Water + Flashlight Lamp

A flashlight might be the only light you have available on a camping trip or during a power outage, but the directional lighting isn't very useful for lighting up a table or a small room or tent.  If you have a clear glass jar or plastic water bottle, you can fill that with water to diffuse the light and make a lamp of sorts, which does area lighting much better.

I have been using an old kitty litter container suspended from the rafters with a bike light on it at Dogstar Cabin at night.  It lights up the ~150 sq ft room really well and the power usage is minimal.  LDPE and HDPE containers are great for this because they soften the light a lot without dimming it very much.  If you have a particularly harsh blueish flashlight, adding a little bit of tea or coffee to the water helps to mellow that out.  You could also use something like grenadine or red wine or food coloring if you want specific colors.

This is similar to a technique used for making DIY solar tubes as seen here and here... but it works at night too.  If you are hanging the jar above your bed, make sure it seals well.

This is part of the MoPID series of permaculture innovations that I am working on during my time at Wheaton Labs.  Check out the thread if you'd like to follow along.

I've done this, and its fun to play with -- especially if you're looking for an ambient light effect in a room. Or nagivation* lighting, so people don't bump into things.

Still, I find that it's an inefficient use of the lumens produced. I find that hanging a headlamp around my neck, on low, is much more effective and efficient. My 2c.

*Edit: Navigation, that is. Nagivation is nag+navigate, which happens in the passenger seat of a car. "I'll drive, you nagivate."

Haha, "nagivation" was a term in need of coining, nicely done!

I have also found that the water light uses up a lot of lumens when it is a jar sitting on a surface like the table or the ground.  This LDPE container suspended up above head level though actually feels like almost no light lost when compared to using the flashlight itself.  It's a bit hard to quantify, but I would say that 80-90% of the light makes it out into the room that way... its just that the rigging can be a bit tricky depending on the situation.

One time I was visiting in a fancy house that had a huge chandelier, a tall mass of diamond cut glass. For laughs I shone my little AAA LED pocket flashlight into it -- the effect was quite impressive, and pleasant.

When houses are being reno'd, sometimes these chandeliers are thrown out as "too dated." Hmm.