Brainstorming for a NON ELECTRICAL Flashlight

[Illum]

Got a couple of small questions though. I'm not sure if I'm reading this right, but are we regulating the acetylene production by altering the water pressure? I'm a bit worried that it'll continue to produce gas even when it's nominally "off".

well, conventional carbide lamps the water drips by gravity from one chamber to the other partially by atmospheric pressure since the water reservoir is an open container. As to how it could work when sealed in a container is still a mystery to me.

I'll update the existing drawing to something better as I see major flaws already

Second, more of a general question about a carbide lamp in general, how we get rid of the calcium hydroxide that's produced? We end up with a wet canister that contains, IIRC, a rather strong alkali.

Ca(OH)2 has some demand in the petrochemical industry...if these carbide "pills" could be housed in a temporary container then extracted storage and shipping should be rather similar to the way wet lead acids used to be

but yeah...considering the substances in question I'd much rather stick with lithium sealed in a battery:candle:

 

[wapkil]

I don't have any experience with carbide lamps so I don't know if this question makes sense but have you looked at small acetylene generators, like e.g. Petzl Ariane? Maybe some construction ideas could be taken from them?

 

[smokelaw1]

A friend of mine and I once put a ribbon of magnesium behind a fresnel lens, and hit it with one or two second blasts with a small hand held torch. The resulting beam was amazingly bright, though of course short lived (small amount of ribbon) and dangerously hot.
Some experimentation with that lens in a lantern sized compartment could make an amazing SHORT term super light.

Fantastic project, though...and I look forward to watching. Guys....these renderings are great.

 

[Illum]

has other ideas we can ponder at?

I don't have any experience with carbide lamps so I don't know if this question makes sense but have you looked at small acetylene generators, like e.g. Petzl Ariane? Maybe some construction ideas could be taken from them?

I didn't know Petzl had anything remotely related to it, I'll look into it but finding gut pictures might not be easy

I improved on a few areas from the vinegar jar, such as doing away with the bottom cap and utilized a plug regulator as with conventional lamps...now it needs a hole somewhere to pump pressure into the water jar and some type of a device to allow the water to contact a greater surface area for more gas to occur. I did away with the membrane idea, even if it wasn't cost prohibitive, it would be hilariously fragile under strong pH conditions, cellulose will melt though in any alkali environment. So...a sealed container will do...


Flow chart, I believe if the gas is being evacuated by some type of a active pump then this sort of charging device would work, if not it'll sputter and drown itself...or it'll have to be used upside down which becomes an orientation issue


Something like this in a grid stand, not very mobile but you can somewhat guess the underlying potential of this assembly.


now that I think of it, the idea sucks...it could make a decent electrolysis-hydrogen reactor if I can think of how to apply voltage bias in the center canister and the body...but not a Acetylene reactor

 

[Tony Hanna]

Wow! That was nicely done! I wish I had the ability to create a rendering of the idea I've got kicking around in my head.

Here's what I've got so far: A typical cylindrical flashlight body with 2 internal chambers and a small air pump in the tail (air pump could use the bladder idea to keep from injecting air into the carbide chamber once the water is used up). The chambers would be oriented with the water chamber at the rear and the carbide chamber at the front. The water chamber would contain the pump (removable to also serve as a fill cap) and a weighted pickup attached to a section of flexible hose to allow gravity to keep the pickup submerged in the event that air is present in the chamber due to a partial fill. At the front of the water chamber, the hose from the pickup would be connected to a piece of hard line which would pass through the front of the chamber as a bulkhead connecter. In the space between the front of the water chamber and the rear of the carbide chamber would be a needle valve with the stem exiting the side of the flashlight's body and a knob attached to provide control over flame height by adjusting water flow. The inlet to the valve would be connected to the outlet pipe from the water chamber and the outlet from the valve would be connected to a pipe running toward the center of the carbide chamber. Since both the carbide and the water drip should follow gravity, this should allow for consistent gas production regardless of position. At the front end of the carbide chamber would be a screw on cap with a hard pipe extending back toward the center of the chamber on the inside and out to the burner on the outside. The inside end of this hard pipe would have a small filter to prevent anything passing that could clog the burner. With the burner attached to the pipe exiting the carbide chamber, the head of the flashlight would hold the reflector and thread to the front of the flashlight's body with the burner passing through the center of the reflector. Refilling the carbide chamber would be accomplished by removing the head of the light and unscrewing the front end of the chamber. Ideally everything would be mounted inside the light's body in such a way as to allow easy disassembly for cleaning.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[Illum]

I'll make some sketches of what appears to be what your describing...It looks rather crude...but since I don't have the software at home MsPaint as far as I can go.



