Electric Lamps
It was not until tungsten filaments replaced carbon that a portable electric light became a reality. The British government offered a prize in 1912 which was won by a German engineer with the Ceag lamp, which was hand-held and delivered twice the illumination of oil lamps, with a battery life of 16 hours. In 1913, Thomas Edison won the Ratheman medal for inventing a lightweight storage battery that could be carried on the back, powering a parabolic reflector that could be mounted on the miner's helmet. After extensive testing, 70,000 robust designs were in use in the US by 1916, but acceptance took longer in Britain.
Nowadays, safety lamps are mainly electric, and traditionally mounted on miners' helmets (such as the wheat lamp) or the Oldham headlamp, sealed to prevent gas penetrating the casing and being ignited by electrical sparks.
Although its use as a light source was superseded by electric lighting, the flame safety lamp has continued to be used in mines to detect methane and blackdamp, although many modern mines now also use sophisticated electronic gas detectors for this purpose.
As a new light source, LED has many advantages for safety lamps, including longer burn time and less energy required. Combined with new battery technologies, such as the lithium battery, it gives much better performance in safety lamp applications. It is replacing conventional safety lamps.
Read more about this topic: Safety Lamp
Famous quotes containing the words electric and/or lamps:
“The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in the elbow, outvalues all the theories; the taste of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than volumes of chemistry.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He certainly must be a son of Aurora to whom the sun looms, when there are so many millions to whom it glooms rather, or who will never see it till an hour after it has risen. But it behooves us old stagers to keep our lamps trimmed and burning to the last, and not trust to the sun’s looming.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)