Neon Green Heratige Grande

[Ian]

So my heratige grande used to flow perfectly when I got it. No bubbles, very stretchy flow, amazing. After about 6 runs, it only send up pea sized blobs, with a bubble in each one. The bubbles are the reason it sends up such small blobs! It does not ever stop sending bubbles through the wax. It is like a bubble every second. But when it gets fully heated up, it will form a column and look amazing and some more big blobs, but all of the wax goes up to the top and then when it breaks from the column, there is not enough wax in the bottom and it sends up little blobs until all of the wax disconnects from the spring! It is very frustrating, because then the wax slowly oozes down from the top until it is all at the bottom and then it doesnt fully reconnect, so it sits in the bottom in either one or two giant blobs not doing anything.

I have tried dimming it ever so slightly before it stops flowing, but then it starts sending up only the pea sized blobs again and never does anything else. Its like it doesnt get hot enough, but I adjust the dimmer so slightly that I cant even tell that I adjusted it. Should I just keep running it and see if it fixes itself? I do not want to open it up and mess with it, but I love the color and flow until it all disconnects.

[VOXul]

I am also experiencing blobs, slightly bigger than grapes, shoot off the main blob at the bottom.  It never seems to send up a larger blob to float around. The biggest one ends up being the top cap blob once it gains enough to drop back down. It ran great a couple times and is now on its 4th full run.

I can see a surge of wax rip up through the center of the main blob but it breaks off too early instead of pulling a good amount of wax up. Majority of wax just sits and stews at the bottom sending grapes up...

Don't think it is overheating as my other yellow/purple grande base will warm your hand up enough to wanna let go in real quick where the heritage doesn't hurt that bad. The yellow/purple flows perfect!

[Rodrigo]

A lot of people here on OG have been having problems with the latest heritage grandes that only have one coil. It's been a huge debate why LL has made some lamps with 2 coils and some with just one, some members have contacted Susan about this and she denied and refused to admit there were ever any grandes with 2 coils made. When members produced videos and picture evidence and was sent to her, she continued to deny and later (after she did some investigation) she concluded that the reason why some early globes had 2 coils was simply a production error on china, which has been corrected and now they only come with one which for some reason flows fine a handful of times, then stops. Mine did the same as yours, so did Joanne's and several other members.

Some ppl have opened them and added a coil and that's fixed it completely, I suggest you call Susan and DONT mention OG because she's apparently tired of dealig with this "no flow, pea shooter" issue that she swears only a small number of ppl only here on OG have encountered it while everyone else has a single coil lamp that flows fine.

I talked to her for 30 minutes on Friday about the single coil thing and she wasn't happy, she said only a few ppl have had this issue you both have and I did too and I know at least four others had as well and she said she's been trying to recreate it so that she could find a cause but no matter what she tried she can't recreate this "pea shooter" behavior... I would give her a call, be very nice and make her aware that more and more people are having this no flow issue after a few cycles and it's definitely coil related.

[Jim]

This is all on Lava Lite, but in my opinion, its not a one coil versus two coil issue.  Its more an issue with providing proper heat to the globe.  That being said, I see two options.

1. Add a second coil which should add a minimal amount of additional heat
2. Raise the socket which should add a moderate amount of additional heat

My personal experience in making my own Neon Grandes.  Standard Grande base with a 100 watt R20 bulb was super sluggish using a single coil.  I chose to go the route of what you do when you want to run a Giant globe on a Grande base and I added a socket extender.  Single coil + a socket extender and I get a very quick heat up, killer flow and a REAL need for a dimmer on the base.  My home brew Neon Grandes heat up (spike --> flow) in a fraction of the time of a Heritage Grande.  My Heritage Grande (dual coil) does eventually provide killer flow, but its like watching paint dry waiting for that come.  Its very slow to spike as well.  My opinion is that, with the socket height and dual coil, the Heritage Grande runs with just enough heat to get it to eventually flow (and it does flow great).  The dimmer is pretty much worthless due to this just enough heat situation.  Removing the 2nd coil lowered the heat just below the threshold needed for proper flow.

I won't dwell on this as I got flamed for this suggestion earlier, but troubleshooting the Heritage Grande is like a statistical equation.  You need to isolate the variables.  Is Susan able to match the ambient temperature that is existing in your homes when you try to run the lamp?  Or is Susan running the Heritage Grande in Ashour's lab where there are likely dozens of other lamps running, thus boosting the ambient temperature?

Rodrigo said:

A lot of people here on OG have been having problems with the latest heritage grandes that only have one coil. It's been a huge debate why LL has made some lamps with 2 coils and some with just one, some members have contacted Susan about this and she denied and refused to admit there were ever any grandes with 2 coils made. When members produced videos and picture evidence and was sent to her, she continued to dent and later (after she did some investigation) she concluded that the reason why some early globes had 2 coils was simply a production error on china, which has been corrected and now they only come with one which for some reason flows fine a handful of times, then stops. Mine did the same as yours, so did Joanne's and several other members.

