River Rock Lantern

It's a lantern - a darn good one, too.

It uses a Nichia Jupiter LED, advertised at 1.5W (I am unable to make voltage/current/power measurements due to the lantern's design). It's bright enough for general use, which is good, because that's what it's for.

As you can see, the emitter is contained in the globe-shaped housing, with a textured ring to smooth out the beam a bit. Most of the rest of the light hits the cone-shaped mirror (held by plastic struts - notice the reflection of the yellow emitter), and what doesn't hit the cone is reflected by the flat mirror at the bottom. The horizontal metal rods at the top and bottom of the image cause shadows in the lantern's output, but make for a more robust product.

The wide black ring is ribbed rubber for better grip, and the three black dots are little rubber feet to prevent slippage.

I have a hunch that this lantern uses its 4AA cells in a 2S2P configuration. Those springs in the tailcap make two pairs of cells, and the terminals at the other end, deep inside the light, don't connect to each other. Of course, I'm probably way off, but suffice it to say that I don't know what's going on electrically in there. Oh well.

According to Quickbeam's review, this lantern provides a real eight hours of steady output, just as promised on the product packaging! Amazing. He also notes, as I have, the unsightly striped (though still usable) output.

I have already dropped this lantern, and it suffered only slight gouging where it hit the concrete. It is still perfectly functional. For $20, this is a great little light!