I was thinking of a syringe concept and eliminate the pump assembly. as for bubbles...well even if there is air forcing it through with the water will get burned off at the burner end anyway.

 

[Tony Hanna]

That looks nice! A little different than what I pictured in my mind but the same concept. I really like the fixed spring loaded piston idea. Constant pressure means no fiddling with a pump or the valve to keep the flame height stable from the pressure bleeding off.:thumbsup:
It would be really neat to design the piston like a grease gun setup so that you have a rod to retract it with (during fillup) that can pass through the center of the piston so that it's not sticking out during use.

 

[fyrstormer]

I believe what you want is a tiny limelight. Basically you hit a chunk of calcium oxide ceramic (lime) with a windproof flame (most likely butane, in this day and age), and the lime glows white-hot. Then you can collimate the light however you like.

 

[fyrstormer]

A friend of mine and I once put a ribbon of magnesium behind a fresnel lens, and hit it with one or two second blasts with a small hand held torch. The resulting beam was amazingly bright, though of course short lived (small amount of ribbon) and dangerously hot.
Some experimentation with that lens in a lantern sized compartment could make an amazing SHORT term super light.

Fantastic project, though...and I look forward to watching. Guys....these renderings are great.

That's called an "old fashioned camera flash". I used to buy single-use flashbulbs for an old camera that worked exactly the same way. Thank god they invented electric flash.

 

[DM51]

Great thread! Superbly inventive ideas from Th232, Illum & others.

The best system will be one that can contain the most potential energy in the smallest volume, and utilise/release it safely to make light.

How best to achieve that I am unsure - there are fuel possibilities that have a very high energy/density ratio but would be impractical and/or unsafe (nuclear being the most obvious example).

What about a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell, or would that be that disqualified because it produces electrical energy?

 

[Illum]

oo:
I don't remember any of this for some reason :thinking:

If I had any of the documents left, its on the toasted harddrive I had tossed back in December:shrug:

What about a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell, or would that be that disqualified because it produces electrical energy?

Well...it would certainly be an hassle to charge up unless you make a decent cradle, being non-electrical at best you can burn the two together, but the combusting rate is so rapid and hot that I'd be afraid to hold it.

The electricial concept seems trival, but lets just say the world is perfect and no efficiency loss exists:
Multiple strips of solar cells in parallel on the flashlight body would mean the solar cells that are deprived of light on the bottom of the cylinderical body will not hemper the electron flow of the ones that are. They are connected to a closed loop fuel cell system. By day water is disassembled by the charged fuel cell and dumped into its respected resovoirs with spring loaded pressure maintainers, being entirely passive fuel cells can run dry without damage [remember to add a diode across the bias]. If gas pressure is too great, then the resovoirs can vent the excess gas into the environment, water resovoir will need to be spring tensioned as well to maintain injection pressure.
At night when the input voltage bias is lower than the output voltage threshold the fuel cell reverses, slowly charging a capacitor like one of those faraday flashlights, when power is needed a switch contacts an LED to the capacitor. When the gas resovoirs are empty, the runtime is over. Tomorrow when the sun comes out, again the cycle repeats. If pure water is used [not the drinking pure, but chemically pure] the fuel cell may never have to be cleaned, the water resovoir may never recieve interal corrosion. As long as no overcharging takes place, caps have an indefinite life. LEDs properly driven can last thousands of hours. A magnetic reed switch can be used to ensure no mechanical failures can ever take place. Everyones happy.

 

[AnAppleSnail]

(nuclear being the most obvious example).

There's a reason that they make leaded glass!


