Collaborate Disseminate
It’s easy to see why LEDs largely won out over neon bulbs for pilot light applications. But for all the practical utility of LEDs, they’re found largely lacking in at …read more Continue reading Neon Lamps — Not Just for Pilot Lights
[WJCarpenter]’s gas water heater uses a small pilot light that needs to stay burning permanently to ignite the main burners as required. Four or five times a year, the pilot light goes out and needs to be manually lit. This …read more
Continue reading Keeping An Eye On The Water Heater Pilot Light
A naked flame is a complex soup of ionised gases, that possesses an unexpected property. As you might expect with that much ionisation there is some level of electrical conductivity, but the unusual property comes in that a flame can be made to conduct in only one direction. In other words, it can become a diode of sorts, in a manner reminiscent of a vacuum tube diode.
[Paul Stoffregen] has made use of this phenomenon in a flame detector that he’s built to be installed on a Burning Man flame-based art installation. It forms part of a response to a …read more
Continue reading A Flame Diode Pilot Light Sensor For A Burning Man Installation