I seem to have a problem with my Solar 500, no suprises there I suppose but... After it has been lit for a while the brighness drops off and I have noticed that the J tube is glowing quite red. I've not seen this on similar Anchor lamps. There seems to be some flame in the hood above the mantle but I can't tell where this is coming from. One thing I did notice on the Solar is that the J Tube is a much smaller diameter than on the Anchor and I was a little sup[rised by this. Particularly as the Anchor is 350cp and the Solar 500cp, so I would assume the latter would need more air, not less....
The build quality of Solar lanterns is good, the dimming may be caused by some part or parts slackening off and the j tube may not be set properly.
What Jeff says, and if the jet is enlarged or the mantle is too small, you will have a halo of flame outside the mantle (sometimes not easily visible) causing more heating of the J-tube and it may cause the mixture to burn inside the tube rather than in the mantle, thus causing the dimming. You can easily use a 500cp mantle on those lanterns. Peerless or Coleman 111 will work well too.
OK, progress since last posting... First the J-Tube was badly distorted so I replaced that with the J-Tube from another lamp. The ceramic half of the burner was loose and couldn't be tightened down. Or at least it could but as soon as the lamp was used it came loose again, so I replaced the entire burner. The lamp is now running much better, but seems rather inclined to pulse, and I haven't really got to the bottom of that... All I know is that it's not low pressure. It only does it after the lamp has been on for a while.
There may be carbon building up on the pricker rod and if so, that can interrupt the flow of the fuel and air which could cause pulsing and a ceramic nozzle can be secured by applying a little tile cement to the threads.
