so if you over-pressurized it a little too much, it won't be a pain in the ass to push it all the way in and screw it shut.
Correct. Seems to many ignorant people think otherwise.
The Petromax lanterns still use a leather patch inside the pump, even the ones that are being made today. Source: I own one and recently had to replace the leather patch inside the pump. It is available as a spare part and also is part of the maintenance kit.
Yeah. Covering the valve just makes the pump work. The pump is useless without covering the hole to allow you to easily put away the pump arm while the tank is fully pressurized.
No, that’s incorrect. There is a ball bearing check valve located at the bottom of the pump cylinder which keeps the pressure inside the fount. when you turn to open to start pumping air only flows into the fount. The pump has an inner rod that screws down into the check valve. watch Frank from Old Towne Coleman repairs on TH-cam- he’s the best
Coleman has a “quad led lantern” that runs on D-cell batteries. It says it will run for 24 hours, but I have left mine on continuously for a week (over 150 hours) and it was still putting out a useable amount of light. Pretty hard to beat for an emergency light source.
damn
If you're at all like me, though, you'll have some D-cells for it when you buy it and then when you next need it they'll be a decade old and either leaking in the device or dead. For an emergency lamp, keep those D-cells in the freezer until you need them.
@@oasntet How old are your D-Cells? Lithium ion dont like the cold
@@alastorclark3492 lithium ion d cell batteries?
You can buy LED lanterns that run on 18650 and 21700 sized lithium rechargeable batteries. My favorite takes 3 18650s and can charge other things too.
Fun fact: Tin cans are actually not made of tin. They’re coated with tin as an anti-rust system, and are largely made of steel (which is why some electric can openers have magnets to catch the lid). But because of that anti-rust coating, sheet metal is often referred to as “tin” even if it doesn’t even have a tin coating.
I know the coleman fuel cans are made of steel, with some kind of plating, either chrome or tin is my guess. Whatever the plating is, they do get rusty with age.
Tin cans originally WERE tin. It is a easily worked type of metal sheet that was comparatively cheap in the 18th Century when canning food was being developed.
@@occamraiser OK. I may have actually heard that somewhere else, but regardless, it makes sense. LSNED.
This is also why sheet-metal sheers are also sometimes referred to as 'tin snips'.
@@occamraiserNo. Food canning started with glass bottles, but it quickly moved to tin-coated iron cans made from "tinplate".
Tin is too soft to make good cans, so they combined its low reactivity with food and the strength of steel.
Tin snips so.ilarly would have gotten their name from the use of tinplate, not elemental tin.
We primarily use a propane lantern at late season hunting camp. They have the added bonus of heat. It can quickly heat a six man teepee tent in a snow storm.
Very valid point - the heat produced as a side effect of producing light via gas can be utilized as a means of heating outside lighting a fire.
I am sure that the propane one is worth the premium cost too, it is so much easier, and in the cold, does anyone want to fiddle with these lamps, or just hit a button and have light and heat going asap?
Pretty much I think this is the answer to all cases where these are relevant : when you are in a situation where you can't carry much AND you need heating and lighting all into one object
Be extremely careful using your propane lantern as a tent heater. Even the cleanest catalytic burner puts out carbon dioxide as well as carbon monoxide. I didn't read about this until recently but apparently the effects of carbon monoxide can stay in your body for *months or perhaps even years*, it bonds into you on a cellular level. I would recommend that you use a battery powered battery powered carbon monoxide detector, and obviously if the tent leaks air a little bit you can consider it a good thing for health and safety. I have to wonder which is cleaner burning, a Little Buddy heater or a catalytic? propane lantern (does the mantle provide a catalytic effect as well, or merely the incandescent glow?). I have used the Little Buddy heaters in my garage, or in the house during power failures in the times before I had a generator, but I did make sure to have a CO detector in each room, and I would crack a window periodically to let fresh air in. The same thing goes for using my portable propane camping stove to cook with in the house, I wouldn't run it for more than 15 to 20 minutes or so at a time.
@@goodun2974 This is true, thank you for bringing it up. I am aware of the dangers. We used it when getting ready for bed and when getting dressed in the morning. The rest of the time in the tent we kept warm in our sleeping bags. The lantern was on for maybe half an hour at a time and nobody slept with it on. I should have mentioned the risks though.
Hi, kerosene lasts up to 5 years in it's original container. Pump gas doesn't.
That is a super-cool and utterly tiny detail. Thanks for commenting! Another tool in my pandemic/zombie notes!
Good point.
@@JasonLooseArrowAlso Pump gas life can be extended by making sure to buy ethanol-free and/or adding stabilizer, and making sure you store it in an airtight container.
But... If you're looking for post-apocalyptic power, look into wood gas generators. They basically burn wood with too little oxygen and output a nicely combustible gas that can be used to run propane/natural gas appliances and internal combustion engines. Some assembly required.
White gas can last decades.
I've heard that if stored correctly kerosene can last indefinitely
On our sailboat, we've moved completely to LED lighting, and it makes a world of difference. Basically the lighting load down below is nil. Conversely, for heating, we use a kerosene heater that behaves a lot like that lamp, minus the mantle. Works a treat and 8 to 12 litres of kerosene will keep the boat warm for a winter's worth of sailing trips. (Yes, we're that hardcore, that we go sailing in the winter in Canada, on a small boat).
That sounds like a lot of fun!
Just curious about where you sail in Canada in winter, I know not all of the Great Lakes freeze over, but still
I still run a hurricane lamp as an anchor light hung off the back stay. It's a much more pleasant light to be around while up on deck and the color and nature of the flame catches your eye much quicker than a single point LED light source.
I'm sure you know all too well how easily sailboats can disappear in the dark.
