ELECTROPHORUS - My new Lamp

Hello guys,

I want to present my new Lamp design here,

After a decade involved in antique Lantern collection, restoration, and electrification, i proudly present you my new Lamp design.

The one that marries the past and contemporary technology with a steampunk twist. It took me like 2 years of painstaking experimentation, design and development, refinements and improvements (with a lot more room to improve or further develop). I present you my Electrophorus thermo-lamps / Electrical generators.

I developed 3 parallel models with variations
E001 - photos - https://photos.app.goo.gl/jm9vSFGrHDVh3aun6
E002 - photos - https://photos.app.goo.gl/eYNhgX3J8dsHcq529
E003 - photos - https://photos.app.goo.gl/qpHZXpf5enPxBQ7M7 Videos:
E002 presentation - video- https://youtu.be/BjtWoN1rnWQ ,
E002 - Operation - video - https://youtu.be/qCtQchNKTqA

Specs

Weight: 2150 - 2400 grms (metric)
Height: around 45 cm Tank capacity: around 300 gr kerosene
Optimum working condition : E002 - around 4 watts TEG, E003 - 5 watts TEG output Useful output: E002 - 2.8 watts , E003 - 3.7 watts
Light output: Around 400 lumens for E002, 500 Lumens for E003, no glaring, evenly distributed, warm white pleasing light Custom made led bulbs, with 160 l/w leds efficacy, mount on heatpipes that always run at almost ambient temp (max brightness)

Generator Output
Electrical output: female USB port, give or take 400mA at 5V Kerosene consumption: around 16-18 gr / hour (optimum flame setting for given power output)

Lamp Features
Regulated burner airflow for optimum flame performance One tank lasts around 15 hours at full power
No excessively hot areas. Not a spot anywhere in the lantern exceeds 250 degrees Celsius Noise: less than 28 db
Start-up time: Around 2 minutes, full power around 5min

video of start-up pending

Comments are welcomed and desired.

Excuse the links, but i have not figured out yet how to embed photos, links, videos

Cool. I think you did a nice job with the steampunk look and function. What exactly is the dial showing? Voltage or current?

Have you thought about using a Stirling engine?

Thanks for the credits EasyB,

The dial, or the Gauge as i call it, shows, in an analog mode the power output of the Peltier element.
Voltage / watts. This lamp bears a circuitry that dynamically matches impedance so its a power output indicator. A functional one.


Stirling Engine - Lamp?
It is quite away from my knowledge fields of lamp making / upcycling.

Besides who would want a humming vibrating lamp in his living room with rattling cogs ? :stuck_out_tongue:

Here is Barou’s awesome lantern

I am thoroughly amazed. :smiley: They are beauties and I can’t believe they are functional, nice! Your videos are simply awesome, very well done. The E001 is my favorite.

Wow! This is the next level!

They look real great.

Really interesting lamp, hard to take your eyes off it once you look at it. Really clever concept.

:heart_eyes: love it!

There is a link in my signature on how to post pics on BLF.

Such creativity! It looks great!

That is awesome. Very creative, and well executed.

At first I thought it was just quirky, in a charming steampunk sort of way, to have light bulbs hanging off the side of a kerosene lantern. Then I realized there were heat pipes in the middle and figured out what was going on before reading the text.

Are they dimmable?

Are you just using a couple TEG’s in series to get an appropriate voltage to run the LED’s and/or regulate down to USB voltage, or is there a boost circuit in there? Are the electronics off the shelf or custom? I ask in part because I have a few TEG projects in mind to tinker with and am interested to know what worked well for you.

Thanks for sharing this project.

Welcome to BLF Barou :slight_smile:
Very nice Lantern. Does it use more than 1 Peltier ?:beer:
I will bet you have taken it apart a time or two. It is definitely a keeper. :sunglasses:

I hope you have fun here, Barou!

Thanks guys for your kind words.

I intend to build a blog with a full technical description of those Thermo-lanterns.
A patent is already filed, so there is no reason to hold anything back.

My goal is to give it a shot for fundraising at Kickstarter. (either for making steampunk thermo-lanterns as those depicted, but more refined i guess or to go mainstream and develop cheaper thermo-lanterns in greater production like an alternative to mantle lanterns for general use or indoor use)

Their advantage is less power consumption almost 1/3 of fuel for equal luminosity (for current efficiencies) , not very hot spots on that lamps, low glare, subtleness
Their disadvantage obviously is their complexity.

Time will tell.


Just to answer the curious ones, it employs just one 40x40mm TEG element (Peltier) by II-VI Marlow.
Steampunk is only for the looks. It is a really functional piece as already told.

No, the light is not electronically dimmable. It is analogic dimmable :slight_smile: by just turning the flame down. It takes a bit to do so due to thermal inertia, but who is in a hurry?
Those lamps have been made so as to be also power generators( 4 watts out max) (because i could :slight_smile: )

Circuit employs OP-AMPs, for dynamic impedance matching, a 2 stage boost converter (in that version) for a low voltage output rail and a higher voltage output rail, a burner fan regulator (knob on right side), USB voltage regulator etc.

The circuitry is totally custom made - hand drawn concept, components searched in databases and purchased, arranged and tested at breadboard, then Eagle drawn to specific pcb dimensions, PCB printed, hand soldered, debugged, proceed to version 2, version 3 etc
i have some experience in custom made circuitry, but it takes me a while to do properly.

Besides electronics, a lot of those lamps parts had to be created and refined by experimentation, as the heat exchanger, the chimney, or the burner.
Great efforts were given for achieving efficiency in every aspect of it, having the final look in mind always.

When you are ready to sell, I will be there. :smiley:

Awesome job! reminds me of the Apocalypse lantern i built a few years back. :+1:

That is a work of beautiful art!

They look fantastic, and kerosene powered, so cool!

Very cool!