69V batteries? They are extinct now. There is a long list of people asking where they can find the batteries for the light here. Good thing you got the AC cord or you will never power the light up. You can get 12V battery and use it with a inverter that changes 12VDC to 120VAC.

Nice thing these can use 120v so you can just shove a standard inverter into them. This could make a nice project to make a dc to dc converterter for one of these lights. I wonder how difficult it would be to take out the final ac converter stage from an inverter and just use the dc?

Fascinating lantern battery! Never seen anything like that. I thought my dad's old 6w fluorescent lantern with two 6v batteries was heavy enough....this Safari Light must weigh a ton. Does the light use a magnetic choke-type preheat ballast?

I can only imagine since it's ac or dc it's resistive.

From what I've seen, it seems that battery power fluorescent lanterns (and maybe RV and Transit) are the earliest form of electronic ballast. I've even seen somewhere in a 1960's electronic magazine an article on how to build your own 12VDC powered electronic ballast for a 22w circline fluorescent lamp. Unless this lantern pictured above has separate circuits, I would guess that it is electronic DC ballast and has a step-down rectified transformer for the AC input option.

Since the 2 batteries are used in series I would say the ballast is a resistor, probably common to both mains and DC operation. In the 1970's power semiconductors were expensive, if you wanted high voltage operation ( over 60V that is) and high current ( over 100mA). The inverter running at 12V was possible with the then new power planar process transistors, as the current ratings were easier to increase than the problems that were introduced by high voltage ratings. 2 batteries in series gives 138V, plenty enough for a resistive dropper to drive a preheat circuit with a starter.

As the original batteries are made up of 42 cells each If you had 2 dead ones I would recommend removing the insides and trying to fit 7 9v alkaline batteries inside the shell to keep them looking authentic.

How about emptying the old battey and stuffing inside 1.5V AA's / 1.2V NiMH up to 69V ?

BTW cool TV

I have one of these, which can be seen here. I love it.

What does yours have in it for a lamp? Mine came with this Norelco F8T5/33.