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.

 

[Ben]

My first run of the purple/yellow has begun and all is well. I can't keep my eyes off it! It's been percolating since I left for work this morning and since I've been home I've been fiddling with the dimmer. As I watch, the wax has accumulated at the top and I've seen bare coil, but I have been dropping the dimmer down bit by bit and the flow balances out pretty quickly and things bounce back to a nice flow. It seems like the trick is to balance between overheating/top blobbing and underheating/lazy flow. I will continue to monitor it. I predict it will be like having a pet, and pets need love and attention. So far, it is beautiful! I'm getting the feeling that every Lava Lite should have a dimmer! Can't wait to see what it's doing in the morning. I'm suspecting even minor variations in ambient temps will cause the need for minute adjustments.

[Ben]

8am update: Still has gorgeous flow with the knob at about 55%. I say 55% based on distance between "clicked off" and full blast, not based on when the bulb starts to light up. The globe temperature is about 104-107 degrees bottom to top, and our house is about 74 degrees (we like it toasty!) We do not have forced air heat. It is set up in the dining room at the moment but will eventually be in our finished basement and i would expect more adjustments with the different temps down there. I'm pleasantly surprised and I wish everyone else had such good results.

[T Saviiille]

this is just an update.

i received a purple/yellow colossus last week and have been running it with my modified base(that i use with a clear/yellow colossus....
with a 300w bulb...not a special heat bulb) since monday.

I haven't had any real problems that i can tell, but maybe i'm not really picky?
I turn it down to just below 200w at night and then muck with it the next day.

I have not run it with the base/250 heat bulb that it came with
(which i assume is the same configuration that everyone else
has received with their recent colossus purchase)
I'll let it cool down over the weekend and start from scratch
next monday with this.

[Kirk]

Ben - If your dimmer switch were a clock face, where would the hour hand be pointing?

[Ben]

I told Susan I would sell a kidney on the black market to finance a second Colossus. She wrote back:

"Ben,

I can hold a red and clear for you and when you think you will have the finances let me know.
Give me a tentative date to ship.


Best regards,

Susan Michaels"

--Aaaaagh, so tempting! But the wife would never approve, and for good reason. One is expensive enough! But really, how many kidneys does one person need, anyway? I know I need 2 Colossi!

[Ben]

Kirk,
I think that might depend on the clock position of the original dimmer install. Assuming your "OFF" position is the same as mine (straight up / 12 o'clock) I have the knob at about 5 o'clock or maybe halfway between 5 and 6. My full blast position is about halfway between 9 and 10. I'll try to post a photo at my "happy place" but I've been having trouble posting pics.

Ben



Kirk said:

Ben - If your dimmer switch were a clock face, where would the hour hand be pointing?

[Al Chemysto]

I wish I could find the sweet spot on mine. Frankly I feel like we shouldn't have to do all this "on the fly" adjusting.

It seems like no matter what setting I put it on, I get MAYBE 2 hours of entertaining flow and then blobs hovering just above the coil.  Turning it off for an hour and then back on cause a brief flow and then it quickly settles back in to hovering blobs.This has been the case with approximate settings at:

70%

60%

50%

Now at 50% when the goes into the "hovering blobs" state, if I turn the lamp up to 100% I get maybe a half hour of brief flow before it goes back to blobs.

Lowering the heat after getting blobs does nothing either. 

The dial might be the worst design flaw on this thing. I can turn my dial from the clicked off position to over 50% around before the lamps first fires and I know this because I tested the lamp before placing the globe on the base. So the "effective area" to dial in the performance of the lamp is quite small. I feel like the slightest turn can make it too hot or not hot enough. I'm going to keep adjusting it until I can find "the balance" the produces no blobs. Once I determine that I'm going to plug it into a pass through on/off switch (I have a timer that let's me do this) and use the pass through switch to turn it off and on and NEVER touch the dial again.

Another possible "solution" that is really a cop out fix if LL doesn't make good on an exchange, is to buy a timer with multiple programmable on/off settings to cycle the lamp on and off to keep it from overheating AND to time it's operation when I will be able to enjoy it the most. So basiclly timing it so that the optimum 2 hour window is when I'll actually be in front of it to see it. What a pain in the ass and disappointment that will be if that turns out to be the only solution

LL, IF they decide to make new versions, really needs to put incremental values on this dial AND warn users that these things are not likely to get anywhere near  "8 hours" of good flow. I suspect their calculation of 8 hours includes start up time and if that's the case than these lamps are worthless. I bought this lamp for long sessions of enjoyment not a brief window I'm likely to miss if I blink.

