Wonderful project! I also have to say it's so endearing that you physically printed off a screenshot of the OpenSCAD script to show us and explain. Sure, there's ways to to screen capture and editing to show the computer desktop in real-time, but that's not the BigClive way. Simple, direct, easy to understand, and fun. :D
Every time I saw a glitter lamp demonstrated, it was in a well illuminated display, leaving me completely unimpressed and completely unaware of the most wonderful feature of projecting tiny spots of light throughout a darkened room.
I love these projects Clive. It reminds me of the computer magazines back in the 80s where they would just print out the source code for a video game and you would have to type it in yourself. It was a great way to learn about programming.
So calming effect, so I been inspired to order crystals and to start an experiment myself! Keep the good work up BigClive and thx for your many inspiring videos.
I have a tall, glass Voss water bottle. You don't see much anything packaged in glass anymore. Plastic everywhere. So I kept it thinking it would useful for some RGB LED project or another.
Funny you post this. I am making one with a glass globe lamp I got from poundland, using water + glycerine, glitter of a few colors, multicolour LED , but it kept needing shaking. I am now about to add a fan in the water, on a 555 timer, to disturb the water, ever few seconds or so... Great Vid... ty
I've made glitter lamps with perc balanced with baby oil, but I think it gradually dissolves the plastic. The glitter is also prone to clumping and sticking to the sides of the glass bottle.
Providing the OpenSCAD scripts is fantastic. Been using OpenSCAD a lot lately for making various brackets and mounts for PCB's. One enhancement, replace the variables with the following changes to comments and they all get laid out nicely in the customiser view. The $fn variable will get a combo box with options. /*[ MAIN ADJUSTABLE VARIABLES ]*/ // total height of tube height=15; // glitter bottle diameter (60+) bottle=70; /*[ OPTIONAL VARIABLES ]*/ // thickness of tube wall (1.6) wall=1.6; // base thickness (2) base=2; // screw pillar diameter (7) pillar=7; // screw pillar height (10) post=10; // screw hole diameter (2.5) screw=2.5; // circle resolution (facets) (100) $fn=100; //[10, 20, 30, 50, 100]
i bought a lava lamp, so called, today from B and M for 8 quid. it is a lava lamp, it looks great. i love it! it is from the same place as me, the 1970s. but it isn't made by Matmos? it should have been 16 quid but box was crushed and it was the last on the shelf. annoyingly the cool purple colour comes, in part at least, from a layer applied to the glass. i can see a few dots where the dye didnt quite stick to it. but the way they finely adjudged the relative densities is awesome. i been watching it for an hour. the times it makes a blob, rises, but the blob half fails, so half falls back to the bottom, so it looks great is remarkable. my neighbour had one when i was about 8. it was nowhere near as good as this one, the goo used to stick to the top. it is made by "glow", i suppose matmos lost the rights sometime in the last 40 years? matmos? is that not a dr who baddie?....off to look online...... yep, that was quite interesting. it seems the original 'lava lamps' were in fact called 'astro lamps' by their creator, matmos. so anyone can make a thing called a lava lamp. i live and learn! i just read the box, it says non-toxic so i might unscrew it and have a little taste of a finger-tips worth... i did. yuk! soapy and oily, but mineral oily not cooking oily. bleeurhg. - extra addendum, i recalled correctly, you will be pleased to learn. matmos was a pulsating,glowing alien brain thing from dr who.. so apposite name for the lamps..........i have noticed some wax sticks to the top, only a little bit, but it gets hung up on the meniscus, it it probably useful as it seems to bounce off rising blobs more readily than otherwise. but why didnt they fill the whole bottle with fluid? was this bit planned? if i shake the glass enclosure this bit breaks up and buggers off, but 20 mins later another one is there. it really looks amazing, like sid barrets dreams, one imagines, for 8 quid!
Great project. Watching this makes me wonder if I can convert my old Lava Lamp I had when I was young, the wax is now broke down a bit and is stuck to the glass so it's rather useless, keep meaning to look into it but this makes me wonder if I can convert it.
What if you stored the solution with some strips of aluminum foil in it for a month first. Would that reduce it's appetite for the aluminum content in the glitter?
This is an "adulty project"? Wondering just what sort of glitter-fulled glass sculpture you're going to put on that base with lurid pink illumination. It might make operation easier if you were to make that bass into two pieces: one cylindrical piece to hold the glitter container, and a second base piece to hold the light bulb. I suspect eBay is flagging listings that contain the word "nitrate" and removing them or at least manually reviewing them.
