Long heat-up

[Anson Cheung]

How long should it take for a Fluidium to heat up for the first time?

[Modulo '70]

True, I'm just heating my new Opal white one up right now and it does take at least two to three hours depending on how chilly your house is. It's pretty chilly here at present.

 

It's going to look great in full flow. I've never had the opal white one until now, but have all the other colours.

[Erin]

A Century, which is a larger US-made lava lamp can take 2-3 hours to really get moving, so I can see where a Fluidium would take that long, too. 

[Anson Cheung]

There are two coils in the Fluidium, right?  The bottom one was separated.  Should I go exchange it?

[Tim Gill]

Yea there are 2 coils - one which sits on the lower end of the base and the other that sits on the rim of the base - the coils are fine.

If you are using the fludium with a halogen bulb then there is nothing to worry about abut. If it has a 30w tungsten bulb (jet bulb) then you need to change it to a halogen bulb to get it working better.

[Anson Cheung]

I use the one that came with the lamp.

[Gwen Williams]

Anson- how long is yours taking to warm up?

[Anson Cheung]

3-4 hours, and then about 1 hour to un-grain the lava and have good flow.

[Gwen Williams]

looks like that is considered a normal amount of time, especially if the room it is in is a bit chilly.  Maybe try moving it to a warmer place if you ant it to heat up a bit faster

[Knut]

Using the halogen bulbs the Fluidiums are now supplied with, the warm up time is only around one and a half hours. As soon as the flow starts properly, you'll need to put on a dimmer to about half power and enjoy the beautiful flow for 8-10 hours or more! These halogen bulbs will overheat your lamp almost immediately when the flow starts, so I wouldn't recommend using without a dimmer, unless you enjoy the look of boiling lava. With the halogen spotlight bulbs much less light is projected out through the base, so you can see and enjoy the flow much better than with any other bulb (in my opinion).

 

I have a couple of Opal Fluidiums and have been running one for 6-10 hours every day for months and months using a halogen bulb and dimmer switch, and so far I've not noticed the white wax discolouring any more than it was when I got that one (2nd hand), so feeling much more confident about starting to use the 2nd Opal (with really white wax) I bought more recently, although the wax sticks to the sides quite a bit on that one :(

Check out this thread for images of the halogen bulbs I'm referring to, as the one Marcel has pictured here isn't the one I mean: http://oozinggoo.ning.com/photo/2-fluidium?xg_source=activity

 

[Anson Cheung]

I put my astrobaby next to my Fluidium and the astrobaby takes 1 hour to heat up. Also, when the goo is ready to ooze, it is very grainy and bubbly (bubbles in goo).
Or is this a faulty lamp?