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Cooking oil-powered camping lamp outshines kerosene

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The Lumir K is a lamp powered by cooking oil
Lumir
Backers of the Lumir K Indiegogo campaign can also pledge to donate the lamps to people in developing countries
Lumir
The Lumir K can run off any type of cooking oil – sunflower, canola, olive or otherwise
Lumir
The Lumir K gives off 96.79 lumens, making it 100 times brighter than a candle and four times brighter than a kerosene lamp
Lumir
Just 5 ml of cooking oil can provide an hour of light
Lumir
The Lumir K is currently on Indiegogo, with early bird pledges starting at US$34
Lumir
The Lumir K is a lamp powered by cooking oil
Lumir
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There's no shortage of portable lighting options out there for campers or people living in developing countries, but they all have their own pros and cons. The Lumir K lamp is aiming to be the right mix of inexpensive, safe, bright, portable and efficient, using any old cooking oil as a fuel source to light up an array of LEDs.

The new lamp follows the same basic design as the Lumir C, which the company launched back in 2016. That older lamp was powered by a single candle, which would heat up sensors inside the lantern and, through the thermoelectric effect, quickly light up LEDs on the outside.

The Lumir K does mostly the same thing, but instead of a candle it runs off cooking oil. That oil is poured into a small canister with a wick, which is then lit to heat up the sensors and turn on the lamp. It can be dimmed by blowing on the top.

Giving off 96.79 lumens, the LEDs on the Lumir K are almost 100 times brighter than a candle, or more than four times brighter than a kerosene lamp. On the fuel front, the company says that just 5 ml of cooking oil can provide light for an hour. And apparently it's not a picky eater either – the device will work just fine with canola, olive, sunflower, or whatever kind of cooking oil is on hand.

The Lumir K sounds like it would have plenty of advantages over other lamps. Cooking oil is very cheap and easy to come by, even in developing areas, and with no battery the lantern doesn't need recharging. It's not dependent on the weather like solar devices. It's also designed to pack up small for storage and transport, and Lumir says the device will keep running for 10 years.

As useful as the Lumir K sounds for campers, the company seems to be aiming for more philanthropic uses too. Backers of the Indiegogo campaign can not only pledge to buy the lamps for themselves but opt to donate some to countries in need.

The Indiegogo campaign kicks off today and will run for 45 days, in which time Lumir is hoping to raise a modest US$10,000. Early bird pledges start at $34 for one Lumir K – or one can be donated for a pledge of $29. A pledge of $63 will net both the backer and a person in need one of the lamps, and different combinations go up from there. If all goes to plan, Lumir K will be lighting up by September 2019.

Check it out in action in the video below.

Source: Lumir

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1 comment
Bob Stuart
Unless I've dropped a decimal, this is about 17% efficiency. I hope it has a comfortably full spectrum. I wonder if the next one will use waste biomass.