peev2c11

PEEv2c11

Post-Apocalypse Lighting

This entry made more sense when I originally wrote it, as not everyone was then sold on LED lighting. Today, it really isn't any contest anymore. Economically it is foolish to use anything else ( resource wise as well ). Less than twenty years ago I still had kerosene lamps for my emergency lighting, and that was even AFTER I had been writing on LED lights, one of the first ones that did so for preparedness as far as I'm aware. The first LED's were sad and pathetic tools, indeed. Nothing at all compared to today.

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I was living in Florida and one of their bizarre bicycle laws was that lights were mandatory ( not that it is a bad law, just that few others do it, I had never heard of it and they actually paid cops to patrol the bike lanes to enforce it. Another strange one was that you weren't allowed to carry a passenger. The state sucks now, but it was pretty low tax and laid back then, even with those exceptions. Like a lot of places today ). At first I just zip-tied a small AA flashlight to my handlebars, but I was burning a LOT of batteries.

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This was one of the worst times as far as my divorce, child support and income went, and I was broke dingus poor. I couldn't even really afford multiple batteries each week. You do remember how crappy incandescent bulb flashlights and lanterns were, don't you? If you weren't draining the batteries after twenty minutes, the thing was breaking. So, I went on down to the bike shop and asked them if there was any solution to this problem. I didn't want one of those lame ass generators that ran off the tire, but I was also desperate.

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I don't even think China was making batteries for us yet ( this was the late 90's ). I just remember them being so expensive I was willing to use my credit card to invest in a solution. They introduced me to LED bike lamps, and I had never heard of that technology ( LED's were used way before that. I remember one rich kid in 8^th grade, with an LED watch. It had red numbers and you had to turn it off quick after looking at it, as it drained the battery. I just didn't know what it was at the time ). It was NOT a cheap solution. I think I paid $35.

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If you went by the price of gold, that would have cost $150 today ( granted, gold was way undervalued then, a combination of new petroleum rich mining methods and western central banks selling off their gold stockpiles. Perhaps a better metric would be it cost twice my electric bill a few years later in the mobile home park ). It did its job, saving me from buying a lot of batteries, but we are talking something like five hours of run time, on very weak lumens. Ten or fifteen times better than the old flashlight, but complete crap compared to what it would do not too much later.

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I remember being blown away when the dollar store first started carrying LED flashlights. Still the same crappy strength, and as poorly made as the old incandescent, but by gum, only a dollar! And this was less than six or eight years later than the $35 unit. But even just twelve years ago, the better LED's still were very weak in output. They lasted much longer, which was good. But the illumination was nothing to brag about ( not with units that were cheap enough to stock multiples of ). That is why I still had kerosene lamps for Y2K. No way I could afford extra bike lamps. Wal-Mart had $5 oil lamps. I could have a couple of back-ups and a primary unit, under half the cost of ONE of the LED's.

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I don't know if you remember Dean Ing in the 80's, with his survivalist writings. He had the series of novels where the LDS church is the areas powerhouse after a nuclear war. Systemic Shock, Single Combat and Wild Country. Classics ( if you can't find them cheap enough used, Systemic Shock was the best one as far as the actual war and aftermath. If I recall correctly the other sequels were more “new social orders after the collapse” ). His non-fiction was Pulling Through and The Chernobyl Syndrome ( I think Pulling Through was a combination of non-fiction and a novella ). The non-fiction had the best illumination advice I had come across up to that point.

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He had a rooftop windmill made of scrap that used one of the bike tire generators to charge up an automobile battery, which ran a automobile license plate light bulb, the lowest draw bulb you had in 12v then. That was as good as it got for light in a fallout shelter. Sweet Jesus In A Gondola! We have it so much better today, even the crappiest options. I could take a dollar garden light ( the bulbs on a stake that run at night, solar charged during the day ) and have better lighting than just a decade ago.

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Of course, I would advise buying a better than a dollar garden light if that is the way you want to go. If you unscrew the top you expose the bulb you can bypass the very quickly fogged by solar radiation plastic, but you want a little better quality for longevity than the dollar units. For LED flashlights, I would NOT buy any of them under, say, $5. The cheaper ones will work fine, for a time, but better to spend a bit more and get more years out of each one. A $5 flashlight will last far more than five times a $1 one, usually.

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I like the LED lanterns, now that the lumens have increased so much. The first ones I had used D batteries and were crap. Now you can just use AA's ( I won't buy anything unless it uses AAA, or AA's. They charge SO much quicker in a solar charger, and it is MUCH cheaper to buy the rechargeable ones ). Most of the rechargeables are good for two thousand cycles. If you use them a lot, and even charging them three times a week ( it should be less ), just a few sets of batteries should last you a good twenty years after the collapse.

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A few flashlights, low lumen for longevity, high lumens for night shooting, with back-ups for each, a few headlamps and a few lanterns ( and back-ups ) and you can be set like royalty for light post-apocalypse. One thing you might consider adding to that to really stretch out the life of your LED's is the reuseable light sticks. UV Paqlite used to make Tooblites, but now all I can find on Amazon is UV GloStik ( a stick rather than a tube ). No, they are not bright enough to do anything with. They are more like locators ( like the glow in the dark tape ).

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No, they are not bright past an hour ( then after a night, towards dawn they are barely visible ). The company sells a flashlight that recharges the green stick attached to it. It is the green glow, and a flashlight/recharger built into one. The problem is it costs $50 ( called the Mule Light ). I think it is a great concept, as the green glow strip can run 400 hours with a tiny charge to keep it at maximum power. But if any part breaks, you are out big bucks. Better to make your own ( the company published these instructions, so they aren't just Quick Buck Artists ).

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Using a high lumen LED flashlight, place the lens next to the glow stick ( tube, whatever ). Shine for five seconds. Now you are fully charged for at least twenty minutes. Construct a cardboard and duct tape box to shield the flashlight, to preserve night vision. I found that if you laid the tube on the page of a book, you could read the sentence above the tube, with no eye strain ( obviously, this would go for map reading also ). These glow sticks are a mineral inside an epoxy material. They last forever. A niche, to be sure, but I like the concept of REALLY stretching out my rechargeable batteries.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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note: I find this hilariously scary.  The Federal Reserve Bank has just announced it will extend its repo market liquidity injections ON THE WEEKEND!  Yeah, five days a week isn't enough to keep the system from crashing due to lack of liquidity.  But, nothing to see here!  'Murica, Hump Ya!  And, Fracking Forever.
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note: on a much lighter note, HERE is two former spec ops guys doing an "apocalypse challenge".  Ten minutes, $50, Wal-Mart shopping before the public learns the apocalypse has started.  Actually rather informative.  I enjoyed it.
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note: free for today books, alien invasion, HERE 
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