The Infamous Cloudy Water

[Chris Johnson]

I found a lava lamp in a surplus office supply pile at work so I snagged it up.  Its red lava and yellow/orange water.  From office lore I know Its no less than 10 years old.  It looked good for a few days til someone came along and shook the snot out of it when it was hot....  then it got extremely cloudy / foggy....  So...

 

First I tried just turning it off and leaving it a few days...  no noticeable change

 

Next I tried cycling it for a week...  no noticeable change

 

One day I decided to try sticking the globe in the lil dorm fridge I keep in my office...  For the first few days I pulled out each day, ran it for 6 hours, let it cool, and put it back in the fridge.  I was seeing no real improvement so I decided to leave it in there a few days...  Today marked about 5 days in there so I popped it out and put it on the base...  At first it looked the same but after it got to room temp it was noticeably better.  Nowhere near crystal clear but there was noticeable improvement none the less....  so I let it run til it just started to flow then popped it back in the fridge.

 

I found this place a few days ago and, after reading, its starting to look like repair is impossible without replacing the water.  

 

Being that I have nothing to lose i'll continue this cycle and let you all know how it turns out...  any suggestions?

[Tim Gill]

To be honest from reading that someone had shook the lamp I completely thought it was all lost - its one guaranteed way of wrecking a lamp.

However if you say that there has been a improvement then they may be hope. First of all can you see any lava / flow in the mist of the cloudyness - if so then it is hopeful.

There are ways to deal with a cloudy lamp - firstly cycle it and if that doesn't work then you can filter it, I wont go into how to filter it as there is sections in the lava library ( http://oozinggoo.ning.com/page/cloudy ) on how to do this and plenty of disscushions on the forum etc.

[Erin]

Some jackwagon at work here shook a lava lamp a friend bought from me. I was so mad! Who does that?!?! His did recover completely.

 

I would let it set for awhile. If it's a 90s pre-China lava lamp, it SHOULD clear up. 

[Autumn]

Why do people shake lamps? I dont get it. If someone shook up one of my lamps I'd hit them in the mouth, there is no excuse for that level of stupidity. Anyways... I had a lamp knocked over and it got shaken up really bad and it never recovered. A year later its a lot less cloudy, but its still slightly cloudy. The flow is also bad and never recovered.

[Chris Johnson]

The first few days after it was shook, you couldn't see any blobs unless they were physically touching the side.  As of yesterday, if I put my fingers against the glass on one side and look through from the other side I can just barely count the fingers.  When the lamp is on, dispersion makes it a lil more difficult to see but closer to the top I can still see.  The flow is still real nice and everything is moving as it should.  Blobs do become ghosts when they aren't within an inch of the glass but the larger ones(1in dia. +) never disappear completely....  

 

I just looked on the crimp on bottle cap and it says "lava lite".  I don't see any easily discernible date or anything..  but there are a bunch of numbers stamped in black.  Its tapered. I'd estimate its somewhere near 32oz.  the glass is pretty thick.  I don't see any "made in usa" or "made in china" stickers anywhere on the globe or base.

[Chris Johnson]

I just found the date-decoder here on the website.  the two big numbers on the left are "02".  The top row is "000212p", and the bottom row is "021700A"..  So I'm guessing that this is color code "02"(red/yellow), made on Feb 17, 2000...  That makes this a pre-china lamp...  so perhaps just leaving it on the shelf for a few months should fix it up?

[Autumn]

You are correct, its a usa made lamp. You do need to let it sit for several weeks before running it again. The stuff floating in the liquid needs to settle.


Chris Johnson said:

I just found the date-decoder here on the website.  the two big numbers on the left are "02".  The top row is "000212p", and the bottom row is "021700A"..  So I'm guessing that this is color code "02"(red/yellow), made on Feb 17, 2000...  That makes this a pre-china lamp...  so perhaps just leaving it on the shelf for a few months should fix it up?

[Erin]

Yep, US-made lamp from 2000. And you got the color code right, too. 

 

I'd let it sit for a week them run it again.

 

Can you post a pic so we can see how bad it is?

Chris Johnson said:

I just found the date-decoder here on the website.  the two big numbers on the left are "02".  The top row is "000212p", and the bottom row is "021700A"..  So I'm guessing that this is color code "02"(red/yellow), made on Feb 17, 2000...  That makes this a pre-china lamp...  so perhaps just leaving it on the shelf for a few months should fix it up?

[Chris Johnson]

here it is...  I decided to turn it on for an hour so you could see it flowing...  If I am able to fix the fog, is there any cure for the

film buildup on the glass?  in a few minutes I'll turn it off and shelf it for a month.

[Erin]

Wow, that's awful. Was is clear before the shakeup? That globe is in pretty bad shape and may require a cap pop-off. I had one that had that kind of residue on the inside and it was from being run on a 60W bulb instead of a 40W. You can always let this one sit and see what happens, but if I were you, I'd just get another lamp. :)

[Chris Johnson]

it was crystal clear before the shakeup.  You could always see the residue but, believe it or not, it is actually going away.  When the lamp cools and heats there are periods of time where the blobs are dense enough to scrape a lil off when they rub...  You can see the trails in the pic.  it'll be a long slow process but I bet the residue will eventually go away.

[Erin]

Try moving the lava around in the globe, slowly, while hot. It might help with the residue then.

[Chris Johnson]

The problem is that the two liquids have the same S.G. when hot, so you can't control either one independently.