Fluidium Warm up Time ?

[Todd Miller]

For those who have Fluidium's

What is your warm up time, voltage, ambient air temp and bulb style ?

(golf ball, reflector or halogen)

I live in the US and have a 240v power supply for my Mathmos Lamps.

All testing is done at 240v +/- 20% I have an adjustable AC power supply

to 260vac.  Ambient air temp is 68 degrees or so in my testing lab.

A 40W halogen/ceramic 25 degree reflector yields fast warm up time (1.5 hrs)

but over heats in a few hours or so. I can dial down the voltage, to tame it, and get

a good flow, but I have to drop it to about 175vac..

I changed the bulb to a R39 spot reflector and it took (3.0 hrs) to warm up and

flows... no signs of overheating @ 4.5 hours run time, looks real good.  I'll stay

with this as it's good but takes 3 hrs to warm up.

I Goo'ed a Fluidium and it uses a ceramic 40w bulb cranked up to 250vac.

I get flow but not satisfied.  I may have got a bad batch of wax as the last 52oz

Century I made flows much better.  A Fluidium is only about 54oz so I'm not

that far off.

[Tim Gill]

From my experience this sounds about right, I don't test warm up times like you have but certantly seams to be the way it goes with the halagon lamp - quick to warm up however it does overheat quickly. 

I should try with the R39 bulb - I think I used something simmiler and it eather dident get flowing or was very slow so deiced to stick with the halogen bulbs.