Summary :bright lamp, tricky to operate. If you are not planning to fully utilize the exotic fuels capability – go for a Coleman.
People in the vanagon tribe mentioned the
Petromax lantern as the ultimate in Gas camping lanterns way back. I looked it up on the web and found that it is indeed a very flexible lantern that can use a variety of fuels, including white gas, gasoline, alcohol, kerosene and even corn oil? It also had a several accessories including a stove attachment. The fact that this German lantern came in a very shiny nickel finish and had a “rated” output of approx. 500 watts was enough for my affection. Eric ended up buy me one for my birthday and just recently I began to test it out.
The fact that the lantern came with a DVD on how to operate it –is a telling sign of initial operation. The DVD instruction is poorly produced and did not put me at ease setting it up. It did not help that in the DVD video – the test guy nearly burned himself lighting it. The instructions regarding the alternative fuels are not really that clear and the printed instructions are vintage at best. The knob control on the lamp is not marked well and the instructions are no help. But basically – after loading the liquid fuel and pumping up the lantern – you light it through the use of a warm up jet on the side [ it even sounds like a jet] Once the chamber is warmed up [ 80 seconds?] the regulator knob can be opened and the mantle illuminates. Then the warm up jet can be shut off. I highly recommend using a long grille lighter as opposed to a match or small lighter. The ignition seems to be a bit of a violent process.
Pumping the lantern is interesting. The lantern comes with a little pressure gauge and valve. After A LOT of pumping – I can barely make the gauge register . Yet the lamp works. So I presume the lamp is capable of holding considerable pressure. The light did tend to “pulse” - this may have been an artifact of not enough pressure. Dunno.
The lamp is very bright and the down reflector is useful. Especially because – every bug within a half mile radius makes a bee line for the lamp in the woods and promptly dies around the lamp. The picnic table was covered with dead bugs and frisky moths jumped anyone close to the lamp.
The reflector is pretty good at focusing the light downward on the table or area below the map.
Overall – I have a better appreciation for the smaller cheaper Coleman lamps. Much simpler to operate, but not as flexible with fuels and not nearly as nice looking.
