Hi. Could someone advise what could be wrong as my HK 150 is leaking lamp oil from the carburettor? I think it comes between the parts 152 and 153. I have had the carburettor upper and lower parts disconnected and now I have tried to put them back together a few times. If I just pressurize the lantern there is no leak but when I turn down the wheel the lamp oil is coming from the spray nozzle but also leaking from somewhere around the nut between the carburettor parts. Makes no sense to use the lantern before it is fixed 
Petromax HK150 leaking
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Hi,
try to find the point of failure in an under water test. Empty tank. Pressurize it (0,5 bar is enough).
put lamp under water in a bucket. look for bubbles.you can also check the upper vapouriser part under pressure, when you open the valve and quick put your thumb onto the jet; push entire lamp under water; look for bubbles coming out
good luck
willi -
Hi. Could someone advise what could be wrong as my HK 150 is leaking lamp oil from the carburettor? I think it comes between the parts 152 and 153. I have had the carburettor upper and lower parts disconnected and now I have tried to put them back together a few times. If I just pressurize the lantern there is no leak but when I turn down the wheel the lamp oil is coming from the spray nozzle but also leaking from somewhere around the nut between the carburettor parts. Makes no sense to use the lantern before it is fixed
hi,
please check if the conical sealing surfaces of the parts 152 and 153 are proper (clean, not damaged or bend), otherwise the two parts can not be fixed together with a ccorrect sealing. -
My Petromax HK 150 is lighting again.
I did the underwater test and found the only leakage was on the preheater. It may be that somehow the lamp oil was spraying from the preheater because I found no other faults. I made the preheater sitting more properly with no leak, it was slightly bent. It really looked earlier that the leakage is between the carburettor parts, so the underwater test was a great advise.
Then I still had some problems to light the lantern. I have learnt that this is maybe not the most reliable thing I have owned but today it works after some re-assembly and cleaning. It may be I still have to clean the carburettor needle and jet again because the light is flickering a bit and is not as bright as it could be. I could also replace these as I have now spare parts. What is normally the reason for a flickering / not fully bright light?
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Search in this forum for Leidenfrosteffekt. Will bring a lot of information. Google Translator will do the rest.
If it's a new lantern, it sometimes needs just 10-20 hours of burning, until the carburetor works without Leidenfrost.
Usually flickering diminishes when more pressure in tank.
Full bright light: the gap between jet and mixing tube must be at least 7mm. Better 9mm.
regards
willi -
Search in this forum for Leidenfrosteffekt. Will bring a lot of information. Google Translator will do the rest.
or look there
Zitathttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect
The Leidenfrost effect is a physical phenomenon in which a liquid, in near contact with a mass significantly hotter than the liquid's boiling point, produces an insulating vapor layer keeping that liquid from boilingrapidly. Due to this ‘repulsive force,’ the droplet hovers over the surface rather than making physical contact with it. This is most commonly seen when cooking; one sprinkles drops of water in a pan to gauge its temperature: if the pan's temperature is at or above the Leidenfrost point, the water skitters across the pan and takes longer to evaporate than in a pan below the temperature of the Leidenfrost point (but still above boiling temperature). The effect is also responsible for the ability of liquid nitrogen to skitter across floors. It has also been used in some potentially dangerous demonstrations, such as dipping a wet finger in molten lead[1] or blowing out a mouthful of liquid nitrogen, both enacted without injury to the demonstrator.[2] The latter is potentially lethal, particularly should one accidentally swallow the liquid nitrogen.[3]
It is named after Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost, who discussed it in A Tract About Some Qualities of Common Water in 1756.
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Could someone give me some hints as today the HK150 is catching flames in the upper part of the lantern and does not light up? Flames around the mantle and the upper part
I did the pre-heat with the pre-heat torch long enough. I have everything tightened. Does anyone else have this HK 150 ? If there is someone, could you tell me is it ever possible to have it working properly? I have read that the HK 500 would need much less repairs, is it correct? -
Hi,
sorry to say, but you probably did not peheat enough.
Try lighting it with the soft start procedure:- Rapid preheater off
- Point of the wheel down
- No pressure in the tank
- Air valve of the filler cap closed
- Preheat with alcohol until you see a flame forming in the mantle - you may have to refill a couple of times
- pump up the pressure slowly
The 500 does not need less repairs than a 150. Because of the smaller size, the tolerances of the 150 are less though. Therefore the 150 can be a little bitch sometimes. I have two of them and they work very well.
