In several important respects portable acetylene apparatus may be divided
into two classes from a practical point of view. There is the portable
table or stand lamp intended for use in an occupied room, and there is
the hand or supported lamp intended for the illumination of vehicles or
open-air spaces. Economy apart, no difficulty arises from imperfect
combustion or escape of unburnt gas from an outdoor lamp, but in a room
the presence of unburnt acetylene must always be offensive even if it is
not dangerous; while the combustion products of the impurities--and in a
portable generator acetylene cannot be chemically purified--are highly
objectionable. It is simply a matter of good design to render any form of
portable apparatus safe against explosion (employment of proper carbide
being assumed), for one or more vent-pipes can always be inserted in the
proper places; but from an indoor lamp those vent-pipes cannot be made to
discharge into a place of safety, while, as stated before, a generator in
which the vent-pipes come into action with any frequency is but an
extravagant piece of apparatus for the decomposition of so costly a
material as calcium carbide.
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