[Zen Garden Oasis] wanted to heat and light a space using a candle. But candles aren’t always convenient since they burn down and, eventually, you must replace them. So he built copper candles using a common copper pipe and an old glass jar. Of course, the candle still takes fuel that you have to replace, but the candle itself doesn’t burn down.
The basic idea is that the copper tube holds a high-temperature carbon wick that stays saturated with fuel. The fuel burns, but the wick material doesn’t. The copper part is actually concentric with a 3/4-inch pipe mostly enclosing a 1/2-inch pipe.
The inner pipe extends further, and there are several holes in each pipe for fuel and air flow. The extended part of the pipe will be the candle’s flame. The wick wraps the entire inner pipe, stopping when it emerges from the outer pipe.
The fuel is alcohol, just like the old burner in your childhood chemistry set. The flame isn’t very visible, but a little salt in the fuel can help make the burn more orange.
Of course, this is a flame, so you need ventilation. You’ll also want to take care to make sure the candle—or anything burning—doesn’t tip over or set something else on fire. These candles will store just fine, and they can even burn common rubbing alcohol, so they could be useful in an emergency to generate heat and light with no electricity. Even a small candle can generate heat around 300F. Bigger candles make more heat, and the video shows ways to capture the heat to make it more useful.
There are a number of useful comments about drilling a cleaner hole in the jar lid and better replacements for the JB Weld seal. We’d have suggested furnace cement, which is easy to find and cheap.
Okay, I’ll be that guy… what makes this a candle and not, you know, a lamp?
I mean, it’s a neat design for an alcohol burner lamp, but… isn’t it a lamp?
I think this is a lamp and a surprise flamethrower/incendiary device if it falls on its side.
*when
The high neck really makes it want to get knocked over.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a lamp by any other name would burn just as bright.”
That’s another great post to help people get injured or lose their home.
Alcohol fires are among the most dangerous you can have.
Invisible flames that are hard to extinguish, and burn hot enough to start serious fires.
And all of that without any kind of safety considerations.
Great idea if you know some people you don’t like.
Nah, it’s better than gasoline, or an insufficiently wind-protected methane/propane/butane flame. And alcohol burns cleaner from a wick than kerosene or oils tend to – the latter are sooty. With isopropanol it’s not even invisible, it’s bluish when low and a normal yellow when burning taller.
Oh and importantly, it doesn’t seem to generate carbon monoxide in any noticeable quantities, generally. Which is consistent with full combustion.
Everything can be dangerous. If you don’t know what you are doing, then don’t do it. Every other posts here has comments like this beneath it. There is really no need for it as I’m sure that everyone here can use common sense.
We really need to get someone to ban warning labels.
warning labels are dangerous because they inhibit innovation?
“every other post…” this is bullshit.
“everything can be dangerous” also bullshit.
“if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t do it” Bullshit, Or are you against educating people and explaining things to them? Everyone needs to be born all-knowing? No teaching/learning ?
“everyone here can use common sense” How do you know? met everyone who reads Hackaday?
“Ban warning labels” So, let people injure and kill themselves, because then only the smart survive and humanity is “improved”? You one of those people?
QED.
why do you hate fun?
My first thought was, if some kid or even adult knocks it off of a shelf or table onto the floor, it’s going to be like a giant Molotov cocktail. I wonder if it might be more safe to take one of those metal drink tumblers with a screw on lid, already has a hole in the top for the straw and use that instead. At least if it gets knocked over it’s not going to instantly shatter catching the entire room on fire.
to cut a CLEAN hole in the lid.
take it OFF , flip it over then drill it over a piece of wood.
I normally try to offer constructive or positive feedback… but based on the title page of the youtube video, I just can’t do that.
Yeah, just another clickbait video.
How hot does the glass container get? Can you handle it while lit?
Dude literally claiming to have invented fire.
Yep. Just put “ILLEGAL” in all-caps in the thumbnail and you have a youtube hit on your hands (why do they always do that?)
Wouldn’t that be a neat Molotov cocktail?
grr. REALLY missing an “Are you shure” dialog for the report comment button. on a phone a must.
clickbait youtube slop
Many churches use oil-based “candles” – they look like candles, but they burn oil from a hidden reservoir. Google “sanctuary oil candle.”
Mine had something even weirder: ceramic cylindrical things with pinched down ends that looked like candles, and you’d feed an actual soft-wax candle into it and put a spring behind it. As it burned, the candle wax got extruded upwards. That way your candles were always exactly the same length.
This is a newer version of lamps/candles/heaters that I’ve done since the 80’s.
Sure it’s not safe, it’s open flame!
But it’s a good hack if you’re in THIS space.
I saw many things I would do different or test out, but I think the concept is not just valid but worthy.
