What's new

Lava Lamp

$DragonLava1.jpg

I'm not weird.
 
I have a working giant that started life purple water and yellow wax. Over the first year, operating less than 10 hours per day, the dye reduced and I've got clear water.... Oh well, it is a great show-once it warms up - and with a timer makes a great on-the-way-to-bed night light.
 
Tony, I'm jealous. I always wanted one but I couldn't afford one when they were chic and groovy.
Now I can afford one but I can't find one.
So I spend all my money on Soap Samples. :w00t:
 
There is one in my oldest son's room. It's a classic. Hmmm, they should still work with LED bulbs, right?

Actually, no. The motion is caused by the heating at the bottom and cooling at the top. An LED lamp will not produce the heat required to drive the thermal exchange.
 
You can definitely still get a lava lamp and they have worked some of the bugs out. So the new ones are better than the original ones.
If you want it to last get a brand name one.
But any hippygirl shows up its your look out.
$lava lamp hippy.jpg
 
Actually, no. The motion is caused by the heating at the bottom and cooling at the top. An LED lamp will not produce the heat required to drive the thermal exchange.

You are one guy I would like to stare at a lava lamp with.
 
Ok, there seems to be a bit of interest, so here's a paragraph of tech talk.

If one knows how an old thermostat with a bi-metal spring works you know how a lava lamp works. The two different materials have different temperature coefficient of expansion.

In a lava lamp the plasticly looking stuff that rises and falls expands and contracts faster than the liquidy looking stuff.

The lamp at the bottom heats the "lava" until part of it expands enough to break free, like a hot air balloon. The decorative metal cap on top acts as a little radiator to cool the "lava" floating on top until a dollop of it breaks free and falls.

It's a heat engine of sorts, but it's "useful purpose" is to provide enlightenment as the girl above attests.
 
Anyone remember Wave Machines?


A friend of mine had one in the 1970s. It provided hours of entertainment as we passed the bong.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The Galileo Thermometer works on similar principles to the Lava Lamp.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Ok, there seems to be a bit of interest, so here's a paragraph of tech talk.

If one knows how an old thermostat with a bi-metal spring works you know how a lava lamp works. The two different materials have different temperature coefficient of expansion.

In a lava lamp the plasticly looking stuff that rises and falls expands and contracts faster than the liquidy looking stuff.

The lamp at the bottom heats the "lava" until part of it expands enough to break free, like a hot air balloon. The decorative metal cap on top acts as a little radiator to cool the "lava" floating on top until a dollop of it breaks free and falls.

It's a heat engine of sorts, but it's "useful purpose" is to provide enlightenment as the girl above attests.

Your one of those peoples that ruins Santa Clause too...

Lava lamps run on magic. Its the energy of wizards that gets trapped in the glass. Plain and simple.

Rules of thermodynamics doesn't apply to those in my van.
 
Your one of those peoples that ruins Santa Clause too...

Lava lamps run on magic. Its the energy of wizards that gets trapped in the glass. Plain and simple.

Rules of thermodynamics doesn't apply to those in my van.

Maybe not, but in all the vans I ever road in the rules of chemical combustion applied if the seeds popped. Every shirt I owned in the early '70s had pin holes burned in them.

Santa Clause is really an Alien. Batboy wrote about it.
 
Last edited:
Maybe not, but in all the vans I ever road in the rules of chemical combustion applied if the seeds popped. Every shirt I owned in the early '70s had pin holes burned in them.

Santa Clause is really an Alien. Batboy wrote about it.
You didn't have a dark side of the moon album to sort things out with?
 
My love of lava lamps could explain my affinity for pickled eggs.

$2yun8sy.jpg

Best I had were at Eda's Railroad Bar in Milwaukee, WI. Place only closed for three hours between 0300 and 0600.
 
My love of lava lamps could explain my affinity for pickled eggs.

View attachment 612312

Best I had were at Eda's Railroad Bar in Milwaukee, WI. Place only closed for three hours between 0300 and 0600.

Ah, you, too. Best I've ever had were from my kitchen. Got three dozen boiled eggs in the refrigerator right now waiting to get pickled later this week.

They ain't real pickled eggs if they don't have a beet slice to make 'em pink.
 
Top Bottom