I have wanted to do this for a while. It's an older pressurized water fire extinguisher. It holds about 11 liters of fuel (white gas/Coleman fuel) I run it at around 170 kPa The components should all be good to at least 4 times that. I want to add a valve on the copper pipe. The lantern is a Coleman 220 from 1968 I figure it should run just about a week straight.
I'm just a bit concerned that something could go wrong with the soldered connections on the pipe if e.g. it falls over and release a flood of fuel. Instant immolation. What about using thin flexible copper tubing to carry the fuel and a rigid pipe to bear the lantern head?
@Asbestos I had toyed with the idea of using an old fire extinguisher as a reservoir for my hollow lamps but fate provided me with a proper tank [National Stamping & Electric (Nulite)] before an old extinguisher came my way. Did you get the idea from the lamps that fit directly onto a gas cylinder as used by some of the Amish ? Henry.
Did you put an orifice in the line or is it being fed off the full 1/2" line to the vaporizer? Back in college we filled a water extinguisher with petrol and charged it with nitrogen then used it as a flamethrower.
Yeah put that in the category of "how I survived DESPITE what I did" And Phraderus. I suppose that the copper could be liable to breaking if it tipped and the results would be epic. and not in a good way. I think some sort of a flow restricter woiuld be a good idea, even at this reduced pressure it would dump the fuel pretty fast.
I think this is going to need to be an outdoor, away from any structures type of lantern. I am a member of the local fire department here, and if I set something on fire I will never ever hear then end of it. seriously I may try to add some type of a flow restricter on it as close to the tank as possible, so if any part fails it would not be cataclysmic. The one advantage is the shut off is in the normally closed, it has a spring you must work against to keep it open (the brass clip in the picture)
I admire your creativity, but i share the safety concerns which have been mentioned, those would be reduced if paraffin was the fuel being used and in my opinion, that tank would be more suitable for use with hollow wire lamps.
If you have a hydraulic shop nearby you could just get a piece of steel tube bent and use Swagelok fittings to connect it. Swagelok also makes inline flow restrictors with orifices down to 0.010". If you wanted to get really fancy (and had deep pockets) you could by it all in stainless then polish it to match the extinguisher. Another idea to make it safer again would be to buy some fuel cell foam from summit or Jegs and stuff the tank.
If I had what it would take $$ wise to get SS fabricated I would. I do not thing the copper pipe is all that likely to break. What I think I will do is get some very fine copper capillary tube <1MM and fit that into the nozzle with silver solder so that at at the most there is a tiny hole. I may move to paraffin/kerosene but I don't plan on using it much
I like the look of it. These type of devices are readily available and designed for propane but I wonder if they would work on white gas/Coleman fuel.
I absolutely love the idea but as Jeff said, Kero would be so much safer and you'd still have a superb long burn lantern!