My guesses to solve the corrosion issue: Nitrates are good oxidisers so that could be the culprit. It could also be the case that having an acidic pH facilitates breakdown. I would try making a tiny adjustment to the pH using a buffer, and if that fails then trying some metal corrosion inhibitors like sodium metabisulfite (used in winemaking).
The pH of a 45% calcium nitrate solution is 6.5, so it is slightly acidic. Maybe bumping that to 7 by a small amount of AlOH would work, since it would also preload the aluminum ion concentration in the solution.
@@jouniken.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_hydroxide quote " Aluminium hydroxide also forms a gelatinous precipitate in water. " - that could help the random walk of the glitter...
I always wondered what would happen to Glitter lamps and Lava lamps when Tungsten globes become unobtanium. Looks like this is a nice project. Could you use a couple of resistors glued to the base to heat the liquid? I would think if the LED was slightly underrun, it should last pretty well forever so the lamp would never need to be pulled apart.
yes resistors are the "quick way" to convert an old glitter lamp but you need high power resistors as you are now replacing a 20-25w lamp with a 2-5w led. If you make a new one from scratch it's better to alter the liquid like Clive is doing so it works with the much less power hunry leds. Also the 3D printed case will be weakened or even melt with a 20w heating element inside like a tungsten lamp or the resistors
Lava lamps basically have to run at the temps they do, since they depend on the properties of hot wax. Not sure room temp oils very enough in density with small temp changes to get the whole blobbing to work
I had a look at possible alternatives for calcium nitrate, mainly looking at the solubility in water. Obviously I tried to ignore anything which might be particularly harmful or difficult to get in terms of availability or price. I came up with 2. Copper nitrate which has a similar solubility to calcium nitrate and will give a nice blue colour and potassium thiocyanate which has a higher solubility. Both are readily available on eBay. A cheaper alternative might be fructose which is extremely soluble but I'm not certain it would not be compromised by bacteria and molds.
Well, projects like those make me pay AliExpress a visit to see what those small Chinese electronic shops come up with. And yo and behold - plenty of glitter lamps with an assortment of LEDs - RGB to gaudy golden ... in all shapes and forms - as long as the shape and form is that of a HUGE butt plug.
I'm reminded of the Opal Fruits tagline here for some reason. I'd be a little careful of the search terms you use in aliexpress - for example I'd stay clear of K9 harnesses for example or your outlook on life might be somewhat broadened in interesting ways (this is not a recommendation...). You should be able to find COB LEDs on daughter boards floating around on there - the stuff they do is amazing, from stationary engines, to micro petrol v8, via electronics and android toilet lids... That's a great Hubitat idea, put a contact sensor on the bog seat that triggers the boyfriend/husbands shock collar... 😂 The things chemo does to my mind 😂😂
Speaking things that some ladies use to make their nails look pretty that can be otherwise useful, the glue they use for false nails is cyanoacrylate, aka superglue, but a pack of 40 x 2g tubes of nail glue can cost less than 4 x 5g tubes. If, like me, you only ever use small amounts of superglue, frequently but not regularly and you hate finding a solid tube or bottle when you return to it, nail glue is the cheapest solution.
Do you think this would work with an MR16 downlight globe? Or do they not get hot enough to move the glitter? Could you get away with good old fashioned sodium chloride, or does that not raise the sg of the water enough for this?
Just off topic for a moment - what temperature do you run your iron for leaded solder and (ugh) no-lead solder? And is there a visual clue as to which is which when it is in solid state?
@@bigclivedotcom thanks so much. It's about what I use, and I don't use unleaded solder either. Does it require a hotter temperature to desolder unleaded, in your opinion? Seems so to me...thanks again!!
Yeah, the easiest way is to have extreme patience and let it settle and then syphon it like wine. Any cloud of settled impurities getting into the liquid affects the visual effect.
My farmer friend told me that my tomatoes needed calcium nitrate, so I phoned the local nursery. By the tone of the salesman, you'd think I'd asked if I could kick his cat. I guess Karens are everywhere. Eventually got it from a farm supplies store. Always wondered what the fuss was about.
Interesting thing about that calcium fertilizer. If it were pure Ca(NO3)2, it'd have 17% nitrogen and 24.3% calcium as far as molecular mass is concerned. It seems like there's some other calcium salt mixed into the fertilizer, lowering the nitrate anion to calcium cation concentration ratio.
