Fixing a cloudy Lava Lamp: Low Budget Filters and Refill
I found a 10-15 years old, cloudy lava lamp on a local internet marketplace website, and for a price of just 2€ I just couldn't pass. I tried to get it cleaned up with only using simple stuff I had at home, no ordering or buying anything expensive. I put a lot of effort into the video editing (took me two full days), so even with how ridiculously long this video ended up, I hope it's still worth a watch.
== SHORT GUIDE FOR QUICK FIXERS ==
This is just what I did, no guarantee it will work on 100% of lamps. It also might recloud over time, but that's a (hopefully pretty low) risk I was willing to take.
1) GET OFF BOTTLE CAP: 05:05
Expect either glue (like my Mathmos has) or crimping. Against glue, try hot water dipping or a heat gun. Against crimping, try prying it open with a small, sharp tool.
2) POUR OUT OLD LIQUID: 10:22
Maybe put it in a container and keep it, in case you ever want it back. In any case, measure the amount (ml/oz) for later use.
3) RINSE BOTTLE WITH TAP WATER: 10:33
Do this multiple times, until the rinsing water stays completely clean.
4) FILL BOTTLE WITH TAP WATER: 11:09
Leave around 2cm/1inch space under the edge of the lid, so you have space for the brine.
5) TURN ON LAMP, WAIT FOR WAX TO MELT COMPLETELY: 11:13
The wax probably will move little or not at all, which is normal. In case you see air bubbles, don't worry, they should go away after around 30 minutes.
6) MAKE BRINE (=SALT SOLUTION): 12:36
I used 160g water and 40g salt. For imperial units, 4oz water and 1oz salt should be fine. You don't need as much (I only needed 25g brine) but it makes mixing and scooping it up easier.
7) ADD BRINE REPEATEDLY IN SMALL AMOUNTS: 13:10
For a 500ml/30oz lamp, adding about 4g of brine at a time seems like a good compromise. You can use a small spoon, a syringe, a pipette or just a straw you hold closed at the top. Wait at least 1-2 minutes after every addition for the wax to settle down. If the lamp keeps on flowing satisfactory after ~10 minutes, it should be fine.
8) FILL UP/POUR OFF WATER: (FORGOT ON VIDEO)
If there is a little gap left under the edge of the top part, fill it up. If there is too much liquid, pour off until just above the edge.
9) SEAL LAMP AGAIN: 06:59
Screw, glue or crimp the bottle cap back onto the bottle, or improvise something. It doesn't need to be waterproof, except you expect the lamp to maybe get knocked over at some point. It might lose tiny amounts of water over time to evaporation if it's not completely sealed, but you can always top it up with a little tap water.
== FILTERING WAX ==
If your wax also contains some dirt or grime, add these steps between 3) and 4)
3.1) MELT WAX IN WATER BATH: 16:26
Put the bottle in cold water. Make sure no water can get in at the top, then turn on the heat and bring the water to about 70C/100F. Turn it off and wait for 10-15 minutes, and the wax should be completely molten.
3.2) FILTER WAX: 17:02
Take an (old) pantyhose, cut off a 20cm piece from the middle of a leg and wrap it around a small bowl (metal is best). Pour the wax through the pantyhose, and it should catch all the grime.
3.3) CLEAN BOTTLE AND SPRING: 18:53
You can use paint thinner, acetone or something similar if you have it on hand, but just soap and a bottle brush should be fine too.
3.4) REMELT WAX: 19:48
Put the bowl in a 70C/100F waterbath to completely melt the wax again.
3.5) POUR WAX BACK IN BOTTLE: 19:56
Preheat the funnel, and angle the bottle a small amount for the wax to glide in along the bottom part of the wall, to avoid splattering.
3.6) WAIT UNTIL WAX IS COMPLETLY SOLID: 20:04
Don't continue too early, or the water will rip apart the wax again. Two hours should be fine. Then go on to step 4).
== LINKS ==
Reddit guide by u/Antnee83: / glgqba
Oozing goo unclouding guide: oozinggoo.ning.com/page/cloudy
Oozing goo refill guide: oozinggoo.ning.com/page/repla...
