PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED:
Remote villages, primarily in Africa, needed a method to provide lighting at night without the need to ship supplies of kerosene overland to the remote areas. The problem with shipping liquid fuel was that the local warlords along the way would take a portion of the fuel for their own use, as a "road tax" or the shipments were simply high jacked along the way.

Additionally, traditional kerosene fueled lamps were not only very dangerous to the user (burning down the hut), it was also a very dirty fuel to burn leaving residue on the walls and ceiling due to the traditional low quality of the fuel, causing smoke.

A public utility in South Africa approached PHOTON TECHNOLOGIES to design a new version of a solar recharged florescent camping lantern. Existing inexpensive camping lanterns usually lasted only 6 months to a year in the damp, humid climate of Africa. The circuit boards would corrode and the florescent tubes would turn black if there was any cold-snap which caused the tubes to require more electrical power to "start" and heat the internal gas that illuminated the bulb.

The answer was a complete redesign of the traditional florescent camping lantern, by looking at the power needs but mainly at how the home/hut owner was going to use the lamp.

The lower the power drain, the less power is taken from the internal batteries, and the smaller the solar panel needs to be which cuts the cost and allows for a more compact lighting product.

Since a florescent bulbed lantern requires circuitry to "start" the bulb, plus a pre-heater circuit to avoid bulb blackening if it will be operated in cold weather, it is a fairly complex illumination product, at least for remote areas of the world.

Additionally, the delicate florescent light tubes are practically non-existent as replacements should the bulb break or burn out.

PHOTON TECHNOLOGIES design stressed a very simple layout and the total elimination of the troublesome florescent bulbs favor of traditional incandescent bulbs which were easy to replace, less breakable and fairly conservative on power consumption, plus the addition of an amber, ultra-bright LED.

The key with our design, aside from the simplicity, was to identify the provide the exact type of illumination for a variety of uses as needed by the consumer. While a normal florescent camping lantern generally has a high and a low setting, simple by turning off one of the tubes, our design not only offered different sizes (brightness and power use) incandescent bulbs, but also channeled the light beam to enable the consumer to utilize the illumination to meet his lighting requirements at the time.

A lower power 360 degree bulb is included (240 degree with our internal solar panel reflector model) which allows the light to operate as area or room light.

Additionally, a much lower power amber ultra-bright LED is included which draws only 25 mA and provides a "night-light" function to allow the user to keep a small light, similar to that of a candle, burning all night without drawing much power from the battery or exposing the family to the danger of the flame on a candle to provide background illumination at night in the small home.

Two versions were designed and produced, one with a separate plug-in solar panel and another with a built-in flexible solar panel (which also provided a mirrorzed reflector for the bulbs and the LED).

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Back to Our PHOTON TECHNOLOGIES "Case Studies" Page:

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For Prompt Service and Answers to your Questions, Please Use the Email Address Listed Below:
Email: photontek@aol.com