@@collinbarker We sail the waters of the Sailish Sea (the waters of the Strait of Georgia, Burrard Inlet, Puget Sound, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca) on the west coast of the country. As long as you're dressed properly, winter sailing has better wind, emptier anchorages, and fewer idiots on the water.
@@otm646 We've actually thought about getting one for our cockpit, as yeah... the LED anchor light that we use on an official basis up on top of our mast is efficient, but it looks like everyone else in the anchorage. That said, we do have a little 2300k LED lamp with a diffuser for the cockpit, so it's not too bad.
They're just fun, camping is about 80% nostalgia for me and when I was a kid everyone had a Coleman lantern so when I see one of those lanterns I get a warm fuzzy feeling. They also will put out a ton of light for many hours, and they double as a very effective hand warmer for those chilly evenings. I find the hissing sound they make relaxing too. Not to mention it's great entertainment when the drunk guy decides pouring white gas on the logs is a good way to get the campfire going.
BUT the heat is a hassle if it’s a hot summer night. You don’t want your light source making you even more hot. You want a cool source like LED lanterns
.
I like using liquid fuel lanterns because they are built sturdier than their propane counterparts, and the waste propane bottles that you end up with after use are nearly impossible to recycle or dispose of correctly. Whereas, white gas/pump gas/ kerosine creates less waste containers that can be either disposed of or recycled.
They have to take them back if they sell them here in EU so if you're in a shop that sells replacement bottles you can leave them your old ones.
Larger bottles (5kg, 10kg etc.) usually have some small extra cost that you get back if you return them and those are almost 100% refilled and sold again.
Same thing with used car oil. Just leave it where you got it.
You can refill those small green propane tanks yourself with a large tank and thats no waste at all :)
@@audioacrylix5005 You can, and I do, but not legally and you have to know what you are doing and use a scale to weigh them and determine the tare/gross/net to make sure that they have been filled properly, not under and certainly not overfilled. There are ones rated for refilling too.
I refill my small 1 pound cylinders and use them over and over again. No reason to recycle or throw away.
I use my white gas Colman lanterns for night fishing trips down to the river. They give a consistent light and all I have to contend with is the cool down time. Great series, I must say.
I grew up with them and the "noise" people complain about is one of the sounds of outdoor life to me
I came across these videos after looking up some information to service our antique lanterns. They still work with torn bulbs and old gas! They even have a built in sparker!
Gas flowing sound is #2 relaxing sound, right behind a babbling brook while camping
We must consider the idea that READ and follow ALL directions fully and letter for letter somehow doesn't soak in and people feel exempted or want to be exempted . This is FIRE. Do it outside on a level surface AWAY from stuff that catches on fire if possible. Same with old school lighter fluid based lighters, wipe your hands and the lighter after filling and don't overfill😂
What series?
@@oplefirem So relaxing!
A kerosene lantern makes a ton of sense as emergency lighting if you are planning to use it in conjuction with an emergency kerosene heater to provide heating during cold weather. Since kerosene has a long life expectancy and is cheap.
And you can get it virtually anywhere in the world. Downtown in a major city, in a little hick town in flyover country, a village in the Australian outback or the Congo, they'll have kerosene.
In the climate today, with price hikes, and the potential of no availability of petrol then having another lantern that can use an alternative fuel is always handy.
Realistically if you are an emergency prepper, you're going to have one each of the dual gas, the kerosene, the propane, and a battery op one. You're also going to have the equivalent heaters and camp stoves available as well. Because in an emergency you don't actually know which one is going to be available. Kerosene is very stable and can store for quite long as well, as you mentioned, but so can propane which also works for emergency grills and heaters. I would generally pick both over the dual gas option.
Personally living in an area that can get bad winter power outages that last several days, I have propane heaters, a propane camp stove, several propane lanterns like these, several battery op lanterns, and even some chemical light sources (glow sticks) to cover most emergency lighting needs. We also keep a good stock of propane in winter, which we'll burn in summer over cookouts and then get cylinder refills again late fall.
@@wanderer202 And in long (days, not hours) power outages, where will you recharge the "rechargeable" lights and gadjets ??
@@gedeon2696 i have a about 120$ semi diy solar charging port. It's basically a mediocore photocell, a small battery bank and a bunch of charger outlets. I didn't even have to solder anything because, while not made for each other, modern gadget tinkering crazyness has made them all completely compatible out of the box.
It doesn't deliver nearly enough power to provide lighting on its own or run any appliance, but if you have to cycle batteries or charge phones and laptops and the like while they are not in use, it's able to cover plenty. And thanks to the reservoire power bank, even multiple things at once for quite an extended period of time.
And aside from the starting investment it's completely free. It can also be upscaled quite a bit without any real additional hassle if you find you need twice or thrice the power.
But really, for daily use for my phone or to keep my emergency stuff charged in, you know, an emergency, even an overcast winter day delivers more than enough juice for all of your off the grid survival needs.
I really enjoy these extra videos because they feel a bit more personal to me. Like a friendly conversation after the main presentation. I think both of your channels complements the other nicely. :)
Well said.
The requirement for covering the hole to pump the lantern is a safety feature. It helps prevent accidental pressurization. Just vibration from transportation could cause the tank to get pressure and possibly cause a safety hazard. So they increased the requirements to pressurize the fuel to make them safer.
Funnily enough, Petromax lanterns don't come with that hole, but also I wasn't aware up until now of the accidental pressurization hazard.
(And fyi I don't have any lanterns up to this day and if I were to buy one it would be either a dual fuel Coleman one or a butane one that can be found for a reasonable price in my country.
