Davis 'Highbeam' PT1197

Lantern acquired in November 2009.

Thanks to Stephen Palmer for this lantern.

The Highbeam is something of an evolution of earlier ELECO-designed post-top lanterns (such as the PT1031, for example), and thus there are slight similarities in the overall appearance of lanterns produced by both ELECO and Davis. The key to the Highbeam's performance is a cylindrical glass refractor surrounding the lamp. Whilst most of the bowl is transparent, the lower section is only semi-transparent, presumably in an attempt to hide the gear from view.

A NEMA photocell socket is positioned on the canopy. I found the connecting wires for the socket had a tendency to be visible with the canopy in place, and so I rotated the canopy a few times, in order for the wires to wrap around the internal support, and disappear into the top of the lantern.

The extra length on the wires enables the canopy to be fully removed for maintenance.

The refractor produces an asymmetrical beam when the lamp is running - this means that the lantern must be correctly orientated on the column, in order that the lamp is correctly focused.

The lantern's base casting is only just wide enough to accommodate the ballast, ignitor and capacitor. Incidentally, the capacitor carries a manufacture date of November 1993 - making the lantern sixteen years old when it entered the collection.

The lantern arrived in the collection with a plug and length of flex already attached. I could therefore operate the lantern immediately. (The lantern is doing an impression of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in this photograph as a result of the cable entering through the post-top spigot. In time I will remove one of the grub screws and re-route the cable through the resultant hole, in order for it to return to vertical.)

Lantern warm-up video:

Testing the lantern with my energy monitoring device revealed the following results:

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