Large Kerosene Oil Lamp, $20 at Amazon.
An essential in every home, IMHO.
What would happen if you put alcohol in a kerosene lamp?
Not brave enough to try it myself.
you break/crack the chimney because it burns too hot.
Apart from this being pretty close to the construction of a “candle rest eater” (don’t know the English term)? It is pretty dangerous with that amount of liquid fuel. More something for the patio rather than indoors. Sure, candles are dangerous as well, but at least their fuel does not spread burning over a large area when tipped over.
I’ll actually take that as motivation to get my candle eater done. It’s next in line in my started but unfinished projects list… (I swear!)
They used to call these molotovs
“Forever” seems relative considering the wick is made of carbon felt that’ll be prone to burning up as the fuel runs low. Beats reusing old asbestos wicks tho.
I wouldn’t want to use asbestos wicks though. It’s bad enough that I had to put on new asbestos drum brake pads yesterday. And I did that outside, covering it with water constantly to prevent any particles going airborne, wearing a positive air mask. Not taking any chances with that stuff. But hey, at least my brakes are functioning properly again. (It’s a vehicle from 1959 and these are new old stock brake pads. None asbestos versions exist but they make a ton of noise, wear out quickly, glaze up fast when trying to brake for a longer period and the stopping power is almost non existent).
I’m surprised to hear this. I have a similar era car, albeit maybe higher production numbers, so there are a wide range of non-asbestos pads available, from efficiency ones that don’t stop so well but last FOREVER, through to racing ones that are hella grippy and I go through in six months of normal driving. I think it’s worse with drum brakes, though. Mine’s disc front drum rear.
The carbon felt is very cheap and lasts much longer than fiberglass or natural fiber wicks. It’s often used as a blanket to protect things from torches or welding. When the flame isn’t too aggressively burning it, it’ll hardly be worn down. This type of design works by trying to vaporize the fuel enough by heat transfer back to the reservoir thru the copper, rather than making the wick do it all. If you push it too far, you can boil the fuel and endanger yourself, but if you’re careful enough you save the wick some work.
“Unlimited heat with no electricity!”
Dude is gonna freak out when he discovers fireplaces…
Wait until he crunches the numbers and figures out that alcohol is more expensive than electricity. This is like an always sunny episode
You wait till the guy who made this video realises you can stick ducktape to itself in a Mobious loop!
“Whoa – You wont believe what you can do with this!”
barf
“Even a small candle can generate heat around 300F” Nope, it generates heat at the flame temperature, regardless of whatever the guy in the video said or whatever temperature you are able to measure. Even a tealight candle can heat a wire up to glowing, even though it’d never be able to make a pot of water very warm. Temperature and quantity of heat are two separate things and temperature goes with the color of flame while quantity of heat goes more with the size.
Anyway this kind of burner has self-reinforcing feedback such that it’s less safe than something with solely a wick. You can imagine a wick would dry out if it was vaporizing fuel too fast, and it settles down at a balance point. The kind in this video transfers more heat into the reservoir the more flame you’ve got, which gives you greater performance but less stability. That being said the split in the flames is helpful, because then the upper flame doesn’t have as big of an influence on how much heat goes into the reservoir. It’s ideal to have a pilot flame that’s a wick that’s essentially unable to feed heat back, and then you use only that pilot flame’s heat to vaporize the extra fuel for your extra output. This doesn’t seem quite that way because it’s got the wick and both tubes all together.
I played around with not using a wick at all before, although at a very small scale for safety – and what happened was that after you got it to light and start building heat, it would take off and begin boiling the fuel in the reservoir, making a very large flame which was moving fast enough to separate significantly from the tip of the place the vapors escaped from. And at that point it was spurting drops of fuel everywhere, and becoming more and more self-reinforcing right up until the point where there wasn’t enough fuel to keep it up and it died back before going out.
The thing is, you can have it balanced out enough with one fuel in one location – and then you go somewhere with a different temperature, pressure, and fuel type. A more volatile fuel or warmer ambient conditions and all of a sudden your safety margin is gone. Or maybe your reservoir gets low and the fuel warms and again, feedback loop. This one isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s a bit easy to go wrong by pushing it.
Over 8000 house fires every year caused by candles. This is a bad idea.
So a Zippo lighter? “Even a small candle can generate heat around 300F. Bigger candles make more heat” WTF? Bigger people make more heat but body temperature same-same. That am some weak-ass science. And as has been pointed out safety-wise it’s in the same class as the hairspray flame-thrower. Can and should are very different things.
What size of space can this heat, anyway?
You sit on it and it heats your body internally
How can this video last a half-hour?
Oh shit, he teaches us how to use a pipe cutter. Wonderful.
Please provide a video how to make a simple knot with a copper wire to get unlimited grip!