Safety feature? No. The hole is simply there to seat the pump shaft without fighting the pressure. Just don't cover the hole at any time while pumping and you can easily seat and secure the pump shaft. Was this really a mystery.
@@insightmedia5817 have you actually used one of these lanterns? You can’t build pressure without covering the hole.
I just figured the thumb requirement was to keep dogs from operating it. You know they would if they had thumbs. Clever little devils. 🐶🙂
No, the hole is there so you can't over pressurize the lantern.
Every time he says "green lantern", my nerdy brain goes "In darkest day, in blackest night...."
You mean "my cool, knowledgable and cultured brain"
........ "no evil shall escape my sight." Argh. You got me doing it now!
I knew I couldn't be the only one.
My brain did too! 👍😊👍
When I went to upgrade my headlamp, I had the good fortune/curse to stumble across the Flashlight subreddit. Absolutely insane how many lumens can be packed into such small packages.
Years ago the first custom flashlight I made was bright as hell but got so hot it repeatedly de-soldered itself no matter what I did if I used it for more than 5 minutes.
Guess that's what I get for taking parts recommendations from the fasttech forum 😅
I personally find anything beyond 200-ish lumens in a headlamp to be actively detrimental. I just get blinded by the backscatter.
@@jamesharding3459 Yes, that's very true. I build a flashlight with one of those 100w cob led chips and rarely use it on full brightness since I ran into a similar problem.
Even the flashlight on my iPad Pro is unnecessarily blindingly bright!!!
... Which can be more dangerous than using fossil-fuel lanterns! I refuse to travel with batteries in my pocket-rocket lights.
I really appreciate when you compare and contrast different options! Thank you for doing that math! Super helpful! I would like to say that everytime I have been car camping (in Ontario) battery operated lights are by far the norm. Almost no one uses kerosene or propane lights. I usually do back country camping and those folks use battery flashlights because they are small and lightweight. The only places I see kerosene lamps these days are at people's off grid camps and cottages.
For me it’s the fact that they are extremely rugged. I have lanterns that are over 70 years old. And they still work just fine. Even after sitting for decades these things can fire up with minimal work. Propane can sit in it’s tank indefinitely it will never go bad. I’ve used Coleman fuel that’s over 20 years old. And it works just fine.
um i had a small propane bottle go bad in 5 years or less as i forgot about it in garage aka should have been stored correctly NOS factory tampering sealed but all of it leaked out and wouldn't work for my blowtorch or the bbq 🍖 ( and im first though was cool 😎 i don't need to run to the store what a bad find after feeling lucky 🍀 and rummaging in the garage a hour later ) all gone and ended up buy a new bottle instead and kinda had the same experience with the bigger 20lb container 15 years later as i got a bigger bbq and a year later it had a shorter run time than I was planning on as some of it leaked out over the winter ❄️ well not in use
now diesel ( probably is the same thing for kerosene but i don't have any on around year basics or know somebody who does ) in my experience in my area rarely goes bad so id pick it over propane and regular E20~ gasoline that evaporates or turns into a gummy 😉 mess a year later or so if i need longer storage life ( except AV gas i use in my classics because it stores well but it stinks 😷 and not good for lighting 💡 lamps inside ) if not gas would work two
@@richardprice5978 the propane itself will last forever, but I suppose it is only as good as its tank.
You are 100% right. I have a 1918 Air-o-lantern that works just fine, though lighting the old quick-lights can be an adventure. They are safe, but you have to respect them. I usually tell newbies to get a modern lantern (a little safer and adjustable) or to go electric. Keep the air tube clean and a good generator and you are usually good to go.
My kerosene lamps had their wicks go bad before the fuel did.
@@TheNiteNinja19 how so? did you store them correctly?
I love your channel. Your honesty when making mistakes and level of information you provide on all subjects is absolutely beautiful. Thank you for doing these shows.
A note about the fuel pump: it's a one-way valve design. It makes the pump easier to collapse into its stored position if there's a hole there.
This.
I swear my old Coleman type lantern pump needed to remove the thumb from the hole to introduce the next breath of to pump. If you sealed on both halves of stroke you'd get nowhere.
@@frederf3227 replace the pump cup.
@@frederf3227 That's never been a thing with Coleman pumps, I have one that's 40 or 50 years old that you can hold your thumb over the pump hole. Try maintaining or replacing the pump assembly.
the pump depends on a check valve at the bottom of the shaft
Lanterns are also useful for heat. We used to use them at a hunting cabin we'd go to in the winter. They can produce nearly white light (they are extremely bright), and they give off a ton of heat - so if it's early spring or early fall, they are a nice addition to warm up the space.
I grew up in a very remote area in Northern NY. We'd have power outages in the winter that could last for days. With a Coleman Lantern, we'd play monopoly in the kitchen and it would get sweltering - but the rest of the house would be cold. We had 2 fireplaces, but they were as far away from the bedrooms as you could get. We'd be heating the place as best we could to prevent the pipes from freezing (would have taken days frankly).
My in laws are from NY state and they said there is a region where you need to get a floating door on your second floor because they get so much snow you cannot open the ground floor door, recalled hospitals being staffed by snowmobile and being tasked with sledding snow because the snow was too high to pile any higher. It's a surprisingly inhospitable place.
I have had electricity down for days in wind storms (including one incident where the power pole in front of the neighbors lit on fire) and during that time we have a kerosene lantern and use candles and you better hope it isn't too hot or cold. If I ever built my own home I would scrape my pennies together to put fireplaces in the bedrooms and living area. This is a fear for me that having a fireplace would dissapate; although I would be more than happy to just sleep where the fireplace is. I imagine using electricity for cooking would make you insecure for that purpose as well but my stove can be manually lit.
