haha, well i got one to work. actually its the first of many i attempted to make operational again. it only took 5 minutes to get it to light! i figured its an old lead acid battery so, i added some water to bring it up above the plates and shock charged it at work with 6 volts at 20 amps! that blew the crap off of the plates and after 10 sec it was going to blow all over and over flow. so i turned off the charger and put the top back on. the bulb lit! this is the original bulb also! it would only run for about 3 mins then id have to fast charge it again. and i do mean it was a fast charge! its not a good idea to charge something at 20 amps that was designed for maybe a half an amp! dont worry the safety glasses were worn. i do have to admit though that i never would have thought of trying to make one operational again as they are from the 40s and i didnt think they would work. have to give the credit to minerfrank. if the one i gave him didnt leak, he would have had the first one lit. that wasnt planned, trust me no really though, now mine is rigged up to the wheat lamp charger and is taking a nice charge. ill report in the morning.

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had it hooked up to the wheat lamp charger all night and this morning. today i had it on for 3 hours and it was still lit. now its back on charge. good stuff. now i move on to the other 50 some of them

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I love it! Nooooooow we have an addition to the illumination demo. oil wick lamp, carbide lamp, edison lamp, wheat lamp.

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Sweet Chris! What's the outcome of your latest charging session?

Hey Banks and Chris, you should add two more sources of illumination to your demo. Begin with the miner's candlestick (I have one I can loan) and end with the coon lamp (for mine research ).

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The Coon Lamp!?!? Last time i checked we didn't give tours in Iron Mines!!

a wheat lamp is considered a coon lamp to a lot of people too actually... (as i'm sure you know)

I've been looking at getting one of the candle sticks... those are neat. It would be an interesting addition. most people have no idea what they are.

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HA a coon lamp. not sure about that. maybe, ill consider it however the candlestick is a great idea. i dont have one of those and would gladly borrow yours to do our little project. actually besides on tours, i think next time we "conduct research" we should take all this along and make a video for on here.

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Do you guys know if these can be charged with something other then a wheat lamp charger, such as a 12volt automobile battery?

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no, that would be bad! unless you want a volcano coming out of the top of the edison lamp but seriously, you need a 4-6 volt source at about .5 - 1.5 amps. you cant charge a battery with another battery though, it needs to be a charger. if you want one of these lamps dan i have a ton of them.

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You will still most likely have battery capacity problems because you don't have enough acid in the battery. Are you able to dump any of the water / semi-electrolyte to test the gravity? (I didn't think there was enough room to get into the cells otherwise) This way you can check to see if you need more battery acid or not.

Greg

I only have one wheat lamp which is in decent shape but I dont have a charger.

How do you open the metal top off the battery to add water? Can you add water through those little holes in the side where the glass is?

If you have s stash of wheat lamps, sure throw one my way, I could use one for the wife. heheh.

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no, not wheat lamps, these are old edison lamps. you can get a charger for a wheat lamp for like 60 bucks. not talking about wheat lamps here, totally different animal. these edison lamps are 3 cell 4 volt and the wheat lamp is 2 cell 4 volt. on the edison lamp you open the top, remove the caps and fill with water just above the plates. on the wheat lamp there is no reason to open the top,you add water through the small fill ports in the sight glass in each cell. you fill each cell to the full line in the sight glass in the wheat lamp. not over. the wheat lamps are newer technology and the edison lamps are from the 40s. the edison lamps originally charged in a rack charger charging multiple batteries at a time through the battery. a wheat lamp charges using an individual charger, or multiple charger, however in both cases you charge it through the headpiece. im sure there is no edison lamps in use today due to their age, but the wheat lamp is the most common type of head lamp used by active miners to this day.

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The Wheat Lamps are also designed to be charged from a charging rack, not individually. This would allow a large mining company to charge groups of wheat lamps overnight. They do have an individual charger, but that is not what the wheat lamp was designed for.

yea i think i mentioned that, but like greg said mining companies had large racks like the one above to charge the lamps. these wheat lamps charge through the headpiece you plug in.

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Chris,

I searched on internet for user manual for the edison lamp but could not find one. Can you post how to open cover? It looks like three clips on side opposite of hinge. I have one that was alreay open with closing clip missing so that doesnt help. Also can you show how you charged it? Top end looks like all same polarity so I am thinking when you so you charge through the headlamp that make sense but I am not sure how you did it. These lamps are really neat and you can still get them cheap on ebay but I dont want to mess up the two I have by forceing anything. BTW I live near the Edision cement plant in New Village NJ. The DEP is working the site now since the tunnels between the different buildings were full of old barrels of who knows what over the years. It is a neat place.