What do you think? (Caution! Pic heavy!)

It's a cast aluminum fire & rescue lantern from the 20's, with a 5" Safetee Glass Company lens, a metal reflector, a focus knob on the back and two battery compartments measuring about 2.5" x 7" each.



A cluster of six, 6-die 15W Ostars LEDs?

One of FM's MR16 sockets with a 75W bulb?

A halogen headlight?

Give me some modification ideas. :devil:

Re: What do you think?

Big reflector, lots of nice metal to heatsink everything, and best of all, MASSIVE battery space. This is going to be a MEGA-light!

With 2 compartments of 2.5" dia x 7" long, you have plenty of room for 7p4s x 18650 or 7p6s x 18500 Li-Ions.

7p4s 18650 = ~14.8V, ~15.4Ah
7p6s 18500 = ~22.2V, ~10.5Ah

Either of these combinations could give you up to ~400 Watts!!! Just think of it!

Re: What do you think?

I am a hardcore LED guy, but that lantern needs a serious incandescent bulb to put out some serious lumens.

Re: What do you think?

datiLED said:

I am a hardcore LED guy, but that lantern needs a serious incandescent bulb to put out some serious lumens.

Click to expand...

I agree. I'm ALL about leds but it would be a crying shame to change that too much. Just put modern batteries and a high power bulb in it so that it still looks old timey.

Re: What do you think?

Hello donn_,

That looks like an interesting host. What is the make and model? I have seen a couple that look similar. I would like to see some pictures of the inside and the focusing mechanism. I have built several vintage hotwire flashlights and several 300 watt vintage lanterns. I would like to build a 500 watt version now.

If it were mine, I would want to run a 64663 on 10S LiPos. I have that setup in a LightForce 240 Blitz and it is stunning. Almost 22000 re-rated bulb lumens and 500 watts. Puts my LarryK14 to shame. I would like to build a vintage lantern with these components.

Regards,
Mark

Re: What do you think?

Hi Mark,

It's marked Harris Bros Manufacturing, Dayton, OH, and the model is #6. The following threads will fill in some details:

Here's the thread which first brought this light to the CPF:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/166433

Here's a thread which includes this model among others:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/101074&highlight=battle

Here are some more pics:

Inside, down the top:


Slightly offset, down the top. This shows the focus mechanism, which is nothing more than a simple advance screw which moves the socket through about an inch of travel, fore and aft:


The 1/2" hex-knob on the rear of the body, which drives the focusing screw:


The front, showing the imprint on the lens:


Moving inside, the reflector and socket:


Back of the bezel ring, showing lens puttied into place:


The socket, and inside the reflector head, straight on:


Offset to illustrate focus mechanism:


Back of the reflector:


Bulb, stamped USA and printed "6" over "90:"


The reflector is no more than 1.5" deep at the socket. The socket travels about an inch, from bottomed out in the reflector, to fully extended.

Re: What do you think?

Dude, that might be an antique. Are you sure you wanna mess with it? Get that thing appraised!

Hello donn_,

Thank you for the links and all of the detailed pics. I really appreciate it.

I would still want to run something crazy in it. I would do mods that are reversible. Maybe you could find another reflector so you would not have to bore out the stock one. The original socket could be easily removed and a bi-pin socket might not be that hard to install using the same screws. You could run a MOSFET with the stock switch.

It looks like an interesting project. If I ever find one, I will attempt to shoehorn a 64663 in there and polish it to a mirror finish. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Regards,
Mark

cool, will that be your new edc?

Crenshaw

That is one cool light!

If I had one, I would probably keep it stock. If I did modify it I would try to keep the stock look as much as possible, only upgrade the reflector and the bulb. Inside one can always add batteries and other electronics out of sight, making it a real sleeper! =)

A Dremel buffing kit, various grinding, rouge, and polishing compounds, and that housing will gleam!

Personally I wouldn't go for monstrous lumens. I'd like to see it have some solid utility, as it was designed for back in the day. Should still be able to get great runtime and still probably be 10X the original output of whatever they powered it with (2 "dry cells"?). I'd shoot for something in the 20W range, maybe 35 (IRC territory). Should be able to get 100 watt-hours of batteries in there.

I think that would do best with a High-powered overdriven IRC bulb (a 65w driven at 100 or so) and a Li-Ion pack inside, maybe a hotdriver to be able to drive it harder....

That would make it a real sleeper

it's gonna get too hot in there for LiIon batteries, the all metal reflector inside the enclosed all metal cavity will be a very efficient little oven. There is nothing to insulate the heat away so with something like an over driven 65w bulb that whole thing may be too hot to even hold after 2 - 3mins and dangerous with lithium batteries.

A super long running WA1185 hotwire will work k but anything above that will get too hot in my opinion.
I could however be wrong because the large reflector will allow much of the heat to escape through the front.

I think I considered buying that light, Ebay right? anyway, what is happening with this mod, I'm intrested to see how it turns out.

I found the original patent for these lanterns btw. and have posted links and some thoughts and observations made when reading some of the patents that grether had. and some general information about them I thought might be usefull, the more I look for information on these lanterns the more I find out that I already know more then the internet has to offer me on the subject

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/2715591#post2715591

A blast, a coat of nickel or chrome, a HID kit , will bring this sucker back to life...:devil:

HID would be soo cool! maybe a 35W with slim ballast might fit in there.

Still no update? c'mon I was looking forward to seeing a badass mod with this lantern, nobody has done one yet that I know of, and I want some ideas to mod some of my own harris and grether lamps :huh:

Cuso said:

A blast, a coat of nickel or chrome, a HID kit , will bring this sucker back to life...:devil:

Click to expand...

I was waiting for some one to say H.I.D. As much as I', LED bias I think this is an ideal candidate for an H.I.D. setup

Pick up a POB HID and swap the guts out. Simple,and bright.:naughty:

^^those have the perfect reflector to fit these and alread has a charger built in, but the stock sealed led acid battery is too large to fit these, you could probably go to fry's and get one that will fit, or two and solder on a jumper, then gut a duel contact bayonet base and solder in a bulb and fill it in with epoxy, I rigged one with a mini screw base socket so I have a reducer