Viele Grüße,
Götz -
Today I tried the "soft start" but the result is the same, the mantle catches flames.
I refilled the cup 4-5 times. For sure it finally was hot enough, this is not the case
How sensitive is the HK150 lantern for the air gap between the jet and mixing tube?
I increased this a bit adjusting the nuts on both sides, to achieve a brighter flame as advised.
Maybe this was not good? -
Hi,
the 150 works properly and starts without problems after 90s preheating with rapid or 1-2x cups of alcohol. I've got four of them, old ones and new ones, and all run fine. Otherwise something might be not properly adjusted.For beeing prepared to help you better, pls insert here some close -up photographs. E.g.
-- gap from nozzle to mixing tube
-- flame of rapid starter and alcohol pre-heat cup
-- how mantle and flames looks like, when prehating is done and lantern is supposed to light up
etc.Furthermore check that the gas beam exits the nozzle vertical. Test this at cold lantern. See if the petrol jet is vertical. (take off the hood, the inner mantle, the glas, pressurize the filled tank, place a cloth 20cm above nozzle, open the valve)
Do the underwater test again, to check the upper part of carburetor. (empty tank, pressurize tank, open valve and immediately put a finger/thumb on the nozzle, push lantern under water and check for bubbles of air coming out)
Is this an old, often used, lantern? Or a new one? If it's old, check if the ringtube of the carburetor is free and no soot is blocking it.
Don't loose hope. You'll make it work.
regards willi -
Thanks for all these advise.
I no more know what is effecting what but I adjusted the jet and mixing tube gap to slightly less again, I changed back the old jet just without having better ideas at the moment, retightened everything and fired up with the "soft start" which I actually now like more... the mantle was again getting in flames. Felt a bit in despair just watching the flames but then slowly it started to burn better. The flames disappeared, the black areas from the mantle disappeared after a few minutes and the light became bright.
At the moment it is lighting so fine at my backyard
The lantern is quite new (I bought it as new) and my fault was that when I had the first problem I started to reassemble the parts (pre-heater, carburettor) for cleaning etc. without knowing that this thing is somewhat sensitive to any "screwing" - at least if you don't know exactly hot to put it back.
If it now continues working, I won't touch anything on it except changing the mantle when needed.
One more change before this latest "success", I now use PELAM lamp oil. The previous one I used should also be good quality (no smell, no smoke) but maybe this quality is even better.
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Hi ,
now it works, great. Enjoy it.The Pelam lamp oil is ok.
An alternative can be liquid BBQ lighting fuel. This is nothing else than Kerosene/paraffine oil.
Usually C9-C14.Do not confuse with Alcohol/Spirit.
regards willi
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In my HK500 I had the same problem with "top burning", very big flames coming out from the upper part of the lamp.
The reason was a much too large mixing tube gap. When I adjusted the gap using the toolset (66-180) I got rid of the top flames.
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Yes, the main differences are that HK500 is much bigger in size and also the light output. Petromax say that HK150 will output some 100W and HK500 some 400W compared to an old incandescent lamp bulb.
When I pump my HK500 to the red mark in manometer it will burn at least for 6 hours without pumping.
The light from HK500 is very bright and and it is not pleasant to watch it straight. Therefore I use in my HK500 a side reflector (s5) and also now and then a top reflector (top5c).
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When I pump my HK500 to the red mark in manometer it will burn at least for 6 hours without pumping.
OK this is an important point for me. I like the small size of the HK150 but what I don't like is that you have to pump more pressure latest at every two hours because the light is already dim.
The light from HK500 is very bright and and it is not pleasant to watch it straight. Therefore I use in my HK500 a side reflector (s5) and also now and then a top reflector (top5c).
Started thinking if the HK500 could be used in real for the "torch fishing" (don't know the correct word). We will do it sooner or later as we are very keen on fishing with my sons, maybe this lantern could work? More light the better in that
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I think the Petromaxes are too complicated and thus a little bit unreliable for torch fishing (in Finnish tuulastus) in a moving small rowboat?
Better to use some very bright halogen (as a car flood light) or led lamp with a rechargeable battery.
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The PX500 and identical China clones were used for fishing and are still today, as they give a quite bright light. You can find according Videos at YouTube.
When you fill the tank only by half, then you need less pumping.
Also rapid start procedure is less stressful.I always recommend the Top reflector with the PX500.
regards willi
