Colossus Lamps available!

[Charlie]

Found oozinggoo.com when I was looking for ways to repair the Grande I picked up at CostCo a few years ago.  It's one of the Chinese made ones that has gone extremely cloudy and ceased to flow (going to try replacing the fluid one of these weekends). 

It was here that I found out about really big Lava lamps.  I was bowled over by videos of the  Colossus lamps and really want to see if I could get one, I couldn't find them available anywhere so I wrote LavaLite.  I wanted to let this group know what I got this from Lava Lite today:

We have a special promo on the Colossus for serious buyers.   This will be the last time the Colossus will be seen.

Please see attached promo sheet with pricing included.

If you are interested please contact on my direct line at 630-496-6663.

 

Best regards,

 

Susan Michaels

Customer Service Representative

LAVA LITE

630-496-6663 direct line

[e-mail]

www.lavalite.com

Sadly these prices are outside of my discretionary funds, even though they include shipping.  I post it in hopes that someone here may be interested.

 

[T Saviiille]

I got my 2 colossus lamps(red/clear & yellow/purple) today via a 'straight' freight truck.
Everything was shipped upright and shrink wrapped to a pallet.
I managed to get everything loaded in the back of my pickup bed (i have a cap on it)
with the help of a weight belt....No i'll effects from that luckily..........

6 boxes total. I haven't opened anything up yet since  had to go back to work.
I assume the 2 small boxes contain bulbs.
2 medium boxes contains the bases.
And the the 2 large boxes obviously contain the globes.
The plan is:
01) unpack all the boxes at home and examine them closely.

02) bring new one to work this weekend and let it sit until Monday - acclimate to room temp

03) examine the bases and run them (without globes) this weekend to gauge cord/dimmer/bulb temps at various settings.
04) start running the new lamp monday.
      I plan on using whatever bulb/base they included(i assume its 250w). But i can always
      muck with using the 300w base from the yellow/clear colossus if i need to.

---

[Keith]

My guess is that in the last pic the water is too hot to allow the wax to flow, not enough temp variation between the two.

razerface said:

the overheat thing does not make sense to me,,,,

,if it is all at the top it is too hot,,,,,,if it is all at the bottom it is too hot.

how can both be true?

LOL

I crank my new colossus up friday! Guess I better learn quick huh?

[razerface]

would the density of the water change with the heat?  Get denser and hold down the wax?  I guess that would let it blob at the bottom, but if wax gets less dense with heat,,wouldn't water do the same?

Staring at my colossus when I got home. I am going to fire it up at 10pm tonite. I get up at 5am,,so it should be getting close when i get up. Gonna do the 70%.

Things are changing as it gets to room temp. It is 68 deg now.  The water has gone perfectly clear,,all suds are gone from the top. When you look at the wax,  it looks like beads of water gathering all over on top of the wax. What is that? I have not turned it on yet.

[ken mitc]

I went ahead and ordered the 200 watt br40 bulbs from norman lamps I think it would be safer to have the original bulbs used in the lamp imo. They will be here next week I will see how they perform.

[Don Souliere]

well this is my plan, gonna run it on a timer tomorrow (its a heavy duty one) and start the process at 12 noon. I get home at 6 pm and ill check it. I will run the lamp at 60% and turn it up when i get home depending on what i find. When I get home I will post a pic at what I find. this will be its first run. I plan to break it in for a week at 8 to 10 hours a day to see what happens. so wish me luck.

[Keith]

I don't think it's a density issue but a temp issue, as in the wax and water temp is the same throughout the lamp thus not allowing the wax to expand (decrease density) and rise.

But enough digression and back to Colossus ;)

razerface said:

would the density of the water change with the heat?  Get denser and hold down the wax?  I guess that would let it blob at the bottom, but if wax gets less dense with heat,,wouldn't water do the same?

Staring at my colossus when I got home. I am going to fire it up at 10pm tonite. I get up at 5am,,so it should be getting close when i get up. Gonna do the 70%.

Things are changing as it gets to room temp. It is 68 deg now.  The water has gone perfectly clear,,all suds are gone from the top. When you look at the wax,  it looks like beads of water gathering all over on top of the wax. What is that? I have not turned it on yet.

[razerface]

grrrr!!  my bulb lasted 13 minutes last night. Headed to town this morning to see if i can find a bulb.

[Kirk]

In run 4 of the 5 day Quality Manager fix-it program, I had a different result.  Thursday nights are bowling nights, so I didn't get home until 8p -- a little later than usual.  Of course, the first thing I do when getting home is check the Colossus.  

Last night, I found all of the wax had separated into 4 blobs suspended about halfway up the globe.  The coils were clean - no wax on them at all.

I dimmed it down for the night, and it's starting back up again for its 5th run today.  This purple/yellow runs nothing like my clear/red.

BridgetT - How is it going with your 2nd Colossus - your purple/pink?

[Bridget T]

Knock on wood, so far the purple/pink has been nothing but gorgeous. 

The p/y ran last night beautifully for about 3 hours, then blobbed....again.  They looked great while both were running a full flow side by side though.

I think Monday is going to be another chat w/Susan about a replacement for the p/y globe.

[T Saviiille]

Maybe someone can get something out of this verbage below.
Some of this is repetition from previous posts.

I have not yet unpacked the 2 colossus lamp globes that arrived yesterday.
Both of these are at home.

I also have a 3rd yellow/clear colossus that i obtained 2 weeks ago and have
been running with that 300w bulb/modified base i've been blathering on about.
(This one will be going to my electrician brother...who actually collects lava lamps).
This one is at work.

I did open the box containing one of the new bases.
It seemed to me that the inside of the new base is different than the base for the 300w colossus.

For the new base, its **looks** like the bulb socket bracket is shorter and that the
bulb sits further down in the base and would be further away from the bottom of the globe. I have not taken any measurements of either base. Maybe the new base was design this way because of the temp characteristics of the 250w bulb that came with the new lamp?


I’ll have to over analyze, take pics, measurements, temp readings etc for both base types and post them when I get the chance.


One more item.
If I were you, I would handle all bulb with gloved hands and avoid getting finger prints/skin oils etc on them. This can create hot spots on the bulbs.

 

[razerface]

i bought a 250w sylvania bulb. It mesasures 271 deg at full power!  These are actually heat lamps!  Anybody measure their heat from bulb?

[Brent]

I just ordered mine. It doesn't sound like they have many left. I wanted a table but they were out.

Can someone please post picks of the glass piece and table bracket. I would like to try and make one.

 

Thank you Charlie for the original post. I would have never known about these and I've wanted one since I started collecting lava.