I have heard of stoves in Scotland being capable of not only cooking but heating an entire home, though it does not get as cold in Scotland as it does near the great lakes.
@@xSwordLilyx I'm from NY and I've never heard of this. My family just got 4 feet of snow a few weeks ago, over night from lake effect.
Lake effect snow is something to behold. Snowflakes that are larger than quarters. When I was in college in Buffalo, I'd go out running during lake effect storms, I literally could not see the street lamps just the light from them. All I could see around me was the sidewalk and white. I couldn't even see the houses.
@xSwordLilyx BUT the heat is a hassle if it’s a hot summer night. You don’t want your light source making you even more hot. You want a cool source like LED lanterns
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@@electrictroy2010Really hot summer nights are pretty rare in most of North America though.
You can't beat the light heat and sound of an old coleman lantern for camping...other than the camp fire.
One senario that i really like the duel fule option is motorcycle camping, as i can always get extra fule for my stove or lantern. Just pull a little from the gas tank and im good to go.
That is 100% valid for your stove... but I'd be inclined to charge a normal USB power brick from the bike whilst you're riding (assume you've got an accessory socket and you're not using that 100% of the time for heated gloves/ jacket) and you'll be good for power for lighting.
That's why i got mine.
motorcycle, stove, light, lighter.. all use the same fuel.
More to see if i could than any practical reasons.
I used a Coleman every day on the road for 5 months back in the late 90s. Yes the fuel is cheap and available everywhere but so much can go wrong and you can't take it inside your tent so you need batteries and LED anyway. Plus on a motorbike, surely you need a new mantle every time you ride. They might be cheap in America but here in Australia they are like six bucks each.
Uncovering the hole on the pump is an old urban legend people thought was necessary because they assumed that hole was the intake valve. Makes sense, but that’s not the case.
Why is the hole there, then? (Not trying to be contradictory, I'm genuinely curious. I've always wondered why they put it there).
The hole is there to allow air to escape after you twist the knob and close off the pump outlet into the fuel tank. Without the hole to allow air to escape you would not be able to press the pump handle back into the pump body after the valve is closed.
@@hydro2wheel ooooooohhhhhh that makes sense. Thank you!
I used to use a coleman backpack stove, and I never uncovered the hole on the return stroke. It is not necessary. The hole is either a pressure limit, or just there to make it easier to push the plunger in when you're done pumping.
@@spugintrntl The hole is there so that you are able to leave it uncovered and push the pump all the way in to stow it when you're done pumping. If it wasn't there you would have trouble getting the plunger all the way back in and it could become damaged or dirty.
The most practical thing about Coleman lanterns is their nostalgia, at least in my opinion. The stoves are great though, and both are fun to tinker with and restore. I appreciate your content!
I feel the same way. I hate to admit it, but I find myself judging over products by nostalgia way to often. That’s just not rational.
These white gas lanterns are great for ice fishing. I use mine every winter. Gives my light to fish by in the evening and provides a way to warm up my hands as well.
@@meegstomtom yep, I think where fueled lighting makes logical sense is scenarios where both the light and the heat are welcome.
The issue I seem to run into with electric products is something always seems to break on them and repair/replacement of what broke seems to be impossible after just a couple of years. Meanwhile the pressure lantern my father gave me, that he probably bought in the '70s, still works and I can repair it if necessary. For the limited camping I do, I like knowing I won't need to buy new batteries or a new light whenever I decide to go out next. And yes, there is certainly some nostalgia knowing its the same light my father used before I was even born.
I've used that tiny Coleman stove he had in the video on several solo car-camping trips, and on team-based hikes. They're heavier than those canister gas stoves, but they have a much better heat output, work better in cold weather (canister stoves don't work too good on cold mornings when they're below half full & perform badly in wind), plus gasoline or white gas is relatively easier & cheaper to get than refill canisters.
The kerosene lantern is the sort of thing you would use in a place like Cuba, where you have way too many blackouts and gasoline or even propane is hard to come by. Back in my house in Cuba we had three kerosene lamps and one Dietz lantern that my family had for decades. By the time I was born it was difficult to get a hold of a kerosene lamp/lantern and if you saw one in the market it was very expensive.
These are like record players in 2021. There are better ways to get light, but none of them are loved the same way.
It's funny listening to you talk about the energy content versus density of various fuels because I'm very used to those discussions, but usually in the context of rocketry rather than heating and lighting!
Well for most applications liquid fuels are close enough to each other that it doesn't really matter, the most striking example is in cars where as long as you can adjust the injectors correctly the difference between ethanol and gasoline isn't really that big of a deal you will lose a little bit of range, but you can still go hundreds of miles on a tank.
What is a rocket if not a very large and fancy heat and lighting candle that just so happens to push itself anyway.
The sound, the ambiance, the smell, the experience. The nostalgia is strong with this one.
Do white gas lanterns give off any smell ?
yeah if done right it is a soft hiss not a roaring sound.
@@psirvent8 Yes, it's not strong but they do have a slight odor not too unlike exhaust from a small engine, which is not too surprising since white gas is essentially gasoline without the various additives.
Enjoyed the content!
A cold start technique that I was that I was taught for white gas/unleaded fuel lamps was to pressurize the tank a bit (not too much), light and insert your match, quickly open the valve full open then fully close the valve. The spurt of fuel will of course not be atomized yet due to the cold generator, but there will be enough liquid fuel in the mantle and inside the glass to act like the cup of alcohol in a kerosene lamp to heat the generator tube. Once the fuel has almost burned completely out ( so you don't need to strike another match) crack open the fuel valve and close it. If you get nothing but atomized fuel vapor you are good to go to begin slowly opening the valve bit by bit until the generator tube continues to heat up. If you get another burst of liquid fuel, then again wait until it is almost completely burned out and crack again. Once everything is running in vaporized mode then pump up the pressure on the tank for the "Afterburner" mode. Note the first open of the fuel valve is to the full open to full closed to actuate the self-cleaning pin through the fuel jet orifice to clean out the carbon build up from the last time the lantern was shut off and the dying flickering flame burned inefficiently and probably left carbon deposits in the jet. Hope this helps with your safe enjoyment of lantern fun.