Yeah, fertiliser is fun. My father travelled to Poland to look at the facilities of an agrochem company they'd just bought. Was proudly introduced to the companies new two floor store... With the dangerous poisons store (pesticides etc) on the top floor and the "safe" fertiliser store on the ground floor... Can you see what's wrong yet? (in the style of Rolf "Creepy" Harris). Dad promptly exploded (pun intended) and carefully explained that there's a reason why you can make bombs from fertiliser... And what do you think happens when your poisons store is on top on about the same amount of explosives as can be found in the magazines of the entire King George V class (1939) of battleship... For those who haven't seen it yet.. Everything was *carefully* moved out of the 1st floor poisons store, and all the fertiliser was moved *extremely carefully* to the 1st floor, and all the poisons were put on the ground floor. That way if things turned explody - only the fertiliser would go up, instead of covering the local area in neat agrochem nasties (and we're not talking about the nice stuff like glyphosate and neonics).... And you thought GCSE chemistry was useless in real life.. Although I could have done without the asbestos tripod plates...
how much of one type of salt is dissolved in a volume of water doesnt effect how much of another type of salt can be dissolved (mostly) so you can create dense liquid mixtures by using combinations of common salts instead. which i think the commercial ones do
Fun. Could you somehow use lasers (like the little pen/handheld ones) in place of the other light to give a more directed flashing of the light off the glitter?
@@bigclivedotcom I was thinking pointing upwards through the liquid and bouncing more directed beams (maybe more than one/multi color?) with the top opaque so the beams couldn't accidentally be viewed from above. I was thinking the glitter would be moving fast enough that even if it did strike your eye, it wouldn't be damaging, but perhaps the risk of eye damage is higher than I thought.
Clive, thank you for the scripts; very useful as is your video - super! Now, I have no excuse but to go and buy a 3D printer my girls have been nagging me about for other projects! 😆
Is it possible to hack a blobby type lava lamp to run on LEDs? I suppose you could separate the heating function from the light and use a power resistor along with the LED...
Ans the effects on the wall remind me of a very slowed-down transporter shimmer effect from Star Trek, so it's like you're trapped inside a transporter beam, probably like Scotty in TNG's "Relics"... :P
The aluminium cap probably also helps with losses through the rubber over time. In a few years the water may migrate out through the stopper upsetting the delicate balance you have achieved.
Putting red, green, and blue LEDs in the three die bulb, with silver glitter, might give a nice effect where the colors in the reflections mix seemingly randomly, making everything between the primary colors, yellow, magenta, cyan, and white... or so I think. I may be wrong.
My first thought for an alternative to the calcium nitrate was propylene glycol--it's much (4x) more viscous than water--but then I looked up the density and found that it's only a few percent greater than pure water. Then I considered a sugar solution, but at ambient temperatures, even though you can dissolve more than a 2 grams of sugar per gram of water, the solution ends up with a specific gravity of ~1.4 as compared to the 2.5 you get with the calcium salt (due to the salt's greater density). It may be interesting to experiment with adding propylene glycol to see how it affects the flow. Incidentally, if you add propylene glycol to the soap solution children use to blow bubbles, the bubbles will last longer.
@@bigclivedotcom I suspect that was due to the low specific gravity. Adding propylene glycol or glycerine in addition to the salt solution might result in even slower eddies.
Nice project, though building it from scratch without salvaging any parts like the bottle/base from an existing lamp could get difficult and/or expensive. And if you (re)fill an existing bottle, a new lid from TPU could work to create a decent seal while still allowing emergency pressure relief.
So I am working on making glitter lamps out of 1 gallon glass pickle jars (since that's the clear glass I have around). At 1KG per 650mL, that would be 12.84lbs of CaN for 1 US Gal of water. (Since 1 Gal of pure water is 8.34lbs, no wonder this solution feels so dense). Is that 1KG per 650mL figure about what the end-product needs? Also, what is the end volume of that batch, or is the 650mL the end volume of the solution? I'll be 3D printing a base for the electronics, which will be a strip of RGB addressable LEDs and an ESP8266 microcontroller.
I wonder how hard to make one using a "glass cheque" bottle. I'm sat here looking at one. The ridges in the glass would lense a little? I think Mildly intrigued, to see Big Clive's Search history on eBay.
Big Clive, have you tried urea for adjusting the density? You can get it fairly pure and it can make a very dense solution. It is also non-toxic and non-corrosive.
You could also leave the whole LED light and add Radium flakes so they will illuminate in dark too. But don't put your face to the glass to much otherwise you teeth may fall out and little bumps will occur here and there
Hi Clive i just had a light bulb moment!.....wonder if you could use some of the new induction powered LEDs floating in oil with coils at different levels of the bottle?....may need to adjust the LED buoyancy but might be worth a go!😄
hey Clive, you might wanna check out the Rainbow Motion Glitter Lamp, by Art + Sound, too. It has three multi-colour LEDs to illuminate the lamp, plus a small dc motor with a neodymium magnet attached to the end of the shaft. The motor-mounted magnet magnetically couples to another magnet attached to an impeller inside, at the bottom of the glitter lamp. So the only contact between the base and the lamp is the magnetic coupling between the motor shaft, in the base, and the impeller, inside the lamp. The rotating impeller swirls the liquid and glitter around. It’s clever and simple. oh and the lamp is very low power, consuming less than 100mA.
