Have a 52 oz. lavalmp brand - lava flows for awhile (2-3 hours), then collects at top and stays quiescent

[Marky]

Is there a fairly easy fix for this? I already returned it once for a worse dud. Brake cleaner???
I think it may be one of the Chinese variants and that explains a lot I am sure and I don't want to
screw with it too much, but...

Any tried and true recommendations?

Thanks for any helpful ideas!

[Kris]

All lava lamps made today that are sold here in the USA are China made junk. Lamps sold by "Lava World" are the worst and not even worth a purchase. Some of the off brands flow better than the "original".

Anyways - your lamp is over heating. If you like "tinkering" you can attempt to fix it, but the outcome will probably not be good either way. Have you checked Craigslist for an older USA made lamp? I would give that a try. Once you have one, you will be AMAZED at how a lava lamp SHOULD look and work.

[Marky]

So you don't think altering the non-lava liquid with salt, brake cleaner or soap would help?

[Kris]

You can, but I and many others have been down that road. You can alter it and try, but the coil might fail, the wax might be bad. The list goes on. It really is not worth the time or money. Plus, you should NOT have to do that anyways. It should work out of the box. They rarely do.

[Marky]

I think that's worth a try! So, the deal is they chronically overheat in many units? Are the switches pretty inexpensive? Thanks!

[Marky]

In what "watershed" year did they start a downward quality trend and for what reasons?