(I'd go with forcing air over steel wool because it looks cool, not practical though)

 

[fyrstormer]

Well, a traditional limelight uses an oxyhydrogen flame to produce heat, but given that most small torches nowadays use butane, from the perspective of easy refueling it would probably be easiest to build the thing around an existing butane torch lighter. I've toyed with this idea before but always crapped-out when it came to actually collecting parts to try anything.

 

[cyclopsed]

just some thoughts

Using natural gases (butane, propane,...): the more oxygen/air the flame gets, the better the combustion will be and the less light you will get... unless you use the combustion to heat something to glowing red or white and get light by this way (camping gaz lights with a glowing asbestos socket) BUT…
BUT I already saw lighters using catalytical burning, I guess it was a platinum wire, but I'm not sure

Carbide & water giving acetylene:

CaC2 + 2 H2O → C2H2 + Ca(OH)2 + 31 000 calories (heat)

carbide remains in my view the most interesting idea (carbide lamps) as for its special carbon rich combustion:
acetylene + oxygen give in a first reaction carbon monoxide and hydrogen, these reacting then in a second reaction to carbon dioxide and water

BUT:
acetylene polymerizes under heat and pressure giving benzene (C6H6) + additional energy

meaning or rather a BOOM under bad conditions if you get an excessive pressure of around 100 kPa

I remember my grand-da telling that they used fishing in ponds with carbide & water in replacement of other explosives: carbide in bottle or small container, add water, screw bottle and dump it quite fast into the pond: bang or boom and fishes coming up to surface.
This is really dangerous, I do not recommend to try it out.

That's a reason too why acetylene for welding is being shipped in special bottles/containers under low pressure using a kind of absorbent.

>>> a security valve shall be considered in any case

Caving lights are being manufactured whether with security valves or a way exceeding pressure can not build up, generally.

Hope this helps for continuing the project safely. I'll take one for sure!!!

Paul

 

[jereader]

Hey guys, I haven't read the whole thread as there is lots here that is over my head, but I just wanted to say a couple of things. First, WOW! This is a really awesome project, and I hope to see it come to fruition. Second, ya'll are some hardcore geeks, to the point that it is impressive. I never knew how interested in flashlights a person or persons could become until I discovered this forum. I was one of those "maglites are the best" people until I started looking for something small and bright to carry with me. My search led me here and now a whole new world has opened up to me. So, I guess third I'd like to say thank you to all of you flashaholics.

 

[jch79]

This is a really awesome project, and I hope to see it come to fruition.

Oh wait... that wasn't a joke?

Why this forum is still open is beyond me... I sure wish Kyle & Walter were still active participants on CPF - or at least on their own subforum here. :shrug: Either way, I agree with you that this idea is a great one and worth exploring; should the Lumencraft team choose to come back from the (seemingly) dead, I hope it does happen... or someone picks up the ball and runs with it.

:candle: john

 

[jrmalin]

Been browsing CPF for awhile now, but this topic really caught my interest. As someone already mentioned, the Petzl Aceto Carbide lamp system might be a good system to start with. It would allow you to use a proven system and technology (I haven't used the Petzl system, but I have used miner's carbide lamps while caving) as a base for a focusing system that might be applied to a variety of non-electrical light sources. This is fun to think about!

 

[dc38]

(attempt to revive a year old dead thread) Idea for your flame based flashlight. Since heat rises and the flame becomes a tear-drop shape, Make a reflector based on that shape. start with a larger projection of the flame's shape, and bend/tap the reflector to be rounded, thus throwing out a beam more efficiently than a rounded reflector. to keep the flame safe from wind, construct some pyrex glass lens that is symmetrical to the reflector and "grade" out portions of the glass to help better distort and focus the light to a hotspot. To make the flame brighter, perhaps some kind of magnesium alloy rod could be placed near the flame in a reloadable chamber? Maybe add rotating flaps so you can morse code like old maritime signal lights. The finished product in my mind looks like a lantern, except half the glass cover is the aluminum reflector.

 

[AnAppleSnail]

I like the idea of manesium pellets or filaments for an expendable 'boost' mode. I'll have to think on this more. I also might build a carbon-arc lamp for pure fun.

 

[Norm]

Nothing new here guys.

Old carbide lamp.

Norm