carbon arc and other vanished lighting systems (a retitle)

Reid · carbon arc and other vanished lighting systems (a retitle)

What do you suppose it was used for back in the day?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJeJtDcHEww

It was made about 1930 in Canada.
I got this off ebay a few months ago for a bill and it was sold to me as being an old heater.

It isn't a heater...

Guess!

steamyman

a tanning lamp

Wallace

It's certainly interesting

Jokingly: A prop from an early sci fi type series (Lost in space?)

Seriously: An early type of spot welder.

Jokingly again: A typical result of my electrical capabilities after I tried to make a heater

Note: I am not reading further ahead on youtube. Waiting here for the answer

Reid

Toooooo brilliant. So shut up, 'K

(am just pretending to be peeved)

Yes, exactly, it's a carbon arc heliotherapy lamp.

Back then they did not yet associate sun exposure with skin cancers,
not like we do today.

The carbon arc is the whitest of all possible light sources aside from the sun.

The spectrum of this lamp goes cleanly right up into the radio frequency spectrum.

Among it's long and shortwave bands is UVC radiation--very nasty stuff, and the UVB, etc.

This is also the hottest of manmade flames aside from nuclear fire.

It is an interesting lamp because they don't make them any more;
not for this purpose of radiating skin, anyway.

The movie theatres, until a couple of decades ago, all used carbon arc lighting.

They quickly converted over to zenon arc lamps (enclosed in glass, much simpler to keep in order)

But there was a loss in that changeover: zenon is not a full-spectrum light. It lacks the color rendering ability of carbon arc.

Carbon arc, too, was the first electric light that the public would see,
starting in the 1860's mostly. And it was quite remarkable to have 500 V direct current wires feeding street lamps wired in series.

The blazing brilliance of a street lit by carbon arc light, shielded by frosted glass globes, must have been astounding then.

Siemens produced the first portable, wagon-mounted carbon arc work light about 1883 (I'm working from memory of an period article)
The unit would allow street repairs to be carried out at night time when traffic was light. The rig had an extendable, vertical mast.
The dynamo aboard the wagon was steam engine powered.

It was quite a deal. I like carbon arc light. It's dangerous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi7uifnYFvQ
More about the plasma FLAME of carbon arc.
This is the principle of incandescence at its maximum.
I could not find a video demonstration of the FLAME effect anywhere.
So I made a video to share and to show the amazing process.

Wallace

Ok I wasn't quite right

Interesting info there Reid.

Actually just the other week I saw a show about Dangerous Christmas Jobs. It was a UK show, so many here might have seen it.

Amongst other jobs, one was operating the spot light for theatre productions.

It's where the saying "in the limelight" comes from.
The operator had to make a flame of oxygen and hydrogen to burn lime, which produced a very bright spotlight effect.
The dangers were obvious. I guess that's whay arc light stepped in?

Reid

Limelight, from what I have read, was a safe process if done correctly.
Theatre was revolutionized by the brilliant white of limelight.
The oxyhydrogen flame, as you say, would play on the chalk surface,
taking it to a point of great, white incandescence.
The golden age of the music hall ensued.

But yes, there was tremendous heat added to the theatre, atop all the heat and pollution of the gas lights.

As soon as carbon arc spots and such were ready, out went limelight. This would have happened in the 1890's (I guess, I am not researching),
for the power distribution systems were being laid extensively in the late eighties and onward.

Electricity was certainly safer and easier to employ than the flame.
Plus, the point-source of arc light was focus-able, and so came the spotlights.

Right you were, really, Wallace. You and steamyman were and are knowledgble.
This is truly arcane stuff. I like that word, "arcane"

You all here are masters of arcane know-how.

I step out of the limelight now; g'day good Australian gents,

thanks for commenting!

Mister Occlusion

Cool.

We used to use a carbon arc in school to expose our photographic silk screen film. Had to spark it and adjust it by hand and everything.

I remember in welding class the story the teacher told of someone who spent a few hours arc welding without anything more than a tank top on, and how he got a wicked burn on his arms and upper body.

We used to have (might still do somewhere), a sunlamp from the 50's. It looked more like a small pink briefcase.

Life before the nanny state must have been interesting..

These days.... there should be a warning label for warning labels to the effect of reading fine print leading to eyestrain and headache

Dave B

johnreid

A mutual experience, I spent many a day in a Color Darkroom that could have no safelights, Film mostly. In the winter I never saw the light of day excepting on weekends.

Reid

So noting it is a Canadian product. It's hard to live without sunlight.

---

Here is a fine video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLWiJdsrDto&feature=related
The demonstrator melts tungsten, the most infusible of all metals,
in a miniature crucible; the heat by carbon arc.

The flame effect of the arc still amazes me.
Also, I found you can't well burn one in a closed room:
white smoke produced is unpleasant and the major air pollutant is copious amounts of carbon monoxide.

Look up the melting point of tungsten? it's so near the temperature of carbon arc.

Neat to learn that you guys had actual working experience with carbon arc lamps! You would be about the last ones to do so.

cool -danger- burn my eyessssss (how many times I got flashburned eyes...ouch!)
and that was just by error or a wayward glance at some arc welder at work in close proximity.

Cranko

Haven't seen one for years , they throw a very brilliant clear light from memory

Wallace

tmuir

I've got a book published in 1897 (I think) that is all about carbon arc lamps, I will dig it out and put up some of the more interesting pictures.

Reid

Please do that, Tony, yeah!

And Wallace, that is so interesting. Gas bags, of course!
I wonder if we can find images of limelight gear on the net?
I bet the old equipment was speedily discarded once obsoleted.

First look-up using Google Book Search, search terms: "lime light operation":

1861 journal

am now reading that page; primary sources are most interesting.

http://www.iatse635.org/635_pages/news/newspg.html