G'day all, I've read hundreds of Wizard and Gloria and other makers advertisements in regards to their lighting plants. The ads generally state that you can run between 5 and 40 lights and the plants create their own gas. After reading the following, I assume this would be typical of those lighting plants. I guess? From http://chestofbooks.com The Cold-Process Gas Machine The gas machine of the cold-process type is so constructed that air is forced through a tank or carburetor, containing gasoline and remains in its presence until saturated with gasoline vapor. This saturated air is afterward diluted with additional air, to produce a quality of gas that contains proportions of air and gasoline vapor which will produce complete combustion when burned with an open flame. Combustion is a rapid chemical change in which heat is evolved due to the union of carbon and oxygen. If the carbon is completely oxidized, the combination produces carbon dioxide (CO2) and the greatest amount of heat is evolved. Gasoline being a highly volatile liquid will vaporize at temperatures as low as - 10°F., but as the temperature is higher vaporization will be more rapid. In a confined space, at relatively low temperature, such as the carburetor of a gas machine, the vaporization will at first be very rapid; but after the more highly spiritous portion has been evaporated, a considerable part, even of the lighter grades, will be vaporized very slowly. In the cold-process machines, only the lighter grades can be used with success and even then, in inefficient machines, a portion of the lesser volatile gasoline will have to be thrown away. For this reason and for others that will appear later, it is advisable to consider very closely the working properties of the entire plant. In order to obtain gas that will always be of the same quality and at the same time use gasoline in an efficient manner, the gas machine must be composed of three essential parts: the blower, the carburetor and the mixer. The blower is that part of the machine which supplies air for absorbing the gasoline vapor and maintaining a constant pressure on the system. It is usually made in the form of a rotary pump, the motive power for which is a heavy weight. The pump may, however, be driven by water pressure furnished by city water pipes or other water supply. The carburetor is a tank which contains the supply of gasoline and is so constructed as to permit the air from the blower to most readily take up the gasoline vapor. It should be so arranged that when the contained gasoline becomes old and less volatile, the air may remain in its presence a sufficient time to become saturated by slow absorption. The mixer is that part of the machine which regulates the amount of gasoline vapor contained in the gas entering the distributing pipes. In order to satisfactorily perform its function, it should be so arranged as to permit a constant amount of gasoline vapor to enter the mixture which composes the finished gas. This amount should be such as to produce a bright clear flame in an open gas jet. If the gas contains too great an amount of gasoline vapor, the flame will smoke. If too little gasoline vapor is present, the flames will be pale and lacking in heat. The Cold Process Gas Machine 193 1 Carburator 2 Mixer 3 Blower 4 Weight 5 Gas Range 6 Water Heater 7 Water Tank Fig. 183. - Cold-process system of gasoline lighting with kitchen range and water heater. In Fig. 183, the entire plant is shown in place. It occupies a place inside the building, usually in the basement. In the figure the carburetor is marked 1; the mixer 2 stands at the end of the blower, which is numbered 3. The motive power of the blower is furnished by a heavy weight, which is raised by a block and tackle, the cord of which is attached to the drum and fastened to the shaft of the blower. The force furnished by the weight 4 drives the blower and maintains a constant pressure on the gas in the system. The pipe 8 conducts the air from the blower to the carburetor, which is located underground, below the frost line and 25 or 30 feet away from the building. The carburetor in this case is also the storage tank, as shown in detail in Fig. 184. The carburetor is divided laterally into two or more compartments, depending on the size of the plant to be accommodated. That shown in Fig. 184 contains four compartments and is intended for a large plant. The construction is such that the compartments are only partly filled with gasoline, and arranged to permit the air from the blower, which enters at the pipe marked 'air, to pass through each compartment in succession, beginning at the bottom, in order that it may become completely saturated with gasoline vapor. As an additional means of aiding the saturation of the passing air, the compartments in this carburetor are provided with spiral passages through which the air must pass, so that when it reaches the outlet pipe, marked gas, the air is completely filled with gasoline vapor. The vapor-saturated air now leaves the carburetor by pipe 9, in Fig. 183, and enters the mixing chamber 2, where it is mixed with the required amount of atmospheric air, to make it completely combustible when burned at the burner. The mining chamber is shown in detail in Fig. 185. The mixing is done automatically and the quality of the gas is uniform, regardless of the varying conditions of the attending temperature and the quality of the gasoline in the carburetor. Fig. 184. Carburetor for cold process gasoline lighting plant. Fig. 184. - Carburetor for cold-process gasoline lighting plant. The vitally improtant feature of any gas machine is, that a constant amount of gasoline vapor be carried to the burners. If the gas contains too great an amount of gasoline vapor, a smoky flame will be the result; if an insufficient amount of gasoline is present, the flame will be pale and give out little light. When freshly charged, the gasoline in the carburetor will vaporize very readily, and a large amount of air must be added to the gas to reduce it to the proper consistency; but from old gasoline, which has lost most of the highly volatile matter, a smaller proportion of atmospheric air will be demanded. For this reason, a mixing regulator that will always deliver gas containing the same amount of gasoline vapor is necessary to give satisfactory service. The mixer shown in Fig. 185 accomplishes this office by reason of the specific gravity of the gas. As the