# Acetylene Headlight



## Slipped Eccentric (Jan 2, 2008)

Spurred on a bit by the talk in the Kerosene Headlight thread, an Accucraft Mogul Headlight:









The guts, some K&S tubing soldered together:









The fuel source:









I'd be curious to try a carbide tank out. As it is, 1/16"o.d. tube could be run from a remote tank and used as the jet (that was the smallest size tube I used here). It isn't as bright as the kerosene lamp is, but I think a lower jet with a bigger flame would take care of that. Also, the butane burns with a bit of blue at the bottom. Straight acetylene might burn yellow the whole way, giving more of a glow. Time to experiment more I suppose...


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## Steve Shyvers (Jan 2, 2008)

Justin, 

Let me be the first here to congratulate you. Functional 1:20 kerosene and carbide lamps have been way overdue. 

Steve


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## Slipped Eccentric (Jan 2, 2008)

Thank you Steve. It's been a whole lot of fun playing and experimenting. Hopefully some other people will be inspired to start playing as well.

On another note, as expected the straight acetylene (from my torch set) made a very nice, bright yellow flame.









And with a drawing about 4" in front of the headlight









Seems to give plenty of illumination, even in total darkness









Picking up some carbide and going all out is looking like an attractive option, going to explore safe concentrations to avoid high pressures. The flame was set to just before it made any smoke, and with 5 P.S.I. on the regulator the valve on the torch handle was just every so slightly cracked open. A carbide tank setup of a moderate volume should give plenty of time to run with the headlight on.


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## Charles (Jan 2, 2008)

Looking forward to modern era steam engines and generator....

[script removed] 

What is with the script removed? 

[script removed]


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## HMeinhold (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Charles on 21 Aug 2009 05:00 PM 
Looking forward to modern era steam engines and generator....

Voila

http://www.buntbahn.de/modellbau/viewtopic.php?t=8303 


Regards


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## Slipped Eccentric (Jan 2, 2008)

Still looking for a small enough, cheap enough motor.


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Way cool! I had that same thought a few years ago, but never got the carbide to test the theory. I can definitely see me equipping my steamers with that. 

The next question - what to use for a lens? 

Later, 

K


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## Larry Green (Jan 2, 2008)

Kevin, see my post on the earlier kerosene headlight thread. 

Larry


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## Mike Toney (Feb 25, 2009)

A glass lense would work, but you need a functional chimney at the top of the housing before that will work. I would worry about the heat from a carbide flame using just a solid headlight housing with no chimney. Looks great!!


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## Slipped Eccentric (Jan 2, 2008)

I've been using sight glass tubing as chimneys for testing. The heat from the flame isn't too bad, not much more than you'd get from a butane lighter set down low.


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## Kovacjr (Jan 2, 2008)

Going to try shaping some of the Glass into a lamp??? That would be neat.


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## Steve Shyvers (Jan 2, 2008)

Justin, 

A few years ago I web-searched for isinglass (mica) sold for refurbishing woodburning stoves. It's used as window material on the firebox door on some stoves. I found a couple of sources but never pursued it. I thought isinglass would be easy enough to cut to shape for a headlamp lens. It might be mostly translucent and not perfectly clear, but I was considering the effect and not striving for illumination efficiency. 

Same argument for the reflector. If it's white or shiny polished metal then it's going to do more than nothing at all. By the way, if you do try to form a one-axis parabolic reflector from stainless sheet the lamp flame needs to be at the parabola focus, which means that the reflector hardly needs to have much curvature given the relative sizes of the flame and overall headlamp. Of course the bigger the headlamp housing the more curved the reflector can be. 19th century locomotive oil headlamps were large. Haven't seen exact dimensions but they seem to scale from photos to about 30" to 36" on a side. If anyone has more accurate info please let us all know. 

Another source of a lens might be industrial grade fused-silica optical windows. You definitely don't want "laser grade" as those cost an arm and a leg. A few months ago I did a web-search on "optical windows" and found an outfit that sells surplus optics, including various sized small circular optical windows. Some are coated but the coatings can be removed. Sorry I don't have the link right now. 

Steve


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## Larry Green (Jan 2, 2008)

For headlight details and dimensions (yardstick in picture), check out Llyn's recent post on front coupler for my 4-4-0. 

Larry


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## Larry Green (Jan 2, 2008)

Oops, the yardstick fell over in that shot. The diameter of the opening in the front of the headlight case is 18"; the height including chimney is 41". 

Larry


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## Chris Scott (Jan 2, 2008)

Why not just use butane for a headlight? Tee the fuel line with a separate valve. No need for two gases. Use Accucraft's smallest jet (placed in the lamp base). The jet has about the same flame at low gas flow. Or get a smaller jet from the likes of Regner. Benefit: headlight indicates fuel has run out


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## Slipped Eccentric (Jan 2, 2008)

Thank you Steve and Larry, the info will be put to good use. I did try butane in the first photos, but it wasn't as bright as the acetylene. Had more blue than yellow. Didn't play around with it a whole lot though.


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