Krill lamps

S

storyville

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Aug 11, 1999
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These have been out for a few months now, I believe. For those of you who have used them: likes, dislikes?

I know they are available from Brigade Quartermasters at www.actiongear.com. Where else are good places online to buy them?

Thanks,
Glen
 
They've been out over a year I think. I bought one of the hi-intensity 360s (white) and one of the regular 180s (green) to experiment...

The 180s are real nice for reading. The regular intensity puts out enough light (the green anyway which is supposed to be the brightest color) for easy reading. It is difficult to read with the 360s because of the light they throw into your eyes unless you cover up half of it anyway. Because the same voltage is used to light only half as much surface area on the 180s you get more brightness in that direction.

The 360s make a good all-around tent light. Even the hi-intensity white is NOT as bright as an ordinary light stick when you first start the stick, but the lightstick begins to fade quickly, so that after about an hour, it has about equal the brightness of the Krill lamp. Of course the lamp keeps that brightness for many hours until the batteries fail.

All in all I like the Krill lamps, they live up to their hype. The problems I have with them are:

1. They are too expensive. Loose one and you're out a lot more than loosing a light stick. I don't see why they have to cost $25-$30. Half that much would be more reasonable I think.

2. They are very heavy. The lamp plus the batteries is as much weight as 12 or more light sticks even including their wrappers. This makes them difficult to justify for real backpacking, but they're great in the car.

 
I bought 2 green extreme 180 from glowbug.com Not the cheapest place to get them, but I didn't know about all the other place that they were available from.

I use AA lithiums in them, and this reduces the weight dramatically to about 3-4 lightsticks worth, yet giving the equivalent time of about 10-12 lightsticks. They are extremely bright and great for reading, boundary marking when camping (though I probably need more for this application) and as a personal marker for night dives.

They are definitely not a cheap replacement for traditional lightsticks, but in some applications, they really rock. The light output remains consistant for a very long time (mine have not shown any dimming as yet, though approaching 50hrs on the same set of lithium batteries). You can switch them on or off as you need it, unlike traditional lightsticks which are "on" the minute you crack the vial and remains so until all the chemicals are used up. (This is a cool feature for my night dives since I'll only need the light for about 1hour. Saved on using about 20 lightsticks so far. However, I have never dared to use them as fishing-bob illuminators as they are too expensive to lose. I still use traditional lightsticks for this.) Finally, I can test the Krill before I go out to make sure that it works. How do you test a lightstick? And this was really frustrating, as once, I had 10 sticks in my bag and only 2 worked. A few had been cracked during storage and others appeared to have expired.

IMHO, I think the Krills are great, but there will always be some applications where you need the cheap disposability of traditional lightsticks.
 
I bought two (both 180 degree extra bright) when they first came out..., but was unimpressed.

Of course, I never had much use for the regular "light sticks", either, so maybe it's an issue of context... what you want to do with them.

But I much favor the various LED flashlights, over the Krills, for general use. Even the little Infinity light, using only one AA battery, has more usefulness, IMO. And when you get up into the Eternalite class, you're getting far more light.
 
Thanks for the replies. I hadn't heard previously about their weight w/regular AA's. Lithiums may be the way to go with these, given their duration...

Thanks,
Glen
 
I'm not sure how much lighter lithium batteries are, but they don't provide a whole lot more power in "low drain" applications. Lithium batteries excell at hi-drain apps compared to alkalines. This would include such things as hi-intensity flashlights, flash guns, transmitters, motors, etc., but for very low-drain apps like these Krill lamps, there shouldn't be that much difference in run time with lithium batteries and that might be a consideration too considering they cost 3 times more than alkalines.
 
Good point, Matthew. I was just thinking that lithiums might be worthwhile in a Krill since the Krill lasts so long. (In a "normal" flashlight w/45-90 min. duration, you would REALLY feel the price of lith cells.) Also, I understand that lith cells significantly outperform regular alkaline batteries in colder temps?

gmm
 
Krill lights are wonderful for marker lights. Put one on top of your tent, and you can find it without trouble. They are also excellent night lights; dim enough to allow you to get to sleep, yet yield enough illumination to allow you to walk around without running into things; my 9 yo likes them a lot, and I use them in unfamiliar motel rooms myself. Piet 'Bagheera' uses them for his scouting trips in Holland; he thinks that they are great.

Another advantage is that they are cool running. You don't have to worry about the Krill starting a fire.

A Photon is a better light for finding your way along a trail in the dark, but for its' putpose, a Krill is unbeatable.

Li cells are much better than anything else when the temperature drops below zero. Even the new Ti cells are not useful at low temps.

Hope this helps, Walt
 
Hi,

As Walt said I, better our Scoutingclub, uses some Krills as night light hanging either in the tents or just outside the tents of our younger club members who we call "cubs" (welpen in Dutch, aged 7-10/11 years).

These serve perfectly as a orientation light and when a kid wakes in the middle of the night we found that having a krill light on gives them a "safe" feeling so we as scout leaders don't have to get out of our sleeping bags
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often anymore to comfort a scared, weeping kid.

It's also handy to have different colors for each tent so that they know after having gone to the "toilet" or so which tent to get into. Each "patrol" tent we have sleeps 6 to 8 kids!

The costs for having a Krill on for a night are minimal. I found that even the cheapest Alkaline AA cells work almost as long in the Krills as the very expensive Duracells and Titanium technology thingies
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We as scout leaders mostly clip a Photon II a green or red one to our T-shirt this povides super light at night in case we have to go to a tent.
The green ones we have were modified by Walt so they run on 2 CR2016's instead of one and are really bright.

One thing not to do is use grease on the O-ring of the Krill where the end-cap fits over. I once used Silicon based teflon grease and found that the endcap had literally disintegrated in my pocket. It broke into many pieces along the molded threads.
By the way Kriana replaced the end-cap for free but warned me onthe use of incorrect grease for the O-ring.

Walt, I will speak to you soon.

Best scouting wishes from Holland,

Bagheera
 
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