Some ppl have opened them and added a coil and that's fixed it completely, I suggest you call Susan and DONT mention OG because she's apparently tired of dealig with this "no flow, pea shooter" issue that she swears only a small number of ppl only here on OG have encountered it while everyone else has a single coil lamp that flows fine.

I talked to her for 30 minutes on Friday about the single coil thing and she wasn't happy, she said only a few ppl have had this issue you both have and I did too and I know at least four others had as well and she said she's been trying to recreate it so that she could find a cause but no matter what she tried she can't recreate this "pea shooter" behavior... I would give her a call, be very nice and make her aware that more and more people are having this no flow issue after a few cycles and it's definitely coil related.

[Ian]

Well the thing is, that I can get it hot enough to flow fine, but when it does flow fine, most of the time it literally all disconnects from the coil because of the amount of bubbles it sends up. If I turn down the dimmer slightly so that this doesnt happen, it just sends up pea shooters. When it all disconnects, sometimes it will reconnect at the bottom, but if it doesnt, it sits in either one or two blobs, half connected to the coil, and does absolutely nothing. I have to turn it off and let it cool down for it to reconnect. Its a slightly different issue than not getting hot enough, because it does get hot enough. I have never seen a lava lamp completely blob itself off of the coil the way it does before, and it doesnt even get overheated. I have seen plenty of other lamps disconnect from the coil from overheating. If enough lava makes it down in time, it wont disconnect from the coil. That is when it is flowing fine. And then it will disconnect later on. I cant seem to run it without it disconnecting from the coil.

My purple and yellow grande barely gets hot enough to flow, it was made back in 2006, but it gets so hot I literally cannot touch it. I can grab and hold all of my other lamps, the neon grande included, so the neon grande definitely does not get as hot as other grandes, but my neon still flows.

I have noticed, however, that it is flowing better and the times that it does disconnect it always reconnects at the bottom. I think maybe it just needs to be broken in more, but we will see.

I have contacted Susan about an issue with the clearview, I bought one at Target and it had a dented base and cap, and it wasnt from shipping because it was like something small had impacted the side and left an indent. So she sent me a replacement because Target was all out of that color. But anyways, I asked about the new clearview globes, because they are wider that traditional 32oz globes, and so the clearview base is wider also and she said it wasnt, that it was the same size as every 32oz globe. I said I had put my rainbow globe on it and it didnt fit, so she told me that the rainbow globe is a 20oz and they never made a 32oz rainbow globe. Spencers, however, carries the 32oz rainbow globe, and we all know this here. So why would she say that? And the clearview is different, because my traditional globes dont fit on it, there is a small gap all the way around from the base edge and the globe.

I think Ill pass on contacting Susan, because the factory is obviously keeping things from her or something..

[Ian]

I hope that doesn't seem too confusing haha. But maybe I can try to get some pics of it and upload them.

[Ian]

Both my neon heratige grande and my purple and yellow grande have one coil.

[Rodrigo]

Jim, in the newer heritage grandes, there is NO raising the bulb. Lava lite already did that for us when they removed one coil, like you say, its either 2 coils and far bulb, or 1 coil and closer bulb.

In these newer ones LL has corrected that and Susan told me this herself on Friday, they realised the bulbs were too far down so they raised them and now its like 1/4 from the globe, if the bulb isnt screwed all the way into the socket it will touch the globe, its also NOT a heat issue, i took a infrared thermometer to both my first heritage with 2 coils and my second heritage with 1 coil and after 10 hours of flow the second heritage with the closer bulb and single coil was consistently hotter by several degrees C so the closer bulb IS getting it hotter, but why will it still not flow until a second coil is added? I really dont know, but as soon as one was added to mine, it was day and night.

Ian, its not temperature related, definitely coil related. You can call susan and shell give you a refund if youre unhappy with it, shes also already told me "I dont think some of you guys at OG will be happy with anything we come up with" so she would rather refund your money as replacement lamps will exhibit the same behavior with some time. (and i think she knows this but wont admit it openly)

I also think enough of us here have added coils to prove that a second coil get this thing flowing, whether its because more heat needs to get to the wax or because the wax has nothing to hold on to (Ian's case) then a second coil will fix.

Ian, mine occasionally did the full disconnect thing when i let it on full blast for a while, if i dimmed it, it just shot peas so i let it get really really hot at full bast, got nothing more than peas until it disconnected.

[VOXul]

Great input on this situation.  In my observation, having a heritage neon green and a standard yellow/purple is this:

The standard grande has the lower bulb, dual coil and no dimmer. It flows absolutely perfect for hours, reaches the temperature of the sun.

The neon green heritage has one coil, the vessel is so close to the bulb you would swear the bulb was supporting the weight of the vessel and has a dimmer. It hits a good flow point but seems to progress to the grape shooter in my case. 

What is weird is that the heritage doesn't quite reach the same temp as the standard in terms of base temperature, not vessel. I have swapped bulbs between the lamps to see if maybe the wattage was off on the heritage bulb.  I should have them both flowing by this afternoon as I just kicked them on from an all night cool down. Will update with any findings from a bulb swap.

