I used carbide back in the 80's.  Now, of course, I'm on modern LED, but was thinking of adding carbide as an option.

I understand that some areas ban the flame?  [which?], and wondered whether the carbide was still easily available?

Expensive and messy or nice to have?

TeeCee

In the UK (and elsewhere) there are no longer many genuine reason(s) to use carbide; if you care about cave conservation then you definitely won't use it.

Dead as a Dodo. 

Most(all)  managed caves systems in South Wales forbid it.  [OFD, Agen Allwedd, ogof draenen et etc]

Cap'n Chris said:

In the UK (and elsewhere) there are no longer many genuine reason(s) to use carbide; if you care about cave conservation then you definitely won't use it.

Click to expand...

Conservation in the wider sense is part of my job, so is an issue for me.  What specifically are the concerns in caves [not counting dealing with waste carbide: I've got that sussed and never failed to remove all of mine, and often other people's from the cave]

Well, waste carbide is a large part of the issue, as are the carbon marks left marking cave walls all over the place.

Given that these were serious problems back in the Good Old DaysTM, and many cavers spent many hours scrubbing spent carbide out of our caves, it's hard to see what other problems you need to address.

topcat said:

What specifically are the concerns in caves [not counting dealing with waste carbide: I've got that sussed and never failed to remove all of mine, and often other people's from the cave]

Click to expand...

Waste carbide being dumped is only a small part of the problem.

For the other conservation negatives of carbide check out pages 45 to 50, specifically 48 onwards:

http://www.scavalon.be/downloads/Cave%20Protection%20English.pdf

Terrible stuff. I do miss the smell though...

Thanks for that chaps, just the kind of education I needed.  No carbide for me then

..... is the correct answer. 

Interesting read that document Chris.

Cap'n Chris said:

In the UK (and elsewhere) there are no longer many genuine reason(s) to use carbide; if you care about cave conservation then you definitely won't use it.

Click to expand...

I confess I'm a bit short of time to look at that scavalon piece right now - but I always thought any problems with carbide were mainly due to those people who used it irresponsibly, not the carbide itself.

I was brought up to cave on a small Premier carbide lamp. I used to carry a plastic container to put used carbide into for transport out of the cave. Unlike the big "expedition" style lamps - which do burn with a sooty flame - the small Premier doesn't seem to cause sooty problems in the air and, used well, there's no reason they should leave any sooty marks on the walls.

Excepting the possible issue relating to the tiny amount of heat produced disturbing hibernating bats in winter, what's the problem (in a nutshell)?

(By the way - and again, apologies for not having read that article as I type - isn't something published by the S C Avalon likely to be about the big carbide lamps, rather than the small ones which have been more commonly used un the UK for years? If so it may have less relevance to us than might be generally assumed.)

I suppose my early experience with stinkies was much the same as Pitlamp. I did read the article and what struck me most was the evidence of soot deposits - even in big chambers.

I don't really agree about the lack impact of using a Premier - soot is soot and most carbide nerds (which includes me as I collect non caving carbide lamps) would surely now use the bigger waist mounted reservoirs.

Some of the pics on the Scavalon article are really telling about some continental habits - although I do remember the carbide dumped on top of a stal boss in the Hall of Thirty only months after the cave was opened.

Long live LED and Li Ion - and whatever is around the corner.

Jopo

I agree with Jopo that the LED lamp is a dream for cavers.

But I doubt you'd want to wear a clumsy waist slung carbide lamp in many of our more challenging Dales caves. The small Premier was always more popular up here. Also, your example of the Hall of the Thirty is not related to the lamps themselves, it was due to bad operators.

So that just leaves the soot question. I'm unconvinced that a properly running small Premier produces much in the way of soot - at least not in the way that the big waist slung lamps do. An article on carbide problems in overseas caves (where they do use the big carbides) may not be relevant to the use of small carbides.

I accept that my query is largely academic (because I'm firmly in the LED camp nowadays) but I do still occasionally cave on a small Premier purely for old time's sake and I'd not want to be causing any cave conservation problems.

It was something I was taught in school that complete and efficient combustion of a carbon-based fuel will produce a blue flame, and incomplete combustion will produce a bright yellow flame. You can easily see this as an acetylene flame cuttter is not yellow when cutting due to the oxygen supplied to it, but an acetylene lamp is very bright as it only has the oxygen in the air to react with. Although the soot will only mark walls with streaky marks if the flame is played directly on the wall, the soot is still being generated when the lamp is simply being used away from any surface. The microscopic particles will eventually settle onto upward facing surfaces. This takes many many years to accumulate. It can be seen in long-established show caves where naked flame lamps were once used, and in many old mines where candles or flame lamps were used by the miners. The amount of soot generated and settled out onto calcite etc may not be that noticeable in many cases, but it will be there to some degree. How important is this as a conservation matter, given that much greater damage has been inflicted over the years by careless trampling and muddy hands?

Can you still buy the Premier? I thought that they are only available on eBay - under antiques  :

Years ago a certain purveyor of caving kit asked me to consider manufacturing them with the tooling he had just bought. Did I miss the chance of becoming a stinkie tycoon?

It is difficult to get a 'clean burn' as there is no way to introduce a air mix which gives a clean burn but reduces light output.
BTW. Anyone remind me of where on Mendip - years ago - I saw a collection of Premier type stinkies from all over the world on display.

Jopo

I suggest that a 100 percent clean burn would result in virtually no useful light (like the oxyacetylene cutter). If by clean you mean without smoke, then I suspect there will still be soot generated but it won't be visible as a black cloud over the caver's head, simply evenly dispersed unnoticed into the air around the flame.

Post crossed with Mr Burgess.

Is soot more damaging than muddy hands or footprints?  Don't know but there is however a real problem with disposable cells - which I think must still  power many caving lights . Like me you have probably seen them dumped in caves and mines on occasion and they are much more polluting than spent carbide - which is basically inert but messy.

Jopo

Jopo said:

Post crossed with Mr Burgess.

Is soot more damaging than muddy hands or footprints?  Don't know but there is however a real problem with disposable cells - which I think must still  power many caving lights . Like me you have probably seen them dumped in caves and mines on occasion and they are much more polluting than spent carbide - which is basically inert but messy.

Jopo

Click to expand...

Soot is certainly more widespread than muddy hands or footprints. I might also argue whether spent carbide is actually inert, I'd ask a biologist about that first, but it is also pretty inevitable whereas spent batteries are so much easier to carry out.

I have seen some pretyy nasty carbon/zinc batteries in an advanced decomposed state - with contents leaching out. Do alkaline cells deteriorate to the same extent? Going off-topic - sorry - however the consensus seems to be to forget carbide as a useful lighting source.

Spent carbide is certainly not inert. It's mostly Calcium Hydroxide which is fairly alkaline - not great for the environment or organisms. I'm sure there's going to be a reasonable amount of other trace contaminants in there too.

Certainly if I handle it with bare hands I get the classic dried out and cracked skin you'd relate to messing with alkalis - I may be particularly sensitive to it though.

Rhys