== TIMESTAMPS ==
00:00 Intro
00:35 Inspecting lamp
04:07 Preparation
06:00 Coffee filter
07:55 Sponge filter
10:18 Replacing liquid
15:54 Filtering wax
20:55 Redying (gone wrong)
23:17 Outro
Never thought this video would hold my attention, however, I watched it in its entirety. Great work done Sir and I absolutely respect your tenacity. I learnt a lot which will help in my making a long cherished lava lamp. Thank you.
I love your persistence, your ingenuity, your empiricism, and also, your desire to push limits. It was there that you achieved the near-perfect---and there also---the total ruin of what you had set out to accomplish!! But you really broke the entire system down, and I'd say, went well beyond the Reddit standard. I watched every minute of it, and know how many exhausting hours went into the production and post production of this video. You have the makings of a good documentarian and videographer! And alas, you also have the quality perfectionism! Thanks and I look forward to seeing more!
Thanks, and you're pretty damn good at writing wholesome comments 😊
empiricism - and *i* totally appreciate knowing an actual salinity level - 1% !! :D
Shut up you should look up words before you use them
Blows My mind how great this video was very detailed.
Thanks for the knowledge and effort that telling me to just get the Mathmos.
OMG HOW MUCH WORK WENT THROUGH THIS , i just bought a lavalamp and its cloudy as heck my dissapointment is huge , but this video brought a big smile on my face , the efforts and he specifically went for easy to find materials filters and panty hose , sponges are available 😀, i will try destiled water from the air-conditioner and update u guys , now i know its okay to throw the original water with no big . fear .
How did it go?
waiting for your update!
You're a mad scientist XD but thanks to your experiments I now understand lava lamps better and feel confident to fix mine. Thank you!
I made it to the end! Love the quotes you put in the video, as well as overall construction of the whole thing! Not only did you get a like from me, but a new follower as well! Thank you for existing!
Very good. Thanks for not just taking the time to nerd the project, but for documenting it here for me and others to see and learn from.
This was insanely entertaining and informative. I loved how well you documented every step (must have taken ages!), and your insistence on the low-budget DIY approach. Great stuff! I'd love for you to revisit that restoration project, and bring that lamp back together with some properly dyed paraffin wax. Maybe you can figure out a cheap solution for that as well!
Wow this was exactly what I needed! Thank you so much- I feel so much more prepared to fix my lava lamp now. Thank you!
Man, this video is really great! I cannot express how fun it was to see the whole process and ideas, now I just want to change the water of my lava lamp and this video motivates me more!
Also have this one, but in green. Wanted to clean it for a longer time, thanks for the guide!
Thank you!! This is EXACTLY what’s going on with a second hand lamp I just bought! Thank you SOOOOOO MUCH!!! now I know what to do to fix all its issues!! Bless you sir! ❤
I loved this video and your experimentation process. Thanks for documenting it and sharing your discoveries. I watched the whole thing and wished there was more!
Working on building a whole lamp from scratch atm, using tea lights as wax. Might take a few months, but there will be more 😇
@@Makstuff That's very cool to hear! I can imagine it will be brilliant.. I would like to learn how to do the same so I will be watching your videos closely :)
Very cool work through! I have a broken coil on one lamp and a bit of hazing as well.... thanks for proving the ineffectiveness of the coffee filters. Good luck!
I totally watched this all the way through! Very relaxing. You are smart, geeky, detailed, and curious! I love it :-)
Fabulous video! Thanks so much for your efforts!
Thanks for your time and knowledge . You have nice voice .
Loved this video so much! I can’t even say how much I enjoyed it!
What an absolutely brilliant and entertaining video! Thank you.
Great video, very helpful! My Lava lamp has some clouding and the blue wax has some pinky white parts
Wow you did a great job
Amazing video, very nice music and editing overall!
Nice experimenting and great solutions found. Cool video
Trabajo admirable!!! Gracias por este video Dos de mis lampara por mas que les cambio el agua con sal sin sal y regule la temperatura la cera queda arriba y parte se pega a los costados. Espero ansiosa tu video desde cero 🤗
Very nice and useful video! Thanks
Good video, I recycled a lava lamp and only the light was burnt out, now I know how it is filled and what materials it takes. thank you
Greetings from Germany. I´m a Fan of the Mathmos Lava Lamps and i like your Videos. I have an Astro and a little Fireflow.
