Molgrips – I really can’t be bothered, sorry.  You’ll have to find somebody else to have your pointless argument with

But what does ‘serious’ mean and why does it matter how ‘serious’ your camping is?  And why does it have to be gas or liquid fuel?  Why does going regularly mean you cannot use an LED?

Give it a rest, FFS. It wasn’t a contentious point and you’re now scrabbling because you got the wrong end of the stick.

There’s no benefit to gas, really, unless you like faff.

My gas lantern is brighter than my good quality LED lantern. And I prefer the light it gives out.

I took the “serious camping” comment simply to mean going regularly rather than one weekend a year.  I’m really not sure what the argument is here?

If you want to pootle down a towpath for a couple of miles on the occasional sunny day then you’ll be well served by a £200 bike from Halfords, but if you’re a “serious” MTBer then you will happily justify dropping £5K on a bouncybike.  No?

There must be a gap in the market for gas powered bike lights. For serious cyclists.

You’ll have to find somebody else to have your pointless argument with

You’re right, it was pointless, and I was just having a pop at what sounded like highly pretentious bollocks based on the language employed.  Sorry.

But I still think LEDs can be used by regular campers just fine.  Plus gas lanterns aren’t more expensive to buy anyway, just more expensive to run,.

For serious camping, just get a decent quality LED lantern.

eg Fenix CL30R. It is 650 lumens, should be bright enough for most things.

Apology accepted – as you were.

Im just an occasional camper these days and so have a couple of led torches/lanterns – but the Coleman unleaded lanterns and stoves really are excellent bits of kit – But I couldn’t really justify having them.

LEDs may well be better, I’ve never tried them tbh – very rarely have anywhere to charge them and if there’s no other lighting on site, I know the Colemans will do the trick.

We tend to be away for 6 or 8 weeks at a time, so when I fill up the van I fill a jerry can with petrol, some mantels live in the glove box and that’s cooking, lighting (and heating!) sorted.  Just works.  As I said before though, they’re not for everyone.  Just the serious campistas amongst us 😉

Do you have to do much cleaning of the lantern if you’re using unleaded.

I’ve always understood it to be pretty dirty stuff (OK for cars but bad for things like stoves) so they gunk things up quite quickly

For example, on my multi fuel stove, unleaded is OK to use if required but it’s not recommended

No – they burn very cleanly.

The globes need a wipe occasionally if you’re fussy – fingerprints and dust mostly, not carbon or anything.

the flame burns a bit yellow at first, but settles down within a minute or two as it gets warmed up.

the stoves and lamps have a needle valve which can get blocked up – we used to clean these maybe once a year? But thats with the lamps getting completely abused by an entire scout group – even if you were camping regularly, you’d maybe have to do this once every few years.

I’ve only ever run them on unleaded

As I said – the lamps aren’t for everybody 😀 but the Coleman stoves definitely ARE…… and if you are running the stove already, using the lamps too kinda make sense.

I try to remember to empty the tanks after the end of the season, that seems to make the most difference – I’ve got a couple of stoves and one was stored with a full tank for a couple or three years so it’ll need the mixture jet thingie de-gunking as it doesn’t stay lit now.  But by-and-large no problems with any of them.

The newer stoves don’t seem to be as good a quality as they were – thinner sheet metal etc – so worth setting up an ebay alert for them and trying to get an old one.  They still sell all the bits!

but the Coleman stoves definitely ARE

Hah 🙂

I used to have one of those – got rid of it cos it drove me insane.  The fact that the second burner was driven from the first was just an awful money saving design.  To get the simmer right on the second burner was a huge fiddle.

AND it rattled when it was packed in the car.

Whichever you go for, you’ll need at least 4 so you can create a circle of light around you.

Else prepare to be embarrassed.

AND it rattled when it was packed in the car.

I suspect your tea towel was in the wrong place 😉

I suspect your tea towel was in the wrong place

Like I said

FAFF