Talk:Carbide lamp

Hi; I added a section on recommended readings, I can't help it, I'm a librarian. I hope you will leave the link to Eurekamagazine.net on the Carbide Lamp page, it is the only currently published magazine on the history of mine lighting and mining tools, and access is free! Please note that this is not intended as a promotional or commercial post, I have no direct connection to Eureka!, but right now it is the only place with information on Thorpe's book. JAVanfleet 19:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Sooty flame ?
Carbide lamp flame is sooty only with a bad/damaged beak, lack of water, bad carbide etc. A good, fully functional, lamp will produce no soot as bad elements will be burnt through the flame. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.184.159.145 (talk) 13:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)


 * IIRC from my caving days, a carbide lamp will also produce soot if you hold it close to a cold and/or damp surface, like a cave wall. We used this fact to mark tunnels when mapping them. Mcswell (talk) 01:46, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Deleted chunk
I deleted this section. Reason is, the chemistry is adequately discussed under acetylene and calcium carbide, using modern versus archaic terminology. Also, this is not the focus of the article; the focus is the lamp. Lastly, the earlier part seems to contradict the ==History== section. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 01:50, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

In doing so, you've created the need for a "clarification needed" in the second sentence. I lack the expertise on the topic to jump in and start paraphrasing, or rewriting (for example, to address the contradicting histories). But it seems to me that in lacking a more concise and refined description, the section you deleted is a necessary place holder. --Bainst (talk) 19:00, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Re-Invention
Acetylene gas lighting was successfully developed and introduced by many manufacturers for various uses from circa 1894. Fuller in America is credited with its introduction in 1895. Often described as artificial daylight, Willson and Moorehead re-discovered the properties of acetylene gas in 1892. They demonstrated that by dripping water onto carbide of calcium, acetylene gas was produced which, when ignited under about 5lbs of pressure, gave a brilliant white light. Carbide of calcium is manufactured from coke and lime in an electric furnace with an achievable heat of approximately 4000 degrees Fahrenheit. The chemical action converts the coke and lime into carbide calcium and carbon monoxide gas. The chemical action which takes place when the water is brought into contact with the carbide of calcium was discovered by Friedrich Wohler in 1862:

CaC2 + 2 H2O → Ca(OH)2 + C2H2

Acetylene gas as properly generated will produce 95.6% of pure gas per volume. The remainder is made up of sulphuretted hydrogen, ammonia, hydrocarbons and phosphoresced hydrogen (Ref 5). This latter impurity is perhaps the most dangerous, as it forms a highly explosive compound when brought into contact with copper (Ref 14). Owners of bicycle lamps should not fear as the hydrogen gas generated in a bicycle lamp is so minuscule that it will have no effect. On the other hand, it was a problem with very large domestic acetylene gas generators where substantial amounts of gas were produced. It also helped if the generator was kept cool, which in the most part was true when using your lamp on an evening ride. Some means of filtering the impurities was certainly needed as if they were allowed to pass along with the gas they would very quickly block the small burner tip. In consequence most manufacturers after 1900 used a horse-hair filter sandwiched behind a plate in the upper part of the generator. Modern users often remove this, not realizing the damaging effect at the burner. If the filter needs replacing then cotton wool is a good alternative.

Risks?
Is anyone knowledgeable about the risks with Carbide lamps? Obviously, fire/overheating is one risk. Are there others? For example, is the smoke from an acetylene flame toxic? 140.180.190.89 (talk) 03:28, 13 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Not sure how it would overheat, unless it somehow broke inside and dumped all the water from the upper chamber into the lower one at once. But they're pretty sturdy, so that's unlikely.  I guess you could stick your finger in the flame, like you could with a candle.  And the smoke is just carbon, while the product aside from smoke is water vapor and carbon dioxide.  So apart from the fact that the open flame could cause an explosion if a mine had a methane leak, they were pretty harmless. Mcswell (talk) 01:50, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Suggest merge
Carbide lighting is a near orphan stub that could be usefully merged here to give it context. --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * support There's no useful need to distinguish these and the level of coverage with a shared article would improve coverage of both. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with a merge, however it seems carbide lighting should be the merge target with a section on carbide lamps. The history section seems more to apply to the carbide lighting article. It seems carbide lamps are rather obsolete - I used them for cave surveying/mapping 40 years ago but would opt for better lighting were I to do it now. Vsmith (talk) 14:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Support (either one way or the other). When I was looking for articles that might link to Carbide lighting article, to save it from being an orphan, I could only find articles that talked about the use of the technology for car (and bicylcle) headlight, and down in mines... there were no others that talked about use of the lighting in houses. So, there might be reason to keep the merge in this direction. But, at the end of the day, one will be a redirection to the other, so it probably doesn't matter too much. TheAMmollusc (talk) 15:43, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Done for now. Until someone writes the epic brawling saga of the carbide lighting industry, the men who built it, and the women who loved them...when we can split it back out again.--Wtshymanski (talk) 15:18, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

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