Green/black china lava lite lamp

I decided to post a video of this lamp running by itself since it was too dark to see with other lamps running near by. There's nothing "wrong" with it, it just doesn't flow nearly as nicely as US lava lites. Considering this was $20, (same as my first aristocrat, and $5 more than my blue/yellow aristocrat) I will be buying used US lamps only from now on. (At least until lava lite improves, or mathmos starts selling in the US)

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Comment by Loren on November 12, 2013 at 10:54pm: Bo-rrringggg. :-/

They all look like they could do with an extra bit of surf in there...the blobs look way too tight! That might be giving the lava way too much credit though...

Comment by Cowmatian on November 12, 2013 at 11:08pm: It is verrrrrry boring. The wax begins floating around before it is even completely melted, it never spikes, it never forms a column from bottom to top, and when it cools, the wax never goes flat to the bottom. When I turn off my US lamps, the wax goes flat to the bottom and then it hardens. It seems the wax is just barley melted when it is flowing, but you can't use a higher wattage bulb because it all goes to the top. Believe it or not, this is probably the 30th 6hr run, it hasn't loosened up enough to be interesting though. Maybe Lava Lite came up with a wax formula stays solid until it is hot enough to flow to prevent clouding on the trip from China (just a thought).

Comment by Loren on November 12, 2013 at 11:31pm: I don't think the liquid gets cloudy from the wax melting, I think the shaking vibrations make the various glicerols come out of solution, and bead up big enough to act as a bunch of tiny little lenses that cloud the liquid by diffracting light all kinds of crazy ways. LOL~ That was a mouthful. :p

I think some globes arrive clear because they weren't subjected to the same frequencies of vibration, or maybe it's the duration or intensity of shaking? Maybe it's a combination of the three?

Comment by Brad on November 12, 2013 at 11:35pm: colors looks great, but i agree - flow is a snoozer. agree loren - i wonder what a few milliliters of surfactant would do for this lamp.

Comment by Cowmatian on November 12, 2013 at 11:48pm: I may add some surfactant (miracle bubbles or goo kit surfactant if I order a goo kit soon) to this lamp then. The only thing stopping me is I don't know what I'd do about resealing the bottle cap. I know it can be done, I just don't know how tight of a seal I can get. I might keep it as-is as a comparison lamp though, for people who don't know the difference between nice flow, and "china" flow. If all that is wrong with lamps with boring flow is a lack of surfactant, why wouldn't LL correct this?

Comment by Loren on November 12, 2013 at 11:59pm: Like I said, I may be giving the lava too much credit. :p

Comment by Brad on November 13, 2013 at 1:08am: there appears to be an inverted U-shaped relationship between wax "stretchiness" and amount of surfactant added to the globe. too little and there's large globes. too much and you get lots of tiny globes. just the right amount and it's like sex in a bottle.

Comment by Loren on November 13, 2013 at 1:10am: Too much surf will actually destroy the lava...it'll just rip it apart. Not enough, and the blobs bounce apart like super balls, if they separate at all.

I would like to see what would happen if someone added a tiny bit more surf to a Chinese lamp, but the properties of the wax, like the fact that it seems to not melt properly, can't be so easily attributed to the amount of surf in the liquid.