A lantern sneak peek

Ooh! We have an older Coleman lantern, and while it's sadly been discontinued, it's awesome!

Nice bush sounds!

Tedd

Seeing this video just made me realize that as a kid our family DID have a lantern that used mantles! However, it had a frosted glass cover so I never saw how it worked, but I remember it was rather sketchy to use indoors so my parents bought a Coleman fluorescent lantern (SLA battery), however whenever there was a blackout the battery would always be far from full so the gas one was used. Now those days the power almost never goes out and for the rare times it does smartphone LEDs and cheap tea light candles are used. Also, I think it would be a really good visualization to film each light source in a room at same place with the same locked manual camera settings to compare the brightness (more engaging than lux @ 1 m values). Both this sneak peek video along with the other main videos make it rather difficult to judge exactly how bright those things are, those two looked quite bright but it looked like it was a very overcast day (or just very shaded)

WizardTim

With a view like that, why do you want to move again ?

Benjamin Kier

I haven't found any direct evidence of this. I didn't entirely rule it out (I literally just finished writing the talking head) but I think the more likely / more significant factor is simply that both the Aladdin lamp and any of the various pressure lamps out there will burn the fuel with a Bunsen-type flame. That is, to my ears anyway, the most significant change as the kerosene lanterns must otherwise burn fuel incompletely in order for the flame to produce light. With the mantle, though, the main goal is heat, and the Aladdin lamp's burner is so different largely so it can burn hotter. I haven't tried it again, but from memory when I burned it without the mantle, it was still odorless.

Technology Connections

So you're saying Boston is run by Global Warming Enthusiasts?

Stephen Gillie

I will confirm your suspicions the mantel "burning" or incandescing, burns off any volatile fumes of combustion just as a catalytic converter would.

Jacob Tyler Hooyman

I still use "white gas" lanterns in my glamping kit. With one of those and a gallon of Coleman fuel, you can light up a lot of nights. I way way WAY prefer them to the propane models ... you might have to carry a lot of propane bottles! (I use a "white gas" 2-burner camping stove, as well, and one advantage is that it uses the same fuel as my WhisperLite backpacking stoves.) Mine are "dual-fuel" I think, but I have never used regular unleaded gasoline in mine, always the Coleman fuel. Of course, the ones I grew up with where white gas only. Fun aside ... I happen to be in Boston this week, and after seeing this sneak peek, I made a point of noting that the street lamps in Beacon Hill are still gas lamps with mantles... and they run them (at low levels) during the day to make it easier to set them to full brightness after sundown.

Jason Thorpe

The Briggs and Stratton 1HP lawnmower I used as a teenager was a 4-stroke - used gasoline with no oil added. The air filter was very different from a car - instead of a paper-and-rubber device you replace, it's a polyurethane foam pad that you wash with soapy water and soak in motor oil every spring. We had a 2-stroke gas weedeater (in addition to electric weedeaters designed for 16-gague extension cords, and 14-gague melted them) - and a separate gas can with "2-stroke don't use in car" written all over. The oil came in this funny-shaped bottle with 2 chambers connected by a tube. Unscrew the shot cup sized empty chamber, and squeeze the larger full chamber, and fluid would flow through the tube and slowly fill the empty chamber. This would let you measure the correct amount of oil to add to your gasoline. And I've always wished someone would make a liquor flask in this way, with 2 chambers connected by a tube, for easy shot measuring.

Stephen Gillie

The particular "small engine" smell that people are used to from lawnmowers and older boat motors and such is really the smell associated with 2-stroke gasoline engines. It's a combination of burning oil in addition to gas (you add oil mix to the gas to lubricate the engines) and some unburnt fuel making it into the exhaust. The wikipedia article suggests that the mantle has a side-effect of just holding the combustion within the mantle instead of having an open flame, which I guess helps with complete combustion.

Calvin Walton

Two it would appear. And they’re getting bigger.... run!

Ewen McNeill

Been there done that! I've had my Coleman propane propane double mantle lantern since the 90s and a few times I've picked it up to have bottom come off the case and smash. Such a pain! I'm more careful now and the lantern has been such a help during power failures at night.

Adrian's Digital Basement

The glass in our Coleman propane lantern shattered last weekend when unpacking after a camping trip (the bottom of the carrying case wasn't fully clipped on, oops). Now that I see that the new ones have built in spark igniter, I'm thinking this was a blessing in disguise!

Kevin Tessner

In my childhood, my parents had a butane lantern with a mantel. We used it while camping and during power cuts. While we also had a battery operated lantern that took a chunky 6V battery, the gas lantern was a lot brighter and reliable. As long as there was gas in the canister, it just worked, no leaking batteries after storage or corroded contacts. While the mantle was fragile, it didn't just unexpectedly fuse like a light bulb and I don't recall the mantel ever getting damaged. The lantern also kept our hands warm during cold evenings and as with propane lanterns, I don't recall this butane one giving off an odour while lit.

Seán Byrne

The one who lights the path must be lit.

Stephen Gillie

My parents too! They kept using it into the 80s and 90s on camping trips. And the Coleman stove. And the huge1950s military tent. My dad would fill a 4x8 trailer with supplies to camp for 3 days, at the state parks where you're 20 feet from the next campsite and 100 feet from the toilets, and 20 minutes from a grocery store (on surface non-highway streets).

