I've been keen to try some of the new Peerless mantles for a while. I ordered a batch from markds2 in New zealand. This is one of the first types where both ends have the string tied on the outside, I removed the string at one end and rethreaded it so I could tie it on the inside. Mark also sent me a couple of the revised mantles to try where they come with one string inside and one string outside. Here are a couple of pics and the lamp is running very well. I'll take another picture when it's switched off.
That do indeed Mark, although I didn't light the lamp with the old mantle on first, I could see that it was much brighter than it used to be. I'll try fitting the next one with both strings tied on the outside to see if it makes any difference. Get some shipped in Al if you can't get any in the US. Mark sells the single tie ones as well, so stock up.
Al, 1frugalhiker (Billy Mittlestadt) over at the Coleman forum is the US retailer for these. Contact him, and I'm sure he can fix you a bunch. You can reach him at the Coleman forum, or via his Peerless site here. Have you missed his thread over there? If so, I can recommend that you read this thread. A bit down you can see pics of how I re-threaded the mantle in the upper end when tying it like Phil Botha suggested (inside out in the lower end).
I've been testing a few on aaTilley X256s for Billy, and took one on my recent road trip. They are tough. I used one to replace a "Fukushima" mantle that had broken in transit. It survived the remainder of the journey, as did another X246 fitted with a "Shields" mantle. I'm posting some pics for Billy over at CCF later today. I'm happy to recommend them; and for the Antipodeans, it's good to know that they are available from Mark. Tony
I've posted my test of the mantle over at CCF, as well as rewritten the instructions for fitting and lighting on a Tilley: http://www.colemancollectorsforum.com/post/peerless-dt140-mantlestilley-style-testers-needed-7945997?pid=1291940560 Cheers Tony
My Peerless DT-140 mantles arrived from Just Mantles in NZ this week and I keenly tested their brightness against some genuine Tilley thorium mantles. The Tilley mantles read about 25 times background radiation on my geiger counter, so they definitely contain a decent amount of thorium. The Peerless mantles give off no detectable radiation and so are definitely yttrium based as claimed. I measured the brightness by the most scientific means I had available, which I will explain next, and the results rounded to the nearest 100 were: Tilley Thorium 164 X: 5500 Lux Peerless Yttrium DT-140: 4000 Lux So the Tilley mantles are about 38% brighter. What is interesting is that the Peerless mantles look really bright, as they give off a nice crisp white light compared to the dull yellow light from the Tilley mantles. Looks are definitely deceiving is this case. The method I used was as follows: Equipment: TL10 with 7" vapouriser; 2 matching burners, one fitted with Peerless the other Tilley; LG G3 phone with Lux meter app. Method: - Lamp placed a measured distance from wall and fitted with first burner and globe. - Lit in the usual way and pumped until pressure indicator was level. - Phone held flat against wall and moved around until maximum reading found. - Globe from first burner transferred to other burner which was then fitted to the same lamp with the same vapouriser. - Test repeated at the same pressure.
I wonder what the result would be if you swapped the mantles on the burners? I accept the relative accuracy of your measurements, but I would be hesitant to draw a global conclusion from those measurements.
Hi Phil, I agree about not making global conclusions based on a single result. I'll leave that to the MythBusters. Unfortunately, I only have a few more Tilley thorium mantles and want to conserve them as they are getting scarce. Hopefully, someone else can confirm the result. Cheers, Mathew
I agree with you that the test is not worth the sacrifice of good mantles. My subjective observation on Bialaddins with original Bialaddin mantles versus the Peerless mantles has been that the Peerless form larger and provide more illumination than the Bialaddin mantles in the areas around my home where I use the lamps.
I wonder if you can trust the phone method to be honest. I'm assuming it uses the camera sensor and no outside bandpass filter? Why doesn't it react to infra red i.e heat? I suspect that explains why the test reads higher on the browner Tilley mantle light. Ordinary cameras could be used with infra red film - the optics passes it fine, just the focussing is different and you will usually see a red dot adjacent to the white to account for this. Use the red one for infra red. It would be really interesting to repeat this test with an infra red blocking filter.
I have looked at these phone apps and they are not great for accuracy. Some managed to be 300% wrong. However they may be better at repeatability. You measure a lamp at 1 meter. You don't move the phone around you hold it steady at excatly 1 meter and rotate the lamp so that you read all round the mantle. The distance is very important as light intensity varies with the square of the distance. 1 Lux equals 1 cp at 1 meter so readings from pressure lanterns upwards of 4000 are just wildly out as measures of cp and probably indicate the phone was too close to the light. ::Neil::
Good point Neil. Might be better to have lamp lighting a room and use phone to measure through a window from outside. At the same distance and in the dark obviously! That should solve sensor saturation and the IR issues together.
I looked into the app I used. The developer claims that it uses the phone's light sensor rather than the camera. For the LG G3, the sensor is located just above the screen and is used to automatically control the screen brightness. Presumably these sensors are made to only react to visible light, otherwise the phone screen would auto-brighten when placed near a heat source.
Thanks for that clarification. I think I'm still a bit suspicious of it all the same. I would be running it again with something blocking IR. Good luck if you decide to try.
Have a look here :- https://www.dial.de/en/blog/article/luxmeter-app-versus-measuring-deviceare-smartphones-suitable-for-measuring-illuminance/ ::Neil::
What a shame they only wrote up the LED source which is sure to be narrowband. My hopes were up when they said they tested a halogen bulb, as that is more like the mantle situation, and then they said no more about it! I'm sure they are right that for absolute results a phone can't be trusted compared to a proper luxmeter. For a comparison test between A&B the phone method still has some merit. Today I have been messing with a solar cell and a Voltmeter. That would also do a comparison but it's sure to be sensitive to IR. This is interesting in that it explains why measuring light from LEDs is prone to errors. The optical response of the lux meter is meant to match a tungsten bulb. As we know most pressure lamps are quite different. http://www.otc.co.uk/Problem_With_Lux_Meters.php Has anyone got one of these at work? That should decide it... http://www.photoresearch.com/content/spectrascan-%C2%AE-spectroradiometer-0
