Best Car Camping Light Review
A while back I realized that I needed some sort of area light for the back of the truck. I went out for an overnight and arrived well after dark to where I was camping and had to prepare dinner. While my headlamp worked okay it was not great. I looked around for a good light that would light up the area around the back of my truck so that I could work or hang out there with a decent light to work or see whatever I needed to. I found the Claymore Ultra II 3.0 lights and they are almost perfect for what I needed.
I ordered a couple of them online from a place called Overland Addict. They were shipped promptly and I got a nice message from the owner. Overland Addict seems like a small mom and pop type shop selling camping gear out of Southwestern Missouri. I was impressed with their service. I also ordered a couple of strong magnets from Amazon as well with the correct thread on them. While Claymore sells magnets for them I couldn’t find any available online and decided to buy some online through Amazon as they looked pretty much the same. I ordered to packs of magnets which was a good thing since one pack had the wrong thread on them and it turned out that two magnets would have been overkill. A quick call to Amazon and they refunded my money which was more than I expected.
I got my chance to try them out shortly after receiving them on a trip over President’s day weekend. More on this trip later. I arrived to my campsite after dark and used the lights to light up the back area of the truck while I made dinner. Ther worked very well. One thing though is that with a fiberglasss top on the truck the places to attach the lights with the magnet and even with the hook are minimal. While messing around trying to get the light to mount I came up with an idea to add a small piece of steel plate to the hinge bolt for the back window of the truck top. This would give me a good surface for the magnets to attach the lights. I got some steel from Home Depot and cut it to the right size and shape using a hacksaw and file. It took a bit but I got them cut out to a nice size and shape and they fit perfectly on the bolts. I ended up sawing off the small piece of bolt still sticking out to make a relatively clean install. I also painted the plates with some leftover paint I had. The paint is already chipping off from the magnets attaching and detaching but that is fine.
The lights are great and I have posted a quick review of them on Youtube. They are very well built, are water resistant, feature a tuneable light (cool, warm and medium), can act as a batter bank, are brightness adjustable from very bright to quite low and come in a nice protective case. Highly recommended as no fuss area light for car camping. I would recommend these over all the lanterns out there.