It was 6 years ago that my now Eagle & aged out son left his scouting-in-name-only troop and joined a hard core, scouting-means-skills oriented one. I just love that troop. His first major campout with them was a 10 day scout camp about 8 hours away. Fortunately I am a registered, BSA trained adult, and even better was the fact that all such parents could attend (my son has health issues and at the time, they were in full bloom.)
So I went too.
You may be wondering what this has to do with ITEM 6: LIGHTING.
Never having been a fan of battery powered flashlights, and only slightly more a fan of "crank up" lighting, I decided to experiment with solar lighting. I took with us a bunch of solar powered lighting like this solar powered motion sensor one by Sunforce.
The scoutmaster-in-charge was ex-Army. Yeah, he (nicely) mocked me about bringing them. I hung one at the entrance to the camp, and one outside my tent. Every day (we were in the mountains) I would find a sunny spot and take the panels to recharge, then collect them at dinner time and reinstall them.
By the end of Day 3, the SIC was making comments like, "it sure is nice having those light up when we come in and out of camp." By day 7, he wanted to know where I had bought them.
It worked so well that it got me thinking. What if I used the same type of lighting inside my house? I went looking for something non-sensor motion, portable, independently powered (i.e., did not require huge solar panels to run), and no cables to mess with no matter how small. BTW: indoors, sensor motion gets old really fast.
Unless you've lived without it (we have, for 4 nights, days too if you count no light in bathrooms), you don't realize the emotional impact a lack of light is. I have a theory that it is hardwired into our DNA--we intuitively recognize we need the Light of and in the World (John 8:12.) My theory is when we don't have light, our DNA just goes a tiny bit crazy reminding us that we stand in jeopardy of eternal darkness without Christ.
But I digress. Back to steel and plastic lighting.
Forget those little 1 LED lights, period. You want a minimum of 8 LEDs and 10+ is better. 10 LEDs in a single "lamp" similar to this 10 LED Premium by Moonray, will light up an entire room, well enough to read in, particularly if you bounce it up like a standard up-light. I have these or a brand very similar. I don't bother attaching the stakes: they're unnecessary. The solar panel attached to the lamp swivels and it's easy to lay them on the ground with the panel catching the sun. At night, I place them panel side down with the lamp up, so the light bounces up and reflects off the ceilings. They really do last 7 hours. Mine have a switch to turn them on/off.
Going this route means I can put portable light in X bedrooms, for not much money. When we travel, I tie them solar panel side up, to my roof rack. They charge all day, and we have light at night (I know most of you have never thought of that! Pretty clever don't you think? Wait till I expand to a large panel !!)
Plus I can tie one (1) to each of our backpacks....if I literally tie it to a backpack, it charges during the day, lights at night.
We also have the Goal Zero Nomad 7 Guide 10 set up. Ours came with everything you see pictured: the Nomad 7 (which is the panels), the Guide 10 plus (which is the AA battery charger), the insert to charge- plus- AAA batteries, the 10 LED strip light (I think I blogged pictures of it once), plus an assortment of cable attachments (i.e., USB, phone, cigarette lighter.)
I have run my Dell Streak tablet off it to score baseball games (iScore, not a power easy program), my kids are constantly stealing the batteries out of it to run their Wii and Xbox controllers (at peril of their LIVES!!) In case you are wondering, batteries will go from dead to functioning in about 2-3 hours of sunlight using the Nomad 7. So if you're going to go the battery only route, strongly consider getting one of those. Again, portable. Strap it hanging down unfolded, panels out facing the sun as you are backpacking, charging the batteries (or whatever) at the same time. Then at night, you have light.
Can you achieve the same type of thing if you're running a large solar panel, inverter, charge controller and 12V battery to run conventional lighting? Sure. But for many of us, that's a big leap into technology which is hard to understand. And it's not overly portable. And my 6 year old (back when I had one) can't work with it. Using 10+LED garden lights as indoor emergency lighting (or to lessen your electric bill now), taking them out in the morning, bringing them in at night, is something even a child or the mobility-challenged can do. Plus all the solar/hand crank options out there, which are too many to discuss cogently.
Does all this mean you shouldn't have candles, oil lamps (I prefer vegetable oil lamps, at least the oil you store is used for cooking, lamps are an added bonus), or battery powered lighting? Of course not. But candles and lamps mean you have to store wicks and matches. Battery powered means you have to store batteries, although if you store rechargeable batteries and can recharge them via a solar charger etc. it becomes less of an issue. But oil lamps, candles, excessive batteries--that all presumes you are sheltering in place. If you are bugging out, you want to think long term, easily carried, durable, and lightweight.
Told you lighting needed to be its own post!