Very helpful video
Nice video!
Klasse gemacht, vielen Dank!
That was pretty awesome video man keep it up!
Could have saved the cap, used clamps to squeeze the bottle😂😂😂... BEST VIDEO EVER!!
The video was so good, because I've barely see anyone giving so much love to restore something and at 20:30 I tought "Wow, he put so much afford in it and finally did it! He saved so many resources on this planet and refurbished this lava lamp." This is really sustainable, until I saw 20:57 and just thought "Why would you even try this?". The conditions of the experiment even sounded it will fail :( Why didn't you stop after you saved the lava lamp? It's just a little bit sad, after putting so much effort in it.
Man, i wish i could get a mathmos one. They dont ship to the US, which is bad for me because theyre much better than my current one (which is still really good)
AGREED! I have a very old Mathmos that was a gift 35 years ago. It was the best unfortunately it was shaken up in a fall and I did rinse the wax and replace the liquid with propylene glycol by name fog juice used for fog machines. It now works perfectly like it did new! Even with that it is still better by far then these China copies!
I think I done great job dude I learned a lot shit about lava lamps I never new u could fix em or stuff like that till i watched the video so hell yeah !!
this video is perfection!!! i love it, thank u very much for this!!! :3
Thanks For they procedure and all your Details
Please do more videos like this
I'm want to try a complete refill with candle wax eventually, but it seems you need a chemical called Perchlorethen to increase the wax density, and so far I couldn't find it for an acceptable price. In the US they have Brakleen which is widely available there, but in Europe not so much.
@@Makstuff I have been thinking about buying used lamps just to harvest wax/fluid from it because the "goo-Kit" has been discontinued
@@WTP_DAVE Pretty clever, if you don't care about the scientific aspect this is probably the smartest way.
@@Makstuff are there restrictions on shipping brakleen? i think enough of us watching this live in the US and could get some to you
@@lurklingX I don't think there are restrictions, I'm just not willing to pay the 30€+ for shipping. But if someone happened to be crazy enough to sponsor it, I'd happily make a follow up 😌
this was hilarious!
Thank you❤
Just finished, and waiting for lamp to heat up. I followed the steps, thank you so much for salt calculation. The only thing that i make different was i used distilled water, and i didnt want to but i was at supermarket to buy some groceries and at checkout there was sale of distilled water, and i acknowledge as some sort of sign 🤣 I was thinking to put drop of clear dish soap but you didn't so i didn't either. Hope in hour or two lamp will flow again.
Cool to hear! I hope the salt concentration works for your lamp too, I imagine it could vary wildly between lamps. Let me know how it turns out.
@@Makstuff Thanks for pinup ! Worked like charm couple of days to "tune up" salt content but you calculation helped allot and i needed to add couple drops of soap. Again thanks !
Perfektes Tutorial. DANKE!
It was definitely interesting to see. Thats sad you went too far but seeing all those steps where u r learning from your mistakes was definitely refreshing to see. And now, , i understand that all those formulas were for something. It wasn't just 'some' formulas !!! Damn ! Just keep doing this. (Also just check the differences between wax and oil, as far as i remember u definitely can't mix them but i don't remember why)
Quality ❤️
Madre mía 😂, lo he visto todo. Qué curioso eres y qué paciencia. 😅. Deberías haberle puesto el líquido que no quisiste comprar, pero te había quedado muy bien sin teñir también. Felicidades 😊
loved the whole vid!!! .now get wax , and dye it ,and do it again.GREAT VID. THANKS!!!
NEXT TIME , GOOGLE DYING WAX.
Yo tengo la misma lampara.. Solo cambiare el liquido por uno nuevo y vere como queda.. Pero este video esta excelente.. tiene todos los detalles.
I have used fog juice used for smoke machines! At about 80% fog juice to 20% distilled water. So far with very good results! On a note it would seem fog juice is propylene glycol or at least mostly! Would like to see your ideas on this? I did try a few other ways salt and Epsom salt! Both seemed to get cloudy and wax was clumping over time.
