Make LEDs look like Kerosene Light for 40 cents.

So i bought this LED Hurricane Lantern for $5 bucks on sale at a local hardware store last fall. These LED Classic-style lanterns are generally available everywhere online and at local stores for various prices, They use 4 AA cells, have a variable brightness on/off switch, were factory built to run on batteries from surplus real metal Kerosene classic Hurricane lanterns, and like 99.99 % of all LED lanterns (and low-end budget flashlights) come with cheap, dim, inefficient, horrible-tinted crappy 5mm or generic LEDs.

(** the stock, dim, blue-tint leds as seen in Image # 1 below. )

I decided to a quick mod the one i picked up to be more efficient, brighter, and look more like an original Kerosene oil lantern.
The first thing i did was junk the crappy 5mm blue-tinted LEDs and the plastic holder they were in. I used two of the Luxeon clone bead LEDs, (3000K warn white)

(** Image #3 below)

they can be bought for 15 bucks per 100. I have used these LEDs in many lantern mods, and after various testing i found them to be very efficient for the output if not driven to hard. I measured 100 lumens average in my Lumen-Sphere when driven with just 0.18 amps at 3.5 to 4 volts with a simple resistor. (above 0.20 amps they need to be mounted on a star with heatsink.)
In this lantern i used two, with a 56 ohm 1/4 watt resistor, and with the lantern on highest mode, and draws 0.09 to 0.10 amps on 4 AA batteries.

I made a plastic LED holder out of a red bottle cap, ( with these LEDs under driven there is no need for a heatsink.) then used two pieces cut from the sides of a frosted plastic cup in the shape of a flame for diffusers over the LEDs to simulate the shape of a wick flame.
(** Image ##4 and #5, & #7below.)

I painted the top cap with flat white paint, (image #6) as most of these lantern come with a completely useless chromed reflector. (flat white paint reflects far more light evenly downward that any of the chrome shiny reflectors that come with upward-firing LED lanterns.

I used a dab of transparent orange paint on the domes of the LEDs to get the tint as close to real kerosene flame as possible.

- What i ended up with for 40 cents worth of parts & a hours worth of work, is a LED Hurricane lantern that from a distance looks exactly like the real thing. The output over the original 5mm LEDs more than doubled, the tint CRI is far, far better, and increased run time on high is now 2 to 3 DAYS continuous on four NiMH cells or Alkalines, (versus 6 – 7 hours on the original 5mm LEDs.)

Below in image #8, is the LED hurricane lantern on the left and a real original kerosene Hurricane lantern on the right.

- Image # 9 is a close up of the modded LED lantern on 80 % of high on the left, (showing the output & warmer more natural tint of the 3K LEDs) next to the lit Kerosene lantern on maximum setting on the right.

- Image # 10 is a photo of the lanterns with faster shutter speed.