Grande - need a hotter bulb for MT kit. Any suggestions?

[Verax]

Anyone had any luck with kitting a grande recently?  I did 2, and have the regular bulbs in them.  The problem is that the stock bulbs aren't producing enough heat to make the wax flow.

I did my grande starship, and that had enough room in the base for a full sized light bulb, so it was pretty easy.  The base heat on that sits around 116 degrees, and has great flow.  The base on my regular grande is 105 degrees, and I just have a melted blob on the bottom.

I've been scouring the web for either a clear version of the same bulb, or a higher wattage version, but no luck thus far.  Anyone dealt with his before?

[Christian BayLee]

My kitted grande works fine. Takes longer to heat up and get going than a regular grande but not by much. It must be your surfactant. How much did u use? I believe I went about 70 mL.

[Jim]

You can try using a socket extender.

[Verax]

Thanks all.  

I think a socket extender does the opposite of what I need to do.  I need to get more room, as a full sized bulb fits the socket, but extends too far, and the bottle would crush it.

As for the surf, I'm up past 110ML.  It's better, but still just a single column that rarely ever detaches.  :(

[Christian BayLee]

110 mL is too much... 60-80 is a good level. I did the calculations based on the directions and 78 mL is the ideal amount for a grande.

[Verax]

yup, same.  Which leads back to the only problem being not enough heat, and I still can't find a bulb that will do it.

I start my surf low (for grande = 40), then go up by 5ML increments until desired flow is achieved.  

[Christian BayLee]

Mine flows great on 70 mL, but I added too much dye. It was too bright and wanted to darken it, now it's too dark. Can't hardly see anything at night. So now it's a day lamp..

[Verax]

I've done that before :)

Most of my lamps with either food coloring, or highlighter ink fade pretty fast.  (usually within a month I can start to notice)  So, if you don't want to empty it and start over, just keep running it every day.  :)

[Christian BayLee]

I'm happy with it's look, it's just too dark for the night. Almost no light shines through it.

[Jim]

I'm confused, but that happens easily.  Are you not using a 100 watt spotlight bulb on the Grande?  If you are using one you should be able to add a socket extender and the globe should clear the top of the spotlight bulb.

Verax said:

Thanks all.  

I think a socket extender does the opposite of what I need to do.  I need to get more room, as a full sized bulb fits the socket, but extends too far, and the bottle would crush it.

As for the surf, I'm up past 110ML.  It's better, but still just a single column that rarely ever detaches.  :(

[Verax]

Oohh, I see, keeping the same bulb, but closing the distance from bulb to globe. I'll look into that. Good suggestion!

[Jim]

Precisely Verax!    You should be able to find the extender at pretty much ant hardware store.  Looks like what you see below.

Verax said:

Oohh, I see, keeping the same bulb, but closing the distance from bulb to globe. I'll look into that. Good suggestion!

[Verax]

Its on the way from Amazon now. I'll let you know if it worked on Wednesday night. :)