Clockwork lamp
Movement lamps (also Carcel lamps ) are oil lamps , with the aid of mechanical pumps of a movement , are operated the fuel oil from a deeper tank upwards to the wick pumps the lamps.
Before petroleum was discovered , animal or vegetable oils were used for lighting purposes. Since these only rise one to three centimeters high in a wick, the design shapes of the lamps were very limited.
Around 1800, the Parisian watchmaker Bertrand Guillaume Carcel (1750–1812) developed a small spring-wound pump that he built into the base of an oil lamp. This pump could pump the oil straight up into the burner. The aim of the construction was to place the light source (burner) as high as possible and the oil tank as far away from the burner as possible. Other lamps from this period often had the tank at the same level as the burner, which cast a shadow when the lamps were in operation. The Carcel lamp used the Argand burner .
The Carcel lamps were not widely used. Due to the built-in clockwork, production was complex and correspondingly expensive. In addition, these lamps were quite fragile due to the fuel used and often had to be repaired. The moderator's lamp from around 1827 is also a lamp with a pump, but has a much simpler design. This largely replaced the complicated Carcel lamps.