Stephen Gillie

Don't forget the Kerosene Mantle versions of these. You have to preheat them by burning alcohol in a small cup before you turn on the fuel, you can't just light the match and turn the knob.

John McFerren

Really interesting point. Like military (spy?) airplanes using their fuel as coolant, then when this coolant has enough heat to become gaseous, it's burnt as fuel. Here, it's illumination or cooking heat causing the phase change, not the airplane engine's waste heat. And speaking of illumination heat - if these mantles are dark radiators (aka "blackbody") how hot must they be to generate this much light?

Stephen Gillie

That's the magic. Now bump one, ever so slightly, and watch one of the mantles break. Most fragile things ever omg.

Stephen Gillie

I can still remember the day I realised what the "generator" in a Coleman lantern or stove does: Runs liquid fuel near (lantern) or over (stove) the fire to boil the fuel to get flammable vapour. It made it much easier to fix them after that, once I got over the whole "is this safe?" thing.

Graham Reed

I forgot I had sound coming through my headphones (which were sitting on the desk beside me) and boy was I terrified by that chirping sound coming from somewhere inside my desk before I realized that I was watching a lantern video.

"Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father." — Matthew 5:15-16, New American Bible Revised Edition.

Gadgetman

Used to be the lighting of choice in my parents' caravan, back in the 70s. One could say it's not the smartest option for use in a very small enclosed space

Erwin Bierhof

I suspect that reason for this lanterns being less widespread that classical ones it simply price difference. Okay, price premium for camping gear is pretty hefty, but still, i couldn't believe that catalitic mesh could be produced much cheaper than cotton wick.

Yes, "hot" in two ways..

Michael Mirsky

Mmm..thorium...

lohphat

I think the effective advantage of the Hurricane Lantern, Aladdin Lamp, and dual fuel lanterns, is that you can use them for extended periods, with only a can of fuel to fill them with. I know there are many easier and 'better' alternatives in the developed areas, but these were not targeted for the developed areas where there's a 7/11 around the corner to get another bottle of propane at. My thoughts are of the jungle of Papua New Guinea, or up in a forest cabin, so far from civilization that even the roads don't go that far. The first Aladdin lamp I saw was in my Grandparents boat, where extended time on the ocean was a possibility, and finding tanks of propane were out of the question, and batteries are not easily charged if too weak to start the motors. Also propane can leak and be a flammability/explosion hazard in the bottom of a boat. in some of those situations, an old school oil/fluid gas lamp.... really 'shines'. :P (and I am assuming that, by Aladdin Lamp, you mean: https://www.lehmans.com/product/aladdin-lincoln-drape-oil-lamps/ )

my soul wanders alone in the desert. only a wise man in a brown tweed jacket can enlighten me.

nobody

Ohh! I hadn't considered that possibility. Interesting.

Technology Connections

Well, the odor I was expecting was that which you get from a lawn mower, generator, or a classic car without a catalytic converter. Not raw gasoline, but the smell of an engine's exhaust. Similarly the Dietz lanterns don't smell like raw kerosene, but they do have a pungent odor. The Aladdin lamp is similarly odorless and still uses a wick, which leads me to believe the mantle is the key. I don't believe it's safe to run the Coleman lantern without mantles (it may not even be possible since it relies on the heat from them to keep the fuel vaporized in the generator) otherwise I'd check that. Honestly, without doing any real research yet, my hunch is that the absurdly high temperature of the mantles is enough to burn away whatever aromatic chemicals might otherwise escape, but I honestly don't know much about that. I don't even really know why gasoline engines smell like they do unless they have a catalytic converter

Technology Connections

It could also not smell because its burning at atmospheric pressures, rather than squished in a cylinder combustion stroke

I believe the reason it does not smell is because it works based on gasoline vapors getting to the mantle and not liquid gasoline. A kerosine lantern is pulling liquid fuel up the wick, only a portion of which combusts. In other words it’s an overly rich mixture with the evaporating liquid bypassing the flame. On the dual fuel lantern, it takes exactly the amount of fuel it needs without the liquid overage to deal with. It also has a single gas exit path which must pass through a portion of the hot mantle to exit the lantern.

Neat! I used the propane Coleman lanterns on my trips with Boy Scouts back in the day, but I never knew they made a version that runs on gasoline! of all things.

Sean Hearrell

I still use those white fuel lanterns and stoves. Have both the coleman stoves and a MSR whisperlite. If you want a fun camp stove grab one of the whisperlites.

Chris Brosz

I have the stove too

James Jepsen

My favourite were the ones that used an isobutane cartridge that you only got *one* chance to pierce correctly, or else they sprayed fuel everywhere. "Favourite". I'd much prefer the white gas or propane ones to those pieces of crap.

Gunplumber

Sweet! So these apparently are the type of lanterns that many battery powered versions get their appearance from (particularly the smaller one).

Scott Kemp

These days I use propane lanterns (and stoves) when camping but when I was a kid we used the ones that ran on liquid fuel. It’s nicer not to have to pump the tank to pressurize it. And refilling the old ones was a pain, even with a good funnel.

tim1724

I grew up with the Coleman “white gas” lanterns, and still have one in my camping gear. As a kid “pumping up” the tank was always a challenge…

James Jepsen

I have the stove version of that lantern!

Is there a light at the end if this technology tunnel?

Lorraine Hughes