For advanced lava engineers - heat but no light

[Reszound]

I have a silverwax glitter ball baby astro and as good as it looks on, I reckon it looks even better when it's flowing but switched off - like blobs of mercury. Has anyone managed to find a way of blocking the light from the bulb but letting the heat through so that the wax will melt and flow?

[Keith]

It is possible that "stage lighting gel" would work. Stage lighting gel is the plastic colored filters that are use to create lighting effects on stage. They are available in 20 by 25 inch sheets as well as rolls. They are designed to withstand the high heat of stage lamps. I don't have any experience with them, but I was thinking that you could cut a piece to fit between the bulb and the globe bottom. You could also try various colors. If anyone has tried this, please share your thoughts! I have checked and the sheets are available for under 10 dollars US.
http://www.stagespot.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=...

[Reszound]

Hmmm... a cool and interesting idea that has a lot of potential - especially with different colours, cheers Keith.
I was thinking along similar lines - a layer of something between the bottle and the bulb - or wrapping the bottom of the bottle in aluminium foil or something to that effect... foil probably won't let enough heat through or will increase the warm up time by a few hours... stage gels... good thinking!

I was also wondering about a tiny little heating coil with a mini edison screw... anyone seen a little beastie like that in their travels...?

Any other thoughts guys?

[Keith]

The heating coil sounds like a ceramic heater for reptile terrariums. I would be very cautious about using that because of the possibility of excess heat. In an enclosed base with a glass globe on top, it might be like putting your lamp on the stove!

[Nico]

My Astro turns from purple to pink when the (halogen reflector) bulb is on so I'm also looking into that matter.
I put brown baking paper on the bulb but the halogen spot heat is greater than an oven's and burned a hole in it.
I also tried the same with a piece of black cleaning cloth I got for my glasses but it's nylon so it melted/burned, stuck on the bulb and stunk.
I've been thinking of trying a coin-type object to mask the light but its temperature at the top would have to be similar to the one on top of the reflector. Also, the reflector is not flat so it would be hard to keep the 'coin' from falling at the bottom of the lamp's base.
Two ideas I haven't tried yet are 'ND' (Neutral Density) photo filters ideally made of glass (I have seen plexiglass ones online) or some similar dark glass pieces and - of course - the stage lighting gels mentioned above.
I hope this will help others in the same situation and would welcome any other ideas.
Have a nice day.

[Keith]

Over the last 6 + years of additional ideas on other posts and topics I would say that a ceramic heater would work just fine, as long as it is sized correctly and a dimmer is used to prevent excess heat.

[Nico]

Thanks, I'm still looking for these posts :D

[Keith]

Have fun!  There is a LOT to look at!!

Nico said:

Thanks, I'm still looking for these posts :D

[Tim Gill]

Stage lighting gels won't work they will melt onto the halagon bulb and base and be very hard to get off espshaly if you use ones that have a low light let through
The only realistic way is to use a ceramic heater I think someone did try this with a heater from a pet reptile supply shop I don't know how successful this was but it is harder then expected to use alternative heat sources for lava lamps

[Nico]

I was afraid of that. Thank you very much for the warning

Tim Gill said:

Stage lighting gels won't work they will melt onto the halagon bulb and base and be very hard to get off espshaly if you use ones that have a low light let through
The only realistic way is to use a ceramic heater I think someone did try this with a heater from a pet reptile supply shop I don't know how successful this was but it is harder then expected to use alternative heat sources for lava lamps

[Dr. WHAT?!]

@ Tim  I still use a ceramic heater on my UV grande which works great. Unfortunately they don't make the ceramic bulb in a smaller version so they only fit on grande bases.

@ Reszound - I've done this before using a little bit of a higher wattage bulb (then normal) and covering that in tinfoil to block the light. It works just fine.

[Nico]

I'll give this a try too :)

Dr. WHAT?! said:

@ Reszound - I've done this before using a little bit of a higher wattage bulb (then normal) and covering that in tinfoil to block the light. It works just fine.