CyrusAM's 2nd annual scratch made entry: Candle powered candle power

With less than 6 hours to midnight, here’s my entry!

This build was originally supposed to use a torch, and then a small candle lantern, but due to some technical difficulties I give you version 0.3 that uses a kerosene lantern as both the power source, and to supplement the led with a few extra lumens.

I started my build with a $6 kerosene lantern from Walmart. I left it at my parents house last summer and after being left in the rain I wasn’t too upset about taking a dremel to it.

I started by cutting a square hole in the very top

and expanded it until a 45 watt peltier cooler fit almost perfectly

Next I found a heatsink to mount to the top of the peltier

and one to mount a 16mm xml t6 4c in

connecting them with 4-40 screws

and expanding the holes for thicker wires

Finally I could mount the heatsink on top of the peltier. It’s supposed to get some epoxy around the edges, but for now fujik is doing a fine job of keeping it in place

Now for an XM-L2 t6-4c with a bit of kapton. If you pay close attention you’ll notice that the polarity is backwards. This is because the peltier is in upside down, but it doesn’t really make any difference except for convention.

A TIR from fasttech keeps things simple and stays in place without any glue (yet)

I fired it all up and of course… heartbreak! Nothing, even after several minutes of letting it warm up. When I had used the torch it was almost instant blinding light, but the kerosene barely puts out enough heat to make it glow. Luckily I had a 5v boost regulator from Pololu that saved the day

And now for the weirdest beamshot on BLF

If I had to guess I’d put it at right around 100 lumens

Thanks again to Old-Lumens and all the sponsors who made this contest possible!

Awesome!

Ingenious H)

A novel idea well implimented.

Cheers David

Thanks for the kind words Itinifni and pommie. I saw an article about this light after having played around with peltiers for many years and though it was pretty tame compared to some of the things I have made them do. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my torch powered version put together soon.

This is ingenious & cool idea :slight_smile: definitely helps make the lantern better for walking at a camp at night aiming the LED forward to light up the path more, also this would be a great asset for a Zombie Apocalypse when the earth is with out power and all batteries are used up.

Thanks DBSAR! I hate to admit it, but this version is pretty terrible for zombie hunting, it barely makes any throw, and is very susceptible to wind, perhaps the next generation will be better. Besides, I can go way longer on lithium than I can on citronella and kerosene.

Thanks for giving me an excuse to go out to the gun range to take a zombie hunter picture with it. Unfortunately tonight was much too windy for it to work properly.

Nice photo :slight_smile:
i was thinking about that a bit… would it work better with a “heat collector” copper rod that extended down to just above the flame, and up to a copper plate attached to the Peltier base to conduct a lot more heat to it from the hotter flame ?

That’s an awesome light. I’m gonna have to build one of these after I finish my current light.

This mod makes me smile, thanks, well done! A worthy entry in the from-scratch-build. And it even looks good :-)

Like other have said. Ingenious!

Im not a lantern guy, but If I were, I would probably want one of those. Seems like a really nice feature.

Well done!