Thanks for the idea, I think I'll incorporate this in my upcoming video where I'll try to make lava lamps from scratch. I'll probably make one with fog juice and one or two with water and then compare them. By the way, how did you come up with the 80%/20% ratio? From what I've seen, the average fog juice nowadays seems to be around 30% propylene glycol and 70% water, so I'd be inclined to just use pure fog juice for simplicity, assuming the 20% water don't matter much.
LOL-BEST VIDEO EVER!!
Great👏🏻
This video is like a Giant Math Problem lol
...thats a good thing, I hope 😁
A very professional and helpful presentation. I note that you unfortunately seemed to have ‘ruined’ some wax with the pen ink. Do you know of any way to replace the wax without using dangerous substances? I would like to do this if possible. Many thanks
Working on a complete refill using tea lights as wax. Might take a few months though 😌
@@Makstuff That’s interesting and good luck. I’m sure it will be worth waiting for. Thank you 😊
More than likely that brown was just old wax. Considering it looks like a cheap lava lamp, i wouldnt be surprised. I also think its funny that you were comparing it to an expensive one haha. Either way, it was an entertaining video!
Thank you for answering my questions and concerns, but now that it's been some time, did it recloud with tap water and table salt?
I unfortunately can't tell since I went for the botched redying attempt afterwards.
@@Makstuff i wonder if you can't just get some new wax. i know for candle-making you can get it in pellet form. perhaps whatever wax type is in these lamps you could get for not too much money, would make for a really cool video. like one of those restorations - "this thing is fkk'd/damaged/neglected watch me restore it" people use food coloring for the water. not sure what is better for the wax, but hey, you could always leave it natural. (depending on the type of wax it might vary from white to yellow anyway) i just hate to see ALL that work you did and you didn't get a usable lamp out of it. feels like an injustice. really really appreciated this vid and all the testing you did though.
I loved it. If you get 3 cotton balls and smash the ever living heck out of them into the small part of a metal funnel (and I mean smash them in there, like 10 lb of force with a rod) you can improvise a sub-micron filter. I dont know how small of particles will filter out but it will take several hours for the water to wick through a drop at a time but it WILL get through eventually without assisting it(Forcing it through will just push particles through as well). Thanks for the cool video.
Cotton (I assume you mean the fluffy stuff used for eg makeup, and not the fabric) is a great idea, wish I had thought of that earlier. I wonder how bad forcing it through with pressure really is though, I have seen chemists use vacuum pumps for filtering which seems like the same thing in reverse.
I tried this with vape cotton i had but mine still looks like washed out semen. However it did get rid of the color, but not sure if thats a good thing since i liked the color.
@@DoodieSmoothie Interesting, thanks for the feedback!
I didnt really smash it tho. But the filter is long like the sponge trick, and took maybe 1.5 hours to complete.
some of us don't know what washed out semen looks like. Or tasted like.
16:16 I notice in the Mathmos on the right the lava is not "collecting" at top. I believe ideally this is the way it should behave. Do you think this is down to temperature or salt content?
Sometimes in the Mathmos small amounts of wax get stuck to the surface of the liquid too (I think that's what you mean?) but I agree it's way less than the new lamp. Absolutely no clue what causes that.
Instead of a dimmer you could try one of the newer 25 watt bulbs. 40watts are meant for those 60's through 90's lamps. Just a suggestion
There is a famous saying... Quit while you're ahead!
Could that discolored residue be caused by burnt or overheated wax?
An old Brita water filter works pretty good.
How did you reseal the lamp after you ripped off the lid? I assume the aluminium foil cap was makeshift. I want to clean out the liquid in my lamp too, but it would be kinda pointless if I don't know how to reseal it.
I only made a slightly fancier version than in the video. For the final version I took a maybe 7x30cm piece of aluminum foil, wrapped it around the neck _really_ tight and then pushed the top part into the opening like the version in the video. Not completely leak proof, but it seems good enough in case you knock it over and quickly put it back upright. Hope that makes sense.