Is there such a think as a timer based programmable dimer that can cycle the power of the lamp to keep it perfect?

[Ben]

Not to disappoint you further, but I'm going on about 18 hours of good flow. I see coils now & again but it always flows back down. I don't think I've had it turned any higher than 60-70% the whole time. It's quite happy at 55%. What is the temp of your room? The globe? Do you have an infrared thermometer? My Extech thermometer was about $40 at Harbor Freight. I use it for everything and it has been very handy for the Colossus.

I was wondering the same thing about programmable / dim-able timers but I don't know if such an animal exists. What if you had two timers and two heat sources? That's what I do with the lights on my aquariums. The daytime lights are controlled by one timer and the nighttime ones on another timer, with opposing on/off cycles. What if you did the same with a smaller "kicker" bulb in the base that creates just enough heat to keep the wax soft when you're not watching, with another timer for the regular 250w bulb? Then you wouldn't have to worry about some kind of automatic dimming setup.

Just an idea from the mad scientist portion of my brain. Short of doing this kind of setup, I intend to unplug rather than turn off the switch when I want it off.





Al Chemysto said:

I wish I could find the sweet spot on mine. Frankly I feel like we shouldn't have to do all this "on the fly" adjusting.

It seems like no matter what setting I put it on, I get MAYBE 2 hours of entertaining flow and then blobs hovering just above the coil.  Turning it off for an hour and then back on cause a brief flow and then it quickly settles back in to hovering blobs.This has been the case with approximate settings at:

70%

60%

50%

Now at 50% when the goes into the "hovering blobs" state, if I turn the lamp up to 100% I get maybe a half hour of brief flow before it goes back to blobs.

Lowering the heat after getting blobs does nothing either. 

The dial might be the worst design flaw on this thing. I can turn my dial from the clicked off position to over 50% around before the lamps first fires and I know this because I tested the lamp before placing the globe on the base. So the "effective area" to dial in the performance of the lamp is quite small. I feel like the slightest turn can make it too hot or not hot enough. I'm going to keep adjusting it until I can find "the balance" the produces no blobs. Once I determine that I'm going to plug it into a pass through on/off switch (I have a timer that let's me do this) and use the pass through switch to turn it off and on and NEVER touch the dial again.

Another possible "solution" that is really a cop out fix if LL doesn't make good on an exchange, is to buy a timer with multiple programmable on/off settings to cycle the lamp on and off to keep it from overheating AND to time it's operation when I will be able to enjoy it the most. So basiclly timing it so that the optimum 2 hour window is when I'll actually be in front of it to see it. What a pain in the ass and disappointment that will be if that turns out to be the only solution

LL, IF they decide to make new versions, really needs to put incremental values on this dial AND warn users that these things are not likely to get anywhere near  "8 hours" of good flow. I suspect their calculation of 8 hours includes start up time and if that's the case than these lamps are worthless. I bought this lamp for long sessions of enjoyment not a brief window I'm likely to miss if I blink.

Is there such a think as a timer based programmable dimer that can cycle the power of the lamp to keep it perfect?

[Al Chemysto]

Susan said to give t tas much of 3 weeks of use gradually of placing the lamp at 100% then dialing down gradually 10% at a time over the hours of operation, I guess until it settles into a non-blob floating continual flow.

So you heard it here 1st folks. 3 weeks to get it flowing properly or it goes back for exchange or refund

[Jethro]

I'm considering one.  How is the flow?  How do you fade you lamps...change the water or use bleach?

Tim said:

Well I have 2 pink/purple globes now and 1 base so I think I might fade one and have a pink/clear.

[Bridget T]

Well my replacement globe is on the way but they are also sending me 2-200w light bulbs as their QC guy still thinks it' heat related.

I'll install one just to see if it makes a difference, but I'm not sure there is a ton of difference between the two bulbs when dimmed to such low levels anyway.

[Jethro]

Think about buying one (or a pink/purple).  Really interested in your opinion.

What happens if you try to warm it up slowly?  You may have to play with the chemistry to get it to run properly...or return it.

lalalava said:

anyone else have any probs with the red/clears?