Beiträge von woland

hey,
yeah, the coloured kerosene maybe a problem from what you tell me - it seems logical, that colour is a foreign body in the liquid and it is true, that a layer of black soot covers the upper part of lamp whenever I use it, and maybe it is possible that the same happens in the vaporizer, and then stains the exhaust gases and the mantle. I don't really now, it maybe due to the melted colour particels, even though I always thought, that clear (colourless) kerosene produces black soot as well. Am I wrong? The problem is, that in my country (Slovenia) there seems to be a bit of a problem to attain a colourless kerosene and I have no idea why. The one they sell for lamps and for stoves is green and i can tell it is kerosene, and not some decoration oil or smt. and it's not green for decoration purposes for sure. who knows...
I don't have my lamp at hand, so I will try putting all the suggested measures into action the next time, and we'll see. also, is it possible to mend the lower end of the vaporizer valve (in the tank) myself if something is wrong with it as you suggest Benz-ihn? thank you and Christop, of course, as well...

hey, Christop. thanks for the answer. I am indeed preheating the lantern long enough, so that's not the problem - but I will try to seal the nipple even more. you're talking about the right height of the needle above the nipple in the closed position. What would this right height (distance) be?
thanks again

I have my Petromax 500 for some time now, and in the beginning it worked reasonibly well. But now almost every time I light it up, orange flame appears around the mantle, sometimes the flames come from the top, and soon the mantle becomes completely black or with black spots, therefore rendering the lamp useless.
The distance between the vaporizor top (spray nozzle) and the opposite tube (mixing shaft) is perfectly correct, according to the scale on the tool.

Also I remember, when first burning the lamp some three years ago, the fresh mantle after the inital burning became totaly white. Now, it rarely gets perfectly white, and - already in the beginning - it has greyish areas. I don't know whether that contributes to the problem. Mantles are being stored in the original package, I avoid touching them, when I put them on, and I'm very patient with everything, but still these flames at the top, orange burning mantle turning black and also a flame out of the vaporizer top (spray nozzle) even some time after I turn the lamp off and I release the pressure. (I pressurize the lantern to 2).
what could be wrong?
is the type of kerosene (petroleum, paraffin) also important? does it matter if it's coloured when liquid (in my case green)? does it matter if it has higher (80°C - usually for stoves) or lower (35-40°C) burning points. I use both, and both make generally the same results...
I once also changed the spray nozzle and the needle with the spare ones already supplied with the lamp, and the problems were the same as before, and also I have to say that the support bracket for the mantle turned out to be a bad idea, because it just crumbled after maybe 60h of normal work, when I tried to change the mantle. The heat destroyed it, which means it's quite useless, and not to use it, is from my experience good enough, it's just a shame 'two hole' mantels are more available than the 'one hole' ones!
otherwise the lamp is not loosing pressure when not on. it sometimes starts to pulsate when it's running on low pressure, but I guess this is normal.
thanks for the answer, after all this I'm slowly loosing my patience, fighting the flames and black spots on the mantles, which of course destroy them!!