So I got a big lava lamp off my sister that was extremely cloudy for years. and I was going to give this a try. I got the crimped cap off nice and dumped out the water a d refilled it with distilled water and just turned it on. It worked exactly the same as it did, very well only minus the cloudy water. I didnt use dish soap or any type of salt...just water. It works great. I resealed the original cap with a metal hose clamp and it's like new again. Thanks for the video but why did this work for me? By the way, food coloring I hear works well for coloring the water. Some people add glitter too but that's not for me. So if anyone is trying this, before you add salt or dish Soap, try it out 1st with just new distilled water. I am almost positive my lamp in question was a lamp from Spencer's store in the USA. I just bought 2 more 16" lamps from them today as they are on sale for the holidays for $32! Cant beat that for a large lamp and if I'm right, they are easily maintained. Great video btw! Update: it's been a few days now and it is doing great! No cloudiness at all and the flow is perfect! Hopefully it continues to work well for many years. I leave it on for 10 hours at a time.
I have no idea, but hey, if it works, it works 😊 Thanks for the comment btw, such information can be very helpful for future viewers.
Cycling your lamp is the way to go.
Which of course is an objective fact.
I've seen mixed opinions on disturbing the wax in the bottle when cleaning the inside. Did you find to have no repercussions from shaking water around to clean it while the wax was still in it?
I mean, the wax was solid when I cleaned it. Had it been liquid I would likely have faced "repercussions" 😁 but while solid I don't think you can mess anything up 🤔
Dimmer switches ought to come with lava lamps by default. I never liked how 99% of modern lava lamp have 15-20 tiny wax blobs floating around as if they're quail eggs being boiled. Aesthetically it's far more pleasing to have wax separate into 2-3 large blobs, so you can observe the slow forming of the top blob. 15-20 blobs form instantly not allowing one to see the very reason why these lamps are considered "psychedelic". The manufacturer overheats these by default, hoping they go out of order quicker, prompting you to get a new one. This is why you have so many blobs. I've had dimmer switch on all my lamps, and many of them lasted over a decade before needing an overhaul with soap and Epsom salt. Some of them, however were originally composed of chemicals (added to the wax) which do not respond to Epsom salt/soap method so it's a hit or miss.
Couldn't agree more, especially for premium manufacturers where one lamp can cost +-100$, dimmer switches being standard would be great, and I assume easily within acceptable price range. I think another reason for the intentional overheating phenomenon could be to reduce heat-up time and avoid bad reviews by impatient customers who don't understand that the lava has to melt first.
How do you seal this again? Since the cap is broken?
My clear/black plum mathmos Astro became hazy after a few days of using it, idk if it’s normal for this bottle color or if cycling will help?
I don't know, but if it was new I'd sure hope this is NOT normal. My new Mathmoses never got hazy at all.
I got it off eBay and was new in bow and arrived crystal clear, so idk what happened
a question, I have an old Chinese lava lamp that no longer works, but the liquid inside is clear and blue in color, now I bought a similar shaped but original lava lite, all this as soon as it arrived and cloudy so much that it is not sees almost nothing and is new! do you think if I pour the liquid from the old lamp into the new original one, does the lava flow work the same?
Tbh I don't know, but if it's a new lamp I'd just return it and demand a replacement from the shop.
hello I wanted to ask you something, what is the reason why the bubbles remain at the bottom and take so long to join the coil and return to flow? having filtered the opaque lamp, do you think it is due to a little soap?
I'd like to try and make a lava lamp entirely from scratch, using colored candle wax and water lightened with alcohol. i.e. instead of using wax weighted down with something and distilled water, I would like to try lightening the water with alcohol, which has a lower specific gravity than water and dissolves completely in it. Do you think it can work?