I think kerosene lanterns make sense in areas where the fuel will potentially be stored for extended periods of time. Kerosene/JetA and diesel last way beyond the one year of life of modern gasoline. Propane will not go bad. The tank just gets rusty.
Major downside to propane fuel is that it has "a lot of quit in it" in really cold weather and won't burn well. More so it seems than the other fuels.
Batteries in general especially lithium rechargeable batteries are also susceptible to below freezing temperatures.
I bring up cold because if you are depending upon these devices when it's Yukon cold outside when the power goes out for extended periods of time you may need them to help save your life.
For just short term fun camping in nice weather, absolutely, rechargeable batteries are the way to go.
The carbon build up is caused by the rubbing alcohol, switch to the yellow bottle of Heat and you will not see nearly the carbon build up.
Great video and keep up the good work.
Or lighter fluid. Naphtha.
with a wick it should be possible to use kerosine, at least thats what my camping stove does
The nozzle on the heat bottle would make it easier to fill the generator without a straw
Heat is the best white gas I know of for these applications. I carry a white gas esbit stove on hikes and yellow heat has been a godsend for it, wouldn't use anything else for getting a clean, hot flame.
I think that’s why there’s a thumb hole- so you can push the stem all the way in to secure it (if it was solid, you’d need to be fighting the pressure you pumped in while you twist-lock it).
Negative, it's to act as a check valve using your thumb as the valve.
@@kentkirkpatrick7953 this video disproves that, though. He clearly pumps up the lantern just fine while leaving his thumb on the hole the whole time. If it were a check valve for pumping, that shouldn't have worked. The actual check valve is the cup-shaped bit on the end of the pump rod, inside.
@@ChadHadsell You're wrong. The hole is the check valve. The rubber cup on modern pumps, or leather on older models is the seal that holds the air to pressurize the tank on the down stroke. On the up stroke, it collapses some and allows air to enter the pump from the oil hole and around the cover of the pump. The hole on the end that you cover ensures that you don't over-pump the tank, as was suggested before.
@@HunterAtheist ah, I thought he was saying it was where the pumped air comes in, which it clearly isn't.
I'm curious, if the thumbhole is a check valve for overpressure, that means that the pressure in the tank is pushing on his thumb, right? And if the pressure goes too high, his thumb won't be able to contain it. So... Why doesn't the pressure all just bleed off when he takes his thumb off the hole?
Oh yeah? A video by someone who has no experience with lanterns or,, Me with well over 100 lanterns 60 stoves dozen of lamps many irons lots torches and many other GPA related items. Think I'll believe what the Coleman manufacturer says it for.
In some parts of the US, especially out west, yiu'll find a lot of areas where you can get Kerosene delivered in bulk to a tank on your property, you can't get natural gas or electricity. That's where having a kerosene lantern, or lamps, would make sense. Though, to be honest, I see a lot of people who live in these very rural areas are switching over to small scale solar/battery installations.
Even in NC, we used to have all sorts of stuff on the farm... (no-road-tax) diesel, fuel oil, kerosene, LPG/propane. The house still has a fuel oil furnace, and gas logs in the fireplace. The tractor runs on gasoline, so we just fill a few cans at the local pumps. (keep the receipt to get that f'ing road tax back.) You have to get _way_ out in the sticks to not have power. Today I'd opt for solar in a lot of places. (barns, well pumps, etc.)
Bulk delivery of kerosene is still a thing in Maine too. "Home heating oil" with a red dye added so they can catch the people dodging the diesel road taxes.
@@Kineth1 Kerosene is not "home heating oil".
@@Kineth1 Home heating oil these days is typically ULS red dyed diesel, not kerosene.
You can also burn kerosene in oil fired heating equipment, but it's typically 50¢ to a dollar a gallon more expensive. The only people who might need to use Kero is those who store their fuel outside. Kero is less likely to gel cold weather than untreated diesel.
@@erikj.2066 Beat me to it -- I've even seen it delivered from the same exact truck, and talked to the driver to confirm. Home heating oil is in fact just whatever the current seasonal road diesel formulation is with red dye added. It's still a thing in the entire Northeastern US as far as I know.
One lantern also produces six hours of light on a tank of white gas, and a single mantle lantern can run for 8.
There is also a huge nostalgia aspect, plus batteries also don't operate well in inclement conditions (especially cold, where white gas outperforms)
Let's be honest, fueled mantle lanterns are better because it reminds us of camping when we were kids.
This is the way
My buddy never used one as a kid and he wonders why i insist on bringing mine everytime we camp.
Someone needs to sell a LED lamp with a speaker and a plunger you 'need' to pump every 30 minutes :D
@@Chris-ie9os 😂
The excess heat sucks for summer camping
Your geiger counter isn't defective. You just have to hold the power button for several seconds before it turns on
Well I'll be. I just tired that and yeah it came on. That's an incredibly stupid design, though. Once the screen lights when it's plugged in you can release the button. Why there would be a need to keep holding it on battery power is beyond me.
@@TechnologyConnextras In theory it could be to avoid accidentally turning it on while it's in your bag or such.
