Color Changing LED Lava Lamp

[Dr. WHAT?!]

 I was able to convert my heritage century into a LED color changing lamp for fairly cheap! roughly $25!!

This was the first part I purchased, its a 50w ceramic heater. It gets hot so a dimmer is a must use. You can see the size comparison with the standard bulb. It wont fit in the standard 32oz or 52oz "premier" bases, I tried. The century has a larger bulb opening allowing you to screw it fully in. Ebay Link

Next purchase was the LED rings. They are 70mm halo rings made for car custom headlights. Cost about $19 for a set of 4 rings that come with a remote 24 buttons and IR remote box and some adhesive pads. I did purchase new IR remote boxes with 44 button remotes that have more color phasing options and dyi options cost under $5.00.  Ebay Link

Here's how it looks with the globe off. The ring fits on the base inner rim perfectly. You can see the ceramic heater is showing its red hotness!  The one thing I was worried about is the LED ring wiring being so close to the heater so I took some tin foil and rolled it around heater so it keeps the heat down for the wiring and flowing upward toward the globe. Speaking of wiring, the only modification I made to the base was that I pulled off the cord plug and then feed the led wiring thru the hole. Then pulled out all the slack of the led wires and tied it off to keep the wiring away from the heater.

Here are a couple pics of the 3 main colors look and a couple videos of the color changing.

[Michael]

This looks awesome! Fantastic mod. 

[Dr. WHAT?!]

thanks! its a great result

[Claude J]

love it

wil try in on grande

[VOXul]

Damn, this is awesome!! I may have to build this out as well, excellent work Dr. What?!

Edit to add: The dimmer switch on the heater must allow for amazing flow control, would be interesting to see the lava flowing under the strobe or color phase settings of the LED ring too. I bet strobe would almost produce like a freeze frame look to the lava, almost like it isn't moving up and down but rather shape shifting.

[Keith]

[Erin]

That looks awesome! That's so cool. Super dumb question though - why not just add the LED ring and heat up the lava the normal way with the regular bulb?

I love it. Great job Shawn!

[Keith]

I think the light from the bulb would wash out the light from the LED's.  But, an incandescent "black light" bulb may work.  Might be worth trying!

Erin said:

That looks awesome! That's so cool. Super dumb question though - why not just add the LED ring and heat up the lava the normal way with the regular bulb?

I love it. Great job Shawn!

[Dr. WHAT?!]

Thanks for the compliments gooheads! To answer your questions:

@ VOX - the dimmer definitely works on ceramic heaters. I use the normal size heater for a blacklight grande and it works great. For the strobe effect, the second video link I posted is the strobe/flash effect with RGB leds, that video is at normal speed so its pretty quick flashing. I'm hoping with the new IR boxes I get, that I have more control over that speed and slow it down to get the effect you mention. Supposed to be getting those today so I'll keep you posted.

@ Ms. Erin :) - Keith is correct the regular bulb does wash out the led lights. Also I would never use a blacklight bulb on any lamp. I tried this on a Excalibur globe once and if you own one, you know how big those bottles are. Well the blacklight bulb gets so hot that it literally cracked the bottom of the globe. The bottom of those globes are pretty thick. SO blackbulbs are not good.

@ Analog -  not this is lava lite goo. I took a 52oz. rainbow globe and emptied into a regular bottle. The rainbow globe is the next project of mine for my darkside of the moon base. Plan to put large holographic glitter in there, should look pretty sweet!

[VOXul]

Was so excited that I failed to see you posted YouTube links! That flow is perfect in the slow phase video, bravo man, awesome mod!

Dr. WHAT?! said:

Thanks for the compliments gooheads! To answer your questions:

@ VOX - the dimmer definitely works on ceramic heaters. I use the normal size heater for a blacklight grande and it works great. For the strobe effect, the second video link I posted is the strobe/flash effect with RGB leds, that video is at normal speed so its pretty quick flashing. I'm hoping with the new IR boxes I get, that I have more control over that speed and slow it down to get the effect you mention. Supposed to be getting those today so I'll keep you posted.

@ Ms. Erin :) - Keith is correct the regular bulb does wash out the led lights. Also I would never use a blacklight bulb on any lamp. I tried this on a Excalibur globe once and if you own one, you know how big those bottles are. Well the blacklight bulb gets so hot that it literally cracked the bottom of the globe. The bottom of those globes are pretty thick. SO blackbulbs are not good.

@ Analog -  not this is lava lite goo. I took a 52oz. rainbow globe and emptied into a regular bottle. The rainbow globe is the next project of mine for my darkside of the moon base. Plan to put large holographic glitter in there, should look pretty sweet!

[Dr. WHAT?!]

lol I fixed them to show the video in the post instead of the links :)

[Brad]

looks great! let's see if LL takes notice of this one.

[Critter]

I have bought ceramic heaters at the pet store before and ran a Grande with them but they were larger than yours. What brand is the one you bought?