I'm currently working on a large project where I wanted to try that, amongst other things. Not 100% sure about paraffin wax, but I did a test with rubbing alcohol and liquid paraffin, and these substances mix once they are heated. Maybe ethanol is different, but in any case it's basically like having a molotov cocktail on your sideboard, so I hope you are aware of that 😌
@@Makstuff Yes, you are right, but the amount of ethanol needed to lower the specific gravity of water is not large. I already did a test with a small amount and more or less the mix is 40% ethanol and 60% distilled water and I don't think it is highly flammable. But then it also depends on the specific weight of the paraffin that is used
I somehow remember that I ballparked the required alcohol concentration to be more around 70-80%, which makes decent molotovs. But if you tested it and it worked at 40%, all the better 🤔 Anyway, please let me know if you end up with something that works, would love to hear about it 😇
@@Makstuff I hope that next week I will be able to find the time to carry out this experiment. I'll let you know 👍🏻🙂
Hi Makstuff, I just made my first LavaLamp from scratch! I used pure vax of paraffine (not candle because contains impurities) made heavier with tetrachloride, and demineralized water with some pure NaCl for the liquid. It works great (for now) !
awww. :( i feel bad that your end result after ALL THAT was unusable. thought you were just going to add a little dye to the water and leave it there. your clear water had looked really good by the end.
Yeah in retrospect I definitely should have left out the coloring and do a long-term test of the reclouding effect instead. I just didn't really expect it to go that badly.
@@Makstuff you couldn't know. besides, if you were as super cautious (like i am apparently), then you never would have done all the other steps, testing, or even cracked it open. hindsight is 20/20, but being overcautious means you might never get a chance to learn stuff.
Is the "2000" hour lifespan a real thing? What happens after that?
After salt to my lamp wax has become poorly divided into balls, it stretches in a long vertical hot stream and cannot break into balls. How to break wax into balls?
With my Mathmoses this often happens during the heat-up phase. Maybe give it a bit more time to warm up before doing anything else.
@@Makstuff also after two or three hours of work, the wax ball explodes and scatters into many small ones, like fireworks :/ I think there is something different here. lava takes the form of a long hot worm from coil to top that rarely bubbles
Vegetable glycerin is cheaper than proplene glycol. The brown particles are burnt wax from overheating/ prolonged used. Inkjet printer cartridge ink is the very best thing to use to dye fluid.
"Burnt" wax? I seriously doubt that, what makes you think that?
@@Makstuff Because the coil in the bottom is well known to cause this. Think about how much heat you're generating in one particular spot ( directly above a red hot bulb) If the lamps are left on for prolonged periods of time this will happen. Also using salts will speed up this process and cause the coil to go rusty, this depositing more dirty particles into the wax. Proplene glycol or glycerine is the professional way of restoring the lamps. The manufacturer uses these in the fluids.
What pocket microscope do you have?
www.amazon.de/dp/B00LAX52IQ/
what if I have colored water? like my wax is yellow but the water is blue
Food color or ink both seem to work fine.
wow
Maybe an n95 mask or hepa filter would be small enough?
Maybe. For what it's worth, I just tried breathing through a coffee filter and I felt significantly more resistance than in an N95 mask, but it's of course possible the filtering effect isn't proportional to breathing resistance.
Tintenpatronen xD Ist es eigentlich egal welches Salz? Geht auch mit Jod? Liebe Grüße
Kommt drauf an wen man fragt. Ich vermute wie gesagt, dass es egal ist, aber durch den fehlgeschlagenen Färbversuch im Anschluss hab ich leider keine eigene Langzeiterfahrung machen können. (Falls das nicht klar war, das Salz im Video ist mit Jod.)
@6:47 _ I am very please to see that someone else in the world uses Melitta cone filters for coffee. I happen to use the #6 which happens to be the toughest size to find. I am not sure - nay, I am POSITIVE that I wouldn't use an operational cone pour-over to filter my lava lamp though. That said - I am here to learn your secret.
IN THE 70S MY MUM BOUGHT ME A HUGE ONE, IT MUST HAVE BEEN T6HREE FEET TALL AND AT LEAST ONE FOOT IN DIAMETER. SADLY IT WAS CLOUDY FROM THE START AND BACK THEN WE HAD NO IDEA ABOUT HOW TO CLEAR THE OIL!!
The pen ink probably didn't work because it has other chemicals in it besides dye to make the ink flow and dry permanent and it's viscosity will be different than the wax and it probably won't melt so it won't dissolve into the wax properly. You can buy candle wax dye that also works on resins and epoxies from amazon. That should work.