You still have to hold it a while before it even begins to wake up as you can see in this video, plus those buttons are very stiff and unlikely to be accidentally pressed. I really think it's a bug in the software or perhaps the startup of the Geiger-Muller tube pulls enough current that the button needs to be held down. It's just silly.
@@TechnologyConnextras In that case yeah, it's definetly silly and even if accidentally turning it on was a concern making how it works when powered and on battery consistent would be better.
@@TechnologyConnextras as far as I could test it, they intentionally programmed it that way. It has to do with several things, probably. 1. the more obvious part: The overall design is such, that it needs the button press on battery until the HV-generator-circuit is fully charged and stable. Battery is, i think, current limited on the PCB, so releasing the button too early makes the voltage for the CPU go down too much. Think of the button as a temporary override. 2. The CPU checks for serial connections and does the initial self-check. If written in C-like programming language, this part will be done separately. If the button is released in that time (until the beep), it will shut off.
The hole in the plunger makes it possible to stow the plunger and screw it down without having to fight the pressure of the tank
The check valve closes and seals the pressure in the tank every time you raise the pump plunger. So what you are really doing is releasing the pressure between the leather or rubber seal and the check valve. Push down check valve opens. Pull plunger up and the check valve seals.
Disassemble the pump and you will see that it is a cup piston. Pushing the plunger in causes the cup to expand, sealing the cup against the pump walls and forcing the air into the tank. Pulling the plunger out allows the cup to relax and allow air into the piston area as it leaks around the cup seal.
Once the valve is closed you must uncover the thumb hole in the plunger to allow the air in the piston to exit the thumb hole and allow the plunger to be stowed in the inserted position.
I cannot believe people actually complain about any aspect of your video productions! They’re all so incredibly ironed out/smooth, entertaining, INFORMATIONAL and funny to boot! I assume it’s out of ignorance to the immense effort and time you put in to your channels, as well as the truly difficult process of video editing and production. I can tell you obsess over accuracy and fluidity (to a healthy extent I hope) and you even take the effort respond to your audience incredibly quickly! Thank you for the time and energy you put in to productions like this one. The sane humans who can grasp and appreciate the concept of your channels will remain for years ahead, as I have, even if you ‘make mistakes’ because you’re a genuinely great human and content creator with endless practical knowledge we crave. at least the adults here at Tech Conns (both channels) can see your genius and that certainly overrides complaints about a TINY ticking sound in the background. Like if you hate noise, TURN THE VOLUME OFF. Watch Closed captions if you can’t handle the amazing sound work on this channel. Otherwise, shut ur trap and be thankful you get professionally produced videos basically for free all the time. Nobody is forcing you to watch with the sound so loud you are pissed off by like 10 quiet ticking sounds. No one cares about your unhelpful complaints about the video production void of any encouragement or positive recognition of the effort this guy puts into this love of labor. Go away and complain somewhere else. I love these videos through and through. Have a great day and continue your genius plz
@@forestharrison1805 What the hell are you talking about?
The reason for the hole is shown pretty well in the segment at about 3:36. It allows you to give the air that is trapped in the piston a patch way out. As the pressure in the pump must exceed that of the tank to put air into it, you can never get all of the air from the piston to the tank. This become more noticeable the higher the tank pressure is. You need to compress more air to reach the tank pressure before it will start moving into the tank. When done, the hole allows you to, when not covered, seat the pump and secure it by letting that trapped air out.
So, is this in lieu of a safety release valve; you know, in case it gets hot for some reason during use?
@@kenmore01 No safety release involved with the hand pump, real or imagined.
42:33 you accidentally touched on on why kerosene has a foot hold, unlike gas which can go bad or corrode, kerosene lamps and fuel can be stored without much room for an extended time.
I suspect that many a farmer or other user of "red" (untaxed) diesel has one or two just because they keep a relevant fuel in conveniently located tanks on their property...
Hmm, can you burn biodiesel in any of these lanterns, and will it smell like French fries?🤔
@@goodun2974 I've used vegetable oil and kerosene in tiki/mosquito torches, as the regular fuel for those is crazy expensive. Kerosene worked really well and served as a good carrier oil for some homebrew additives to keep the bugs away (I added small amounts of cedar and citronella oil to the kerosene to add a nice scent and deter the bugs). The vege oil I used didn't burn too well, as it was a bit thick for the wicks and didn't wick up them, but a thinner vegetable oil could probably be made to work well.
All of that is assuming that you don't care about efficiency, as with bug/tiki torches you are burning them mich more for smoke (to deter bugs) and ambiance than for light.
OK, I didn't pay attention to the fact that this was a "Connextras" video. AH!!! So THAT's why it seemed more like a ramble stream!!! :D Please keep making these. I like the raw feel of this format. I also watched your "Production Quality" version, and actually like this one better. Good Stuff!
I finally have enough money that hobbies don't have to make sense. Mantle lamps and lanterns bring joy, wonder, and precious memories. That's justification enough.
Yep, they all have their use cases... like the duel fuel in emergencies can just use the same as the car... had to do that a few times.
But yes LEDs for pure light you can beat it, but if you need/want any warmth then the others are good also.
I love this b-roll/behinds, how it was made/thought process behind the videos as it is nice and raw.
You can use led lights from a car battery too.
I'mma be real with you Mr. Connections, the reason why I use an oil lamp instead of a battery-powered lantern while camping isn't efficiency, warmth or the fact that it works in extremely low temperatures.
It's because small flame trapped in a glass ball makes me feel nostalgic. It's like vinyl records, can't really explain that :D
I have one of these lamps since it's nostalgic of Scout camping trips. The boiling sound and the whole lighting process is pure nostalgia fuel (lol).