The hot lava behavior on the heritage is almost like the edge of the lava blob gets super heated by the one coil and sends that convection in towards the center and causes the small amount of wax to be propelled upward through a somewhat cooler surface temp of the main blob. What is strange though is if I turn the dimmer down slightly the lava starts to regain a larger mass and begins to send up larger blobs for a while before it becomes too cool to propel up.  I think the single coil is scorching the lava edge in a sense and when brought down in temp is not heating enough to maintain a good flow.  Seems like there is some sweet spot for the single coil but that cannot be locked in.

That is strange Susan said there was never a dual coil, I just lifted my standard grande from the base and sure enough 2 coils.  I just purchased this lamp from Amazon 2 weeks ago,  with the Heritage arriving about a week later. The heritage did run magnificent for the first couple runs, large blobs, small blobs even columns from top to bottom.  It flowed like the standard but now seems to grape shoot. Maybe the recipe is just prone to overheating easier or something even though the temperature doesn't seem to hit as hot as the standard. Also note that the standard spikes and starts flowing a good hour or two before the heritage starts melting spikes down. Standard is surely getting hotter as a whole though they are both running the same bulb.  There are weird variable discrepancies going on, same wattage-ones hotter, different bulb heights-lower placement of the standard seems to heat more, wax consistency is more gel like in the heritage-standard seems more like old recipe. 

As of now, the standard puck is starting to do it's ascent sideways before spiking while the heritage is growing a wart off the side that looks like it wants to spike, this wont spike but rather pop a hole and shoot grapes then it will start to spike a bit. 

[Rodrigo]

Nick, mine did the same thing. I have 2 pink heritage lamps, one with 2 coils and one with just one.

The one with a single coil came in later, as a replacement and flowed fine for a week, then became a pea shooter no matter how hot, dimmed or full power you set it to. I opened it up, dropped in a 52oz coil and IMMEDIATELY it began to flow amazingly. I am 150% convinced that this is a coil issue, there are other members who also opened their single coiled heritage grandes to add a coil, same result, immediate beautiful flow with 2 coils. Theres nothing anyone can say that will convince me otherwise or change my mind at this point. Ive witnessed this first hand with my own lamps, the thing DID NOT FLOW no matter how hot, i even turned the ac off and let the house get to 80 degrees (i live in florida) and still nothing until i added that second coil. Now it warms up quicker than the first heritage since the bulb is closer and achieves the same flow way faster, the dimmer is actually useful to control the flow from single columns to big blobs to tons of small blobs if i turn it up and leave it up, if i dim, i get bigger blobs that turn into columns. I added a coil and dont regret it one bit, the only other option there is at this point is a refund. Any replacement globe or lamp will eventually do the same thing.

[Ian]

If you go to images, I posted in sequence what happens to my grande. I can't get a pic of what happens when it doesn't reconnect, cause it has been reconnecting (thank god) so maybe the issue with mine is cleared up. But as you can see, it gets plenty hot enough to flow. The pictures show it dimmed down a little, so it's not even at full power. It doesn't need to be. It is on day 3 of it not being at full power, and it has been flowing exactly like the pictures show. in that sequence. Its weird, I think.

[VOXul]

I am leaning on this as well.  The single coil is causing a sub par convection to send the wax up.  Still strange that the bases themselves show a noticeably different temperature from one another after being on for hours, standard being much hotter.  So... this lamp being 2 weeks old for me, never having opened a lamp or have any coils (the smaller one found in the dual coil standard grande) I wonder what I should do.  The globe and wax of the Heritage is flawless and would love to keep it and get it working right... Oh Lava why do you put me in this position.  You don't happen to live in Denver Rodrigo, haha?  Have a spare coil and the know how to add it properly and get her sealed back up right? haha

Rodrigo said:

Nick, mine did the same thing. I have 2 pink heritage lamps, one with 2 coils and one with just one.

The one with a single coil came in later, as a replacement and flowed fine for a week, then became a pea shooter no matter how hot, dimmed or full power you set it to. I opened it up, dropped in a 52oz coil and IMMEDIATELY it began to flow amazingly. I am 150% convinced that this is a coil issue, there are other members who also opened their single coiled heritage grandes to add a coil, same result, immediate beautiful flow with 2 coils. Theres nothing anyone can say that will convince me otherwise or change my mind at this point. Ive witnessed this first hand with my own lamps, the thing DID NOT FLOW no matter how hot, i even turned the ac off and let the house get to 80 degrees (i live in florida) and still nothing until i added that second coil. Now it warms up quicker than the first heritage since the bulb is closer and achieves the same flow way faster, the dimmer is actually useful to control the flow from single columns to big blobs to tons of small blobs if i turn it up and leave it up, if i dim, i get bigger blobs that turn into columns. I added a coil and dont regret it one bit, the only other option there is at this point is a refund. Any replacement globe or lamp will eventually do the same thing.

[Rodrigo]

Unfortunately no, im not in Denver lol! but i could walk you through it if youd like. Your other option would be to contact LL and have them send a replacement, maybe that one wont act up. I would try a few more cycles and see if you get anywhere with it, before you open it at least. Opening it last resort since that will void the warranty and LL will not replace it after you do open it. I would try for a replacement first.