Worst lantern?

[timsabre]

I've used the octagonal shaped version shown in the 2nd link, and they did not have a reflector, I always assumed the reflectors had been lost.

 

Although a reflector would make the fixture optically more efficient, it would have to be a spherical reflector properly aligned or the output beam would get messed up because of the simple plano convex lens. A "pie case" type as suggested above would just introduce a lot of scatter into the beam.

 

[sunray]

I've used the octagonal shaped version shown in the 2nd link, and they did not have a reflector, I always assumed the reflectors had been lost. Although a reflector would make the fixture optically more efficient, it would have to be a spherical reflector properly aligned or the output beam would get messed up because of the simple plano convex lens. A "pie case" type as suggested above would just introduce a lot of scatter into the beam.

At school we had a combination of the 2 shapes, until now I'd been convinced by others that I'd remembered wrongly about them having reflectors but it was far too long ago for me to remember in detail which of them did or didn't have reflectors.

The big brother version (2KW possibly) of the octagonal shape most certainly did have a reflector and IIRC was very heavy, to the point where a schoolboy should perhaps not really have been carrying it up a 12ft stepladder.

[timsabre]

The ones I used had massive (or they seemed massive to me as a 12 year old) 1kw edison screw lamps. Because they were ES you had to mess around with how far you screwed them in so the filament ended up pointing at the lens and not sideways on. They were certainly very big and heavy, I was using them in a village hall with a 3m ceiling height and they were not very subtle.