The best use-case for the Coleman mantle lantern is if you have a very remote cabin away from electricity. I've seen many cabins in the woods where they have no electricity and for the owners, the opportunity to visit them is sporadic. So it makes sense to leave a Coleman lantern with a fuel can in the cabin for when you get there, or in an emergency. They aren't the primary light source, or primary heat source, but they do both, and can be left in a cabin for years and could save your life.
Alec, I went camping this past weekend and took two Dietz lanterns because of your video. It was great, I left the LED nonsense in the bag. Ambiance level 100, convienece and efficiency be damned. Plus, it was fun.
This. I found an old cold blast lantern in the attic a year ago and I've been using it a lot instead of a flashlight. But I like its convenience, too. Is it "discharged"? Just pour in some kerosene, bam, off you go. And it never fails.
I do same thing . Lower light levels preserves your night vision. I do use my led lights for in the tent and when searching the truck.
If you need a replacement bottle for filling the Kerosene lamp with the alcohol, You can find those filling bottles with the bent neck searching for PC watercooling fill bottles.
A lab-flask....
@@muppetpaster Cool. another way for searching for it. I have mainly seen it for doing PC watercooling but those are handy little bottles
technically you should use the colman filter funnel because it doesn't spill, has a siphon, and keeps crud from fouling up the tank which can block that nozzle
@@AsbestosMuffins for the main tank I agree but we are talking about the squeeze bottle with long curved spout for the alcohol without disassembling the lantern
This channel has the most preparation of any channel ever
Lies.
You should see his main channel. I'm actually enjoying seeing him speak without a prompter and being a bit less organized.
@@TechnoL33T yes, I liked the unscripted part of the percolator video
@@TechnologyConnextras this entire channel is the equivalent of your no effort November Alec.
I have Colman equipment that is 40 years old and I still use them.
They haven't deteriorated in time with proper maintenance. Nor have they become obsolete in the way that electronics do.
I can fix them if there is a problem. Not so much with electrical gadgets.
But you also make some great points about LED's and Batteries.
Fun Video full of thought provoking information.
Best Wishes ! M.H
That fact that we got a whole series about lanterns (1) without anything dangerously on fire and (2) with a small radioactive substance that wasn't a type of fuel or a source of light has been both delightful and illuminating.
me: 😁💡
you all, over my pun: 😒
Alec: you call that a pun? that's not a pun. 😏 this is a pun...
Dev! It's great that one of my favorite TH-camrs is a viewer & supporter of one of my other favorite TH-camrs. You have a lot of great content, but your presentation on elevators with Howard is one of my favorite TH-cam videos of all time.
@@PsRohrbaugh so glad you liked that! you saw the main presentation but did you see the lesser-known facts and topics we called "Elevator Obscura" ? th-cam.com/video/EqttQ3U-w-s/w-d-xo.html
On a slightly related note, I love the sounds the white gas can makes whenever you are handling it.
The hole on the end of the pump plunger isn't where air gets pulled into the pump. There's a hole to the side of the plunger shaft, in the "cap" of the pump, and that's where the air (and oil, which should occasionally be added) comes in. I believe the hole in the end of the plunger is there so that you can push the plunger down to its "retracted" position when there's enough pressure in the fuel tank to make it impossible to push it any more with the hole covered.
It also stops you from pumping it too much as well.
@@donaldasayers What is the purpose of the hole on the end of the pump handle?
@@HunterAtheist It's to allow you to push the pump all the way in easily to lock it, when you have finished pumping.
The pumps on Tilleys and Vapalux tend to creep out again.
@@donaldasayers If that were the case, them you don't need the hole. You would just close it on the last pump.
@@HunterAtheist true
The Petromax kerosene lamps have a build in pilot burner which also run on kerosene. You can even light them with a normal lighter without disassemble half of the lamp. The german Army switched their Petromax lamps in the 60s from white fuel to kerosene because to safety concerns.
Fun fact: the english "kerosene" is "Petroleum" in german while the german "Kerosin" means "jet fuel". That caused a little bit of confusion for me.
Same in dutch,a funny little confusion
WAIT THERES A DIFFERENCE? KEROSENE != KEROSIN????
One of the best tech breakdown channels. The preparation, detail, sarcasm, poetry, comedy, everything you put in your videos is such a pleasure to experience on your channel. Thanks for everything you do.
There's two major thing your overlooking for those of us that winter camp. Propane doesnt perform well in near freezing conditions or at higher altitude. Using the duel fuel in those conditions are ideal.
It is butane, that doesnt perform well near freezing conditions. Propane boils at -40° and is, therefore, used in colder climates and at high altitudes.
Propane does just fine in cold weather or high altitude. It is butane that has problems in cold temperatures. High altitude will actually allow butane to work at slightly colder temperatures, as it lowers the boiling point. The burner may run a bit rich though.
I have had this happen with the standard 1lb canister. Including the inability to make morning coffee. 🤨
@@russlehman2070 For lanterns, propane is find at cold temperatures. But if you use gas too rapidly, the boiling will drop the temperature too low. Can even happen in fairly warm climes if too much is used from a small bottle.
@@DTXBrian Yup. This is why "canned air" (for dusting off electronics and keyboards) or even CO2 tanks used for paintball guns will get very cold to the touch (and often have condensation dorm on the outside of them) when you use them a lot in a short period of time.
Battery capacity suffers in cold weather, while the gas mantle gets harder to light rather than losing energy density. In such an environment, the waste heat from the flame is also a desirable feature. If you factor in the costs of heating, there might be some corner cases where the gas mantle lamp costs slightly less to operate. But that's all they are, corner cases.
30 years in the Canadian military and I agree. If you need to start using batteries to produce heat as well as light the energy economy swings heavily in the other direction.
