Soviet lamp idea is from here. How a 195-year-old discovery could build the future of energy How a 195-year-old discovery could build the future of energy
Cool, interesting, I hadn't heard. Thanks! A Russian kerosene lamp.. so, no surprise a basic google search finds there is one in the flesh on our own "Classic Pressure Lamps" Russian thermogenerator lamp
A few years back, Petromax was selling a wick lantern with one of those units built into the top and a radio built into the base. I thought it was way cool and I really wanted one. However, no one would sell Petromax to the US. As it turned out, a company in the US somehow managed to buy the rights to the Petromax name and would not allow anything Petromax to be imported. That's apparently changed now that Petromax is selling directly in the US, however, it's been few years since I've seen one of those cool lanterns.
I'm curious where this will go especially with the modification of semiconductor materials into the thermocouple (therompile) design. My limited experience with these devices comes from working with gas fired appliances like stoves, furnaces, and water heaters. Also on the aspect of process control and instrumentation type-J and type-K thermocouples for temp control. I find it amazing how something so imperceptible as valence electrons and galvanic action can make these devices work.
With this talk of poor efficiency ... It makes me wonder why the Biolite stove is not designed more like a home wood stove. Air tight with draw and air intake control. That would increase the efficiency of the wood, thus reducing the need of fan. It would then generate more power per volume of wood material. My home wood stove has a "cook top" on the top. I have seen photos, somewhere, of TEG added to a home wood stove. I liked the article.
Seems this is a stove realted forum: there is or was also a thermo generator stove. Picture from Aidin, CPL. As you can see the cooling vins have the chain openings so the generator unit is the same as the lamp version. The seperate chimeny looks different. There seems to be an Aladdin UK connection due to the markings. But to be honest the stove looks more like a lamp then a cooking stove ;-) I always wondered would this work better with the nowadays available materials? We also need less voltage (5V) but maybe to much power. Petroman aka wimve The Netherlands
Correction to my previous post. The lantern is a Lufo, not Pertomax, and apparently it's still available. It's at www.pelam.de here: Lufo Hurricane Lantern with Radio Pelam Maybe it's just pelam's policy, I don't know, but this statement is still on their website: "We will not accept any orders from the United States of America. Furthermore we will not send any products to the United States of America."
@snwcmpr The biolite fan may not be just a function of combustion air but to also cool the thermoelectric heat sink. These work on difference of temp between the two sides of the element. Not just heat but difference of heat. The greater the difference, the greater the output.
Yes, that's correct. It does also cool the unit. I had forgotten about that when I wrote. Thanks Marc.
@Jim Lukowski , I believe this has has been discussed (much) earlier on the site, and if memory serves me well the reason is Pelam being the official supplier in Europe and Brytlite in the USA for Petromax products. So they kinda respect each other's territory for so to speak.
@Wim, I believe that was correct in the past, but I haven't seen lanterns available for quite some time at BriteLyt, and Petromax is now selling directly in the US. So far as I know, BriteLyt never sold actual Petromax branded products. Do you or anyone else happen to know if Lufo is a Pertomax brand? I did write to Pelam.de yesterday about the policy of no shipping to the US, but haven't heard back yet. I do hope they respond.
Hi Jim, re your question,"Do you or anyone else happen to know if Lufo is a Pertomax brand?" I hope one of our German members can help! "I did write to Pelam.de yesterday about the policy of no shipping to the US, but haven't heard back yet. I do hope they respond." Do let us know if they do, the connection between Pelam and Petromax is not very clear to me, at a time it looked like both were owned by the same people but maybe they just had a good sales agreement, dunno.
Pelam was founded by some German students, of which Jonas Taureck is the one who is now the owner of Pelam as well as Petromax GmbH, meanwhile together with his wife Pia Christin Taureck. In 2006 he bought the rights of the brand name Petromax from Schott, the glass company. In 2014 they also bought the brand name Feuerhand. What they do well is advertising. You can't find an outdoor shop without the brand names and products.
Well, this thread piqued my interest on new years eve, so with some champagne in me, the idea of buying this silly thing seemed like a good one. Last week it showed up in the mail, and now I've played with it. The hurricane lantern is shoddy put together. I'd not given it the time of a second look, had I seen it in a thrift store. I would especially like to replace the burner since it feeds the wick quite poorly. Possibly one from a feuerhand will fit. The radio part of it works as intended. Tuning is not that easy, so best left at the station of choice. Reception is ok. It does give off an unpleasant "hot electronics" smell which I hope will burn off. Otherwise I think it's an outdoors only article, but I'm not sure it is weather proofed for that. In closing, I feel this could actually serve a purpose in a prolonged power outage. The ability to keep an ear out for radio bulletins, while not using up batteries is interesting. Given my hobbies, kero is always going to be a more readily available source of energy anyways. I might start experimenting with usb output or something in the future. The connector from the TEG is very easy to connect to with two pins.
Since you like to experiment: can the teg be removed "easy" to put it on a better quality lantern (old feuerhand ?). I am not an expert but I think that: A) the bigger the difference in temperature on the thermocouple the more power you get. B) therefore the heat from the flame/lantern must be deflected away from the cooling fins/parts. Maybe you can post some detail pictures of the lufo teg ?
Here are some detail shots. Yes I think it certainly should be possible to move the element to another lantern. Not a straight swap, but still possible. A pressure lantern with usb capabilities sounds good to me.
I still think that's quite a cool toy. I wrote to Pelam.de almost a month ago about their policy of not shipping to the US, but they didn't bother responding. I don't know if Lufo is a Petromax company, but even if it is, Petromax now has a US presence so I see no reason they can't ship to the US, especially since the Lufo wickie wouldn't eat into Petromax sales. I guess I'll reach out to Petromax here. Perhaps they will know what's going on and will respond.