air in the carburetor takes up gasoline vapor, its specific gravity is increased until the air is saturated; and by adding the amount of atmospheric air necessary for complete combustion the weight is reduced to a definite amount which will be constant. The required mixture will, therefore, always weigh the same amount. The principle on which this mixer works is that described in physics as the principle of Archimedes: "that a body immersed in a fluid will lose in weight an amount equal to the liquid displaced." In the application of the law, the gas in the mixer is the fluid, and the float - to be described - is the displacing body. The mixer in Fig. 185, is shown cut across lengthwise. The outside casing is indicated by the heavy black lines. The gas which leaves the opening at the top-marked gas outlet - is a mixture of gasoline and air that may be used for exactly the same purpose and in the same manner as coal gas. It may be used in open-flame gas jets or in the mantle gas lamps for lighting purposes and also as fuel gas for domestic heating. The gas is distributed through the building in ordinary gas pipes which are installed as for any other kind of gas. In Fig. 183 the distributing pipes are indicated by the heavy lines. Fig. 185. Diagram illustrating the mixer of the Detroit cold process system of gasoline lighting. Fig. 185. - Diagram illustrating the mixer of the Detroit cold-process system of gasoline lighting. The valve in the air inlet, in the bottom of the mixer, controls the amount of air to be admitted. The entering gas from the carburetor being heavier than the desired mixture, will raise the float and in so doing will open the air valve and allow the air from the blower to enter. The float and valve are so adjusted that the desired mixture is attained when the balance beam is level. Any variation in the mixture will change its weight and the valve corrects the change whether it be too much or too little air. The openings at the bottom, marked gas inlet and air inlet, are intended for the admission of the saturated vapor from the carburetor, and the atmospheric air, as required. The float which fills the greater part of the inner space is a light sheet-metal drum, that is tightly sealed and nicely balanced by a counterweight on the opposite end of the supending bar. The counterweight is made adjustable by the device marked movable adjusting weight - in the drawing - which permits the quantity of entering gas to be slightly changed as the gasoline in the carburetor grows old. The adjustment of the counterweight to suit the gas given off from old gasoline in the caburetor, and the occasional rewinding, to elevate the blower weight, is practically all the attention this plant requires. It is a real gas plant which gives every service that may be obtained from coal gas. Read more: http://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/repairs/Mechanics-Household/The-Cold-Process-Gas-Machine.html#.ViyaTKfhmR8#ixzz3pZKWbOsg
This is a totally different system to Hollow Wire (Wizard, Gloria, etc) which has one or more pressure lamps with liquid fuel fed by pressure in reservoir to one or more lamps through a 3mm brass tube, This system appears similar to the Cold Process Gas Machine above. This system delivers a mix of air/gasoline vapor, I think at perhaps 5 psi and requires much larger piping. as can be seen in the attached photo's it is driven by winding the winch and a weight which provides drive to system the fittings are said to be from the system.
I don't own it. If I had enough space I would have considered it but it is interesting in its operating principle and one of the adverts claimed it was fire safe as the gas would not ignite without its burner. "This I find hard to believe."
Interesting to see that it's by Quirk's. They had a lot of adds for their lighting system, but I'd never seen one. It must be similar to the system posted by Bushwacked.
While I'm not doubting you as you would know much better than I, are you sure there was a lot of difference to the piping once the cold process had finished? It says in the article that the distributing pipes are like ordinary gas pipes but if you look at your picture 4 bottom right, that looks like ordinary hollow wire to me. So while the distributing pipes throughout the house may have been larger than hollow wire, it looks as though it's an ordinary hollow wire line going to the lamps. Perhaps they had a reducer from the distributing pipes to the hollow wire size pipe that then fed the lamps?
An exercise in logic When you are talking about 1.5-2% Naphtha/gasoline and 98% air that's a 1 to 49 ratio so compared to hollow wire which lets say will run 5 lights off a 1/8 brass tube which has a of 2.5sq mm that =0.5sq mm/ lamp x 49 =24.5 sq mm and then you are only 1/4 of the pressure so 4x 24.5= 98sq mm that's a 12 mm pipe for 1 light !
There are two different types of system. A standard Hollow wire set up delivered liquid gasoline to the burners So each burner has to have a generator. A gas generating plant delivered a gas to the burners. The plant made a gas with gasoline and delivered a cold gas mixture to the burners so each burner just mixed the gas with a little air but did not have a generator. City gas plants delivered gas to houses at about 5 inches water gauge which is a very low pressure. The pipe to each fitting was half inch bore in order to deliver sufficient gas. A gasoline plant gave a similar, slightly higher, pressure but not by much so the tubes had to be significantly larger than a high pressure system. The advantage is that each burner was a match lighter and required no preheat at all. ::Neil::
Hi Graham Thanks for the maths lesson. I only ask these questions as I don't know the answer, Are you saying there is no reducer from the pipes that feed the gas to the lights so a 12mm pipe would have fed each light? Or is a progressively larger pipe needed for each extra light you add to the system? The reason I asked the question in the first place is, as I pointed out, I could see what looked to be a standard hollow wire wire in your photo. Perhaps it isn't and is used for something else?
Graham, the height of the mantle holder looks much taller than normal. Are you aware if this system takes a taller mantle than others or not? Or are they just small burners?
This is the mantles, the middle ones are obvious, I didn't put this in earlier as I am not sure what else belongs with what.