Great video and well presented. Only though is the contradiction of doing it "on a budget" while also having so much equipment like a lazer thermomiter (along with everything else that looks high quality/expensive) didn't make sense. But regardless, great vid as i said :-)
Yeah, I guess the "budget" is mainly meant for the stuff that is used up in the process. On the other hand, you don't NEED an infrared thermometer or 0.01g scales to make it work, it's just nice to visually show what I'm doing. Anway, glad you liked it 😌
It now happened to my beautiful Orange Wax in Orange Water Mathmos, took half a day to cloud somehow and i dont know why and now i feel devastated about it, i will try this at some time, should running the Lavalamp for 10 Hours a day not clear it up.
lol, think i gonna get one, i remember when i was young i cant afford one, ha ah nvm , mamos brand is so expensive, lol
Hey there. I'm sorry to bother you again, but I posted a question which I think only you could answer, and it disappeared for some reason. Perhaps it's because I posted an Amazon link? Not sure. However, I got 2 lava lamps, both brand new, both very cloudy, they were delivered like that. Do you think a 0.5 micron or a 1 Micron "sock"-type filter would do a good job of filtering the foggy liquid in those lamps? I won't post a link again but the product name is PENTEK-BP-420 There are many others. 0.5 Micron is rare but also exists. I'm just thinking that if you found a sponge helpful, then a much finer mesh would be even better? I don't want to use filters like Sawyer because they trap a lot of liquid and I need as much of it back in the lamp as possible. Thank you in advance.
I don't think I have a way to view your previous comments, so not sure what happened to it, but I don't remember seeing a similar question before. About the filter, I have never used anything like it so I'm afraid I simply don't know. In the pictures where people use it to filter algae in pools, it seems the water flows through it pretty easily without a whole lot of pressure, which makes me a little skeptical. But as said, I have no idea what I'm talking about. If you do end up trying it anyway, I'd love a quick update.
@@Makstuff I'm not as surprised about the water flowing easily part, water in pools is mostly clear, and usually the only thing that gives away algae is the pungent smell. If you'll ever use the 0.5 Micron ceramic water filter straw to drink out of a lake - you''ll be surprised just how little suction is needed to pull the water into your mouth. When you screw it onto a bottle - even though the opening is much smaller than the surface of the sock type filter, - still gravity alone is usually sufficient for the water to trickle out eventually. Now if your pool water has reached the point where it's yellow or green in color, I have serious doubts that the sock type filter (or any filter for that matter) will remain usable for a long time. I strongly suspect that after some 20-30 liters the water will barely drip out. What my uncertainty was about - is the molecular size of whatever is clouding up the solution in a modern lava lamp. Of just how much larger it could be than the water molecule. I'm also a little uneasy about unintentionally filtering out whatever is used as a surfactant. I thought of asking you because no one else on KZhead or Reddit has experimented with filtering a lava lamp so meticulously LOL. Also, - I have never seen anyone actually managing to make it flow so nicely with table salt alone. So you definitely gave me hope. So far I've been trying "cycling" and it seems to be slowly working on one lamp with purple liquid/orange wax. Not so much on the one with purple liquid/black wax. So if my cycling fails after 10-12 cycles I will definitely let you know whether and how well the 1 Micron filter worked. Thank you for all your help so far.
@@Makstuff OK The "sock " filters work. The only problem is (I did it to a modern, colored lava lamp) is that if you do it more than once, or use 2 or more filters, - you will begin filtering some of the color too. I was quite surprised about this but apparently some of the opaqueness comes from color itself, not just the surfactant that leaked out of the wax. I did the same to my much older lava lamp and it went without a hitch. I wish I took the "before" photos though. The "after" photos (which I did take) I can't even post a link to because apparently comments with web links are held for review. I had the same happen on my other channel (available in "studio" view) until, before publishing the video I made sure to change the settings to allow comments without moderation.
