In article , Larry Jaques says...

That depends on your criteria and application. I used to use a carbide
lamp for caving. In terms of the duration-to-weight ratio, it was hard
to beat, and it was the hands-down winner for coolness factor. ...
(gary)

So cool it could have blown your forehead off if it plugged up.

Now this is simply not true. One has to go to extreme
lengths to 'plug up' a carbide lamp. The ceramic nozzle
is held in with a taper fit, so it won't really support
much pressure. Indeed, unless the nozzle is seated properly
I've had them pop out under normal use.

The other, most important feature though, is that the
water feed drips down from the upper water chamber
into the lower, carbide can. The moment any excess
pressure is developed (and this can happen, if water
suddenly seeps into a pocket of fresh carbide after
the lamps been running for a while) is that the pressure
in the bottom can increases, and the water feed is
stopped. If the pressure goes higher, then the
excess acetlyene is bubbled out the top vent of the
water tank. By the time this happens the flame has
already blown itself out in the reflector.

The water feed valves in the lamps I own never really
shut off *all* the way, so I doubt I could blow one
of them up by even doing something as dumb as a)
feeding a huge slug of water into a tank of b) really
fresh carbide and then c) cranking the water feed
valve down as tight as possible.

Jim

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