Alan is absolutely right, it all comes back to me now. The 3-volt battery is the right one for those bicycle lamps. The flat 4.5 volt one was not the one.
John Betmanis Woodstock, Ontario Canada
At 07:05 AM 17/11/2008 -0800, Alan Lloyd wrote:
>I believe that particular lamp used a (nominally) 3 volt "bicycle battery"
>http://www.alfaquest.com/tempory/bikeBattery.jpg.
>
>Basically two cells 'stuck' together with one terminal at the front, that
touched the back of the bulb directly, and t'other terminal on top that
connected to the switch mechanism - the circuit was completed by
'connecting' this terminal through the switch to the body of the lamp.
>
>I've seen similar lamps here that use two D cells and, at one point in the
1970s, Pifco made an adaptor
http://www.alfaquest.com/
>
>These JPEGs came from Paul Costin's excellent write-up at
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/
>
>Rear lamps usually used on D cell (which, IIRC, used to be called a U2 in
Blighty) but there were some that were similar to the front lamps ...
>
>Alan Lloyd
>Schaumburg, Illinois, U.S.A.
>
>
>--- On Sun, 11/16/08, classicrendezvous-request@bikelist.org wrote:
>
>> Today's Topics:
>> 7. Re: Hetchins lamps or lanterns, what is appropriate? (John Betmanis)
>>
>> Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:13:44 -0500
>> From: John Betmanis <johnb@oxford.net>
>> To: rapidfire10ring@hotmail.com,
>> Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>> Subject: Re: [CR]Hetchins lamps or lanterns, what is appropriate?
>> Message: 7
>>
>> The most common bicycle front light used by clubmen in the
>> UK in the 1950s was the Everready lamp you see on this bike:
>> http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/
>> They used a flat 4.5 volt battery and also came in black.
>> I've seen chrome ones like it on eBay from time to time,
>> but I think those are newer.
>>
>> John Betmanis
>> Woodstock, Ontario
>> Canada