@@NEKRWSPHERE Thanks so much for the update, that's really interesting. I wonder how it's possible that some of the color gets filtered too, I'd have expected the water color to be some type of food colorant that dissolves on a molecular basis and should pass the filter easily. As for the images, I already had comment moderation deactivated on all my videos anyway, and I also double checked the "held for review" section and found nothing, so whatever is blocking it seems to be a youtube standard setting that I can't deactivate. Maybe email me the link to makstuff@use.startmail.com and I'll try if I can add it myself.
@@Makstuff Yeah, my thoughts on the color, exactly. I'm not sure if the surfactant simply absorbs some of the color, and this is how my last filtration managed to leave a purplish tinge on filter walls, but what I did notice is that when the cloudiness was gone, so was some of the vividness of the color. So I decided not to push my luck. I'll mail the photos after I get back from work.
I just bought a lava lamp and ½ of the wax stays floating at the top of the bottle, in a solid ball of wax while the other ½ is melted at the bottom of the bottle. I'm thinking, drain the fluid while the wax is solid, then melt the wax in the bottle so all the wax can mix together. But i can't get the trapezoid cap off my bottle⁉️ 😒
Try a dimmer first, sounds like overheating.
@@Makstuff Hey, I kept turning the lamp on for about 1 hour intervals like 3-4 times & the floating ½ finally sank to the bottom of the lamp in the morning. I kept turning the lamp on for 1 hour until the lava at the bottom melted onto the bottom of the floating ½ piece. Then I turned the lamp on & left it on, it's been in for almost 3½ hours & the lava is flowing beautifully 😊
Wax crayons work well to dye the wax.
Next time consider a wine filter. They are designed for low particle size. (Sub micron) whereas the coffee filters are designed for speed.
5:56 - Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it. - Benjamin Franklin Oh the irony! In an attempt to save €30, you ignored all the repeated advice you found online, went through €60+ of supplies and ruined your lamp in the process. 😂 I just hope the journey was worth it. 👍🏻👍🏻
Mit Propylenglykol kann Mann den Flow optimieren….
please calculate the exact number of atoms in the brine... using weight alone is too inaccurate.
Assume space is curved by gravity as well. Thanks
:)
Let me get this straight... I watched the whole video just to see you screwing up the lamp beyond repair!?
I'm sorry, I deeply regret it 😟
id just buy another lava lamp
low budget - uses microscope and IR heat meter lol thx
Obviously I already had them, not like I bought them for this video 🤦
Haha and the 2 weeks wasted vacation time!
You could always just buy a new one for $10…
These lamps are $25 at Target. Just get a new lamp.
After all the penny pinching … at the end he destroys the lamp…. Really dude. Wtf
The brine is going to rust and corrode the coil spring in the bottom and cause it to go cloudy again and ruin the wax.
[citation needed]
@@Makstuff salt.. its incredibly corrosive. But just go check all the Facebook groups and forums.
@@CSHracer Sure, people say that sometimes, but that doesn't make it true. "Salt is corrosive" is such a general claim that everybody just repeats it without checking. I mean, it's not outright wrong, but who of these people has seen an actual lava lamp coil that has rusted, and knows for sure that salt is the actual reason? As for facts, my coil has been submerged in the brine (although not used) for almost 3 months, and I don't see any rust.
@@Makstuff this was advise given to me directly by someone who has been making custom lamps for years, they had personal experience. When I mentioned using saline this was their exact reply "Do not, under ANY circumstances, put salt in this lamp. You don't need to do this. It's bad to do this. It's old information that I (and hobbyists that know what we're doing) wish we could scrub off the internet forever." Propylene Glycol is what they recommend to increase the waters density. Maybe yours hasnt rusted yet, specially if you haven't used it, but it WILL corrode. The wax wont alway perfectly cover the coil. Then the water will cloud, the wax will discolor. Its simple science.
@@CSHracer No offense, but it's also "old information" that you have to cover your mouth while yawning to stop the devil from slipping into your head. I wish I hadn't ruined the lamp with the redying attempt, I'd really like to run it for 6 months non stop with the salt inside to see with my own eyes what actually happens. Maybe I'll do exactly that someday when I find an acceptable source of Tetrachloroethylene to replace the wax or find another cheap lamp online. Might well turn out to be true, but until then I refuse to blindly believe information people are parroting without a clear indication that somebody _actually_ knows.