Wax collecting at top

[Chris Holland]

I've recently been given a lamp from a friends loft.  Upon heating all the wax moved directly to the top and has stayed resolutely at the top.  Even turning off has not resulted in it resettling.  The coil is at the bottom.  The wax at the top looks as if it has many bubbles - and am guessing it has had a mistreated past (from reading some posts to this forum) - and I am not that hopeful about the prospects of getting this one going again.

 

Is there anything people can suggest I try before declaring life extinct?

 

Ta.

 

Chris

[MagicLamp]

Yeah, this one is probably a goner. Your best chances are tossing it, or if you're into the DIY spirit, attempt using some refill kits or even rejuvenating the lamp yourself.

[Chris Holland]

It has "Trident MFG M3 7NG" (Made in China) model 28290. It does not look as if the cap has ever been removed. I've now had it on for a fair few hours today and some wax has dropped to the bottom and occasionally rises but never quite makes it to the main mass at the top before dropping back down. Thanks for any advice.

[Chris Holland]

OK. I've wrapped the top half with tin foil and put an oven glove over this on insulate further. How hot can it go so as "not to overheat big time" ? :)

[Chris Holland]

ok. I've kept the wrapping to the top section. The wax is definietly liquid and "trying" to drop - anything I can do to help it?

[MagicLamp]

I had struggled for about a week with a similarly "stuck" lava lamp, and I used an external reflector lamp to selectively heat certain areas of the lamp, however getting all of the wax together proved to be a chore: similar to yours, it had split into chunks of very different density that wouldn't recombine under normal circumstances -some had become too dense to rise from the bottom, and some had become too light to ever sink. Only by toppling the lamp I could force some of the chunks to come in contact, but then they wouldn't recombine when heated, and would just separate and float away. The wax also started looking like a mixture of sand and axle grease...

Here's my story: Problem with "new" lava lamp, including pics of my external lamp setup. I hope you have better luck than me, I ended replacing the wax and fluid myself.

[Chris Holland]

It seems to be slowly being revived. I wrapped the top half of the vase with tin foil and wrapped that with a small towel and left it running for a few hours. This in itself did not change the situation, but the entire mass at the top did melt and some dropped to the bottom. The bottom wax then rose to the middle section before dropping down again. This was not improving, so figuring I had nothing to lose I carefully and slowly inverted the vase so that the air did not mix too badly with the liquid or wax, but wax did meet wax in the process. Once resettled this increased the wax at the bottom. Most importantly when I then turned the lamp off, the next morning all the wax was settled at the bottom. Turning back on, the cycing began and while it seems that about 40% of the wax is at the top at any one time - all the wax is now cycling. It's almost "upside down" and wax seems to drop and rise (as opposed to rise and drop). On the basis that these lamps are all "unique" in their waxing then I'm calling this success! Ta for all the help!