There are no problems, always solutions..

[IdOrU 02]

I've recently bought an heritage line at Mathmos, black astro with clear liquid and deep plump lava.. That, when turned off, is just a perfect black/clear/black.

The problem is when on, you can see it is not a black lava, not in the bubbles but near the bulb where lava gathers and the problem in fact is that bulb.. I'm no Mathmos scientific formula expert and even them as it seems if I'm not mistaken by the unsatisfied customers of the electronic line of astros, are they ? Who owns these with heater ? How does it performs ?

Because I'd really like to find a way to solve that bulb thing..

[Johnny]

are you saying you have a bulb problem or the colour of the wax colour from the bulb?

 

i have one of them bottles, and is more plumy colour, i found the bottle heated up alot faster on my copper base, due to expect the wax colour,   i was hoping it be more black black colour but clearly night time u can see the redish plum tint. 

 

I tried filling a jet bottle to get a black base black bottle, the wax breaks up into small fast flowing blobs so im guessing the wax and colour effects the heat

[Alfred]

I'm not sure what's wrong. What you describe is exactly what the lamp is supposed to look like.

[IdOrU 02]

I was saying that if someone had a little mind at Mathmos they'd already made a great lamp by switching the bulb to an electronic heater for this particular lamp because if sometime a bulb is required and welcomed like for the "light"/clearish lava, for a dark or a black one the light is counterproductive because in that particular case it clearly shows that the lava isn't black.

If you prefer, in a dark one, the interesting light isn't in it, it is outside to be reflected upon. For mathmos or any new lamp with a crystal clear liquid, when light reflects on the flowing lava it becomes a perfect example of Mulder's black oil. And I like it that way.

So my point was, how to replace a bulb by an electronic heater ? No return from owners of the ceramic line at Mathmos ?

[IdOrU 02]

What do you mean ?

[Johnny]

im still confused, if you want to get more black than the plum colour youd need a black light bulb, or black glass paint and paint the bottom of the bottle, but i expect it will get hotter and over heat.

im guessing you want to see the lava flowing totaly black with no plum showing, maybe wax dye "purple" would do it

[Keith]

Something like this, reptile heat "lamp";

No light output.  Light with backlighting or accent lights.

[Rodrigo]

A "true" black color is extremely hard to achieve for almost anything (textile dyes, paint, wax, etc) and is usually done by over saturating dark colors like purples and browns until it "looks" black but it's not truly black. That's why when a lot of light (particularly white/soft-white) shines and reflects off the "black" wax it gives off the true color which is a dark and overly saturated purple/plum color.

The only way to get that effect would be to use no light what-so-ever. For that your best bet is a ceramic heat emitter for reptiles, like Keith said. The problem you may have is that those usually come in 50+ watts which is gonna be too hot for a astro lamp, also the heat emitters are quite big, I use one for my tortoise and I doubt I can fit it into a lava lite 52oz base but not sure about a mathmos base.

[Tim Gill]

Mathmos has made a heat plate - that's how the smart astros were made but they had problems with it so probably why the smart astros have been discontinued. 

The reptile heat lamp looks interesting - if it would fit then just use a dimmer to control the heat. 

Making something 'black' is verry hard as black is just the absence of light in Mathmos defense they do openly say its plum not black it does look good none the less but I do agree that it is not night sky black.

[Johnny]

oh i didnt realise the smarts had be discontinude, i best get a replacement bottle for mine while i can

[IdOrU 02]

This is too bad that line got stopped indeed just because of this age of led lamps. The reptile heater plus a dimmer sounds just like I thought in the first place, the only thing is to see if it can be retrofitted in an astro base... I was thinking also about that ceramic heater Mathmos used, do you think this kind of thing can be found in electronic stuff ?

[Tim Gill]

You will be able to get replacement bottles easley - Mathmos stock replacement bottles for past lamps. 

I am a bit bummed that they got discontinued - i wanted a yellow - blue or something but I guess its eBay where I will find one

Johnny said:

oh i didnt realise the smarts had be discontinude, i best get a replacement bottle for mine while i can