If your light doesnt work with eneloops but works with alkaline I'd say it only would work with FRESH out of the box alkalines, and that you probably have tossed away a good number of halfway used alkalines... [/quote]

You might be on to something. I took 4 new (fully charged by me) eneloops from a different package and they worked fine in both lanterns; one a 3 cell LED, the other a filament bulb 4 cell lantern and also in the 4 cell LED headlamp. One eneloop would not light the single cell LED light though. I took the alkalines out of the small 3 cell LED lantern and tried each in the single cell LED, and they did not work either. I put the alkalines back in the 3 cell LED and they worked fine.