We have a long winter weekend in the woods every winter, no power. The only thing that works reliably at -30 we found is white gas. Plus you put the lantern in the outhouse for 2 to 3 hours to heat it up a bit
Cold weather is not a "corner case" it is a substantial portion of the year across much of the US. Furthermore, cold weather is also correlated with the time of the year where supplemental light is most needed. In June at summer solstice you can often get away without much supplemental lighting but good luck doing that in December.
I just love to hear an intelligent person talk in-depth about something they're passionate and knowledgeable about. It's also fun to hear about your learning process and the trial and errors of your projects. Thank you for your hard work!
Fun totally unrelated fact: white gas is what a lot of fire eaters use as fuel.
So if you're a fire eater on a camping trip in the winter......
That makes sense ! cheers.
Aka lamp oil is what steveo calls it
Fire eaters/breathers use kerosene, not white gas. Your thinking
of white paraffin, referring to a highly filtered and purified kerosene/paraffin.
It must taste better
I love this channel and these videos because I feel like I’m listening to a friend.
You have no idea how happy I was to be talking to someone at a bar about your videos.
ask him out on a mandate
I really enjoy what I consider the more "conversational" style of Connextras. Not a slight to the main channel at all, different styles, both great.
I suspect he's on high dose of *caffeine* ;-)
@8:30 In the last >4000 comments someone has probably mentioned, that hole is also used to mount a spark wheel for lighting the lantern. Much nicer than fiddling with a match.
I was wondering if the soot in the kerosene lamp was because you're using isopropyl alcohol which tends to burn with a sooty flame. Better alternatives would be denatured alcohol (mostly ethanol) or HEET in the yellow bottle (methanol).
Not to mention made worse by the residue left in the alcohol cup from when he used hand sanitiser instead of Isopropyl Alcohol?
Just to clarify for readers who might get the wrong idea - John is talking about the alcohol used to start the pressurized kerosene Coleman, and not suggesting using alcohol as a main fuel. Anyway, interesting theory - I use denatured alcohol to start mine, and don't have any buildup like that. Of course, I've only used mine a handful of times, because yeah, it's it's a pretty bad user experience compared to a white gas or propane lantern.
I believe "methylated spirit" is what we call the correct starting fuel in the UK. It's usually dyed purple.
@@Kromaatikse Methylated spirits in the UK, denatured alcohol in the US and _Alcool à brûler_ in France.
It's basically the same thing: Denatured ethanol ! (ie ethanol with toxic and bad tasting additives to prevent human consumption).
Purple dye being optional.
(Here in France the "Alcool à brûler", literally alcohol to burn, used in alcohol stoves and as a cleaner, solvent or whatever... is clear and smells horrible.)
Don't know if it has a dye in the US and other countries though.
For me it's the nostalgia. Cant beat a couple of those gas lanterns burning away with the distinctive jet-like sound while you're sitting around playing cards, drinking, BSing, whatever while you're camping...
I really thought you were making a point about background radiation with the geiger counter on, happy accident?
I also thought that too.
Same
Parachutist pulls cord and nothing happens. Pulls backup and nothing happens. Pulls emergency. Nothing happens. Starts looking at where he will land. Sees flash. Someone is flying up at him. As he passes by the camper, he asks him if he knows anything about parachutes. The camper replies, ‘No! Do you know anything about Coleman stoves?!’
Alec, I'm pretty sure you made this channel so you CAN ramble and be off script. We wouldn't watch it otherwise. Thank you for more content. Never stress over this channel.
A good addition to the subject would be the Optimus 00 kerosene stove. I've used one for 50 years while motorcycle touring because a tank of kerosene lasts so long.
Having it as a heat source is the only benefit to a gas lantern these days
If you want a hot light, may I suggest a lava lamp?
They’re fun to work on and tinker with. A good toy for anyone who’s interested in engineering, plus some of them are very pretty too. Granted, you’re right. Compared to flipping a switch, getting these things to turn on feels like a part time job
I believe Coleman actually makes a propane-powered parabolic heater.
Great for ice fishing
@@heronimousbrapson863 there is even propane heaters that are considered safe for indoor spaces, these units essentially make the most sense for really really cold camping, or as a backup system if electricity fails, a lot of people will say the kerosene for that because of its long shelf life, but i still think the dual fuel is a better option because if you have a car, or any small garden equipment that you use around your house your going to have a supply of gasoline that wont turn bad
I use a much larger propane mantle lamp off a 20lb grill tank in my garage during the winter. The primary purpose is to generate heat, the extra light in addition to the electric lighting is a nice bonus.
I use my Coleman lantern simply for the vintage look and feel. Plus I find it to give off more light than some of the LEDs I have (which are admittedly dim for LEDs). The heat is the nice thing as well. It is great to have at night when you're having a campfire, camping, etc.
I was about to buy a new led lantern for a camp trip, then I remembered our old pressure lanterns. Literal antiques, and they still work! Already more reliable and efficient than a new one in my book
I've got a few Coleman lanterns inherited from my late grandparents. They're all working, even the rustiest and most cobweb-covered. Still handy in a power outage! Thank god the floors they're at is made of pure concrete, thus easily preventing fires from spreading and causing trouble!
IMO, if most of the things are 90 degrees off from the "front" of the lantern... you have incorrectly identified the front of the lantern! I think you're assuming the dial is on the "front", but I have always thought they go on the right side on models like that.
I'm guessing that the assumption is someone would be holding it in their left hand (for righties) so that the right hand (dominant) is free to do stuff and thus the also putting the dials on the right as well to be easy to access?
I've used the camping gas lights and stoves for a month long camping trip. I honestly love them. They give so much light and the sound isn't even that bad when all the modern sounds you're used to are all gone.