@@bigclivedotcom I completely agree, the ‘magnetic agitator’ lamps can swirl the glitter way too fast. I slowed-down my lamp to just the right amount with a 5 ohm resistor in series with a 5V USB power supply. I modified the lamp to run on USB instead of batteries, so I could leave the lamp plugged in all the time. The slower swirl is now more pleasing to look at. I also added a 10 microfarad electrolytic capacitor across the 5V rail + a snubber diode across the motor terminals.
@@SCAM-BUSTER.777 Simply use the common terminal and either of the other two, and leave the third unconnected. The choice of which other terminal just depends on what position you want the switch handle pointing when the light is on. If you don't care (or it is just a toggle button) then it doesn't matter.
@@SCAM-BUSTER.777 I'll try, but I'm in the US and we use different color designations than most countries. I can't see colors you have now and wouldn't necessarily know what they mean even if I did. First identify the earth/ground wire if there is one (often green or bare copper), and move that to the earth terminal on the new switch. If the old dimmer has two current-carrying wires connected to it (typically black or red in the US), then the new one gets the same two wires. One goes to the Common terminal and the other goes to either of the two other terminals on a 2-way switch. The order doesn't matter. If the old switch has three current-carrying wires, then it is one that needs a neutral connected (white in the US). If the new one has a terminal for neutral, put it there. If it doesn't, then just cap and tape that wire and push it into the box. If the new switch needs a neutral but the old one didn't, then you're going to need to have someone who knows how to do it see if a neutral is present, and if not, how to get one there. Or get a different replacement dimmer that does not require a neutral. Are there no instructions with the switch? At least here, most dimmers come with basic instructions with wiring diagrams for a couple different situations. If these aren't clear enough, then I strongly recommend getting someone who knows how to do it to help. Basic electrical wiring is not complicated, but it is unforgiving if not done correctly.
@@bigclivedotcom Hi bigclivedotcom 👍 Please can you show us how to make a 2-way switch wired up just to be a 1-way switch ? One way switches appear to be going less and less in the UK. Presumably it's just as cheap to make a two way as it is a one-way. There is only one video on UA-cam that describes how to do this, unfortunately the video maker lives in India. :( I don't do online shopping so I am unable to buy anything from Amazon or eBay. :( Thank you 👍
neato, but now I'm thinking of a dual pane vinyl window sash filled with glitter liquid and with led strips on the bottom and one side that will create a circular flow current. I'll hand it off to you for expert implementation.
Your videos are fun! Thank you for making them! I've been wanting to ask you this for a few months, I'm trying to get into circuit boards for a project i'm working on. Basically I have this watch with no guts. I want to put in a CR2032 battery, a round circuit board, red LED lights, and a push button switch. Do you know where I can learn more or maybe you can help? I'll take any information you have. Thank you for your time.
The incandescent/tungsten lamps are indeed pricey now. I recently got a couple for my old school wax lava lamps and I almost had to sell one of my kidneys.
The LED would need to have a custom heatsink to transfer all the heat to the bottle to keep the LED as cool as possible. 100W would need quite a big bottle to avoid the risk of overheating and pressurisation.
Nice project. Not sure whether I ever will try to do it, but it is nice to know how to do something like that. It is still tempting to modify my old lava lamp, though. The SCAD file, though, could have some improvement in the header section, like the comments of the parameters above and not on the same line. On the same line you could add a restriction for the slider in the customizer like // The height for the foot height = 20 // [20:1:200]; This you get a slider in the customizer which goes from 20 to 200 with 1 resolution. For a list of options like the quality you could use //[40,70,100] The comment on top will show as header for the parameter. You can make sections for the customizer by putting something like /* [Optional parameters] */ as header where the section for optional parameters will begin. This creates a header that folds out the parameter section when you click on it. The take over of variables stops at the first defined module, by the way. It is easy to define a dummy module just for this case that is defined just below the customizable variables. There is no need if you don't define another variable later, though. I personally like to ask the system variable $preview whether we are in preview mode, making the basic configuration faster by manipulating $fn. This can be done by $fn = $preview ? 45 : 100; This switches the sections from 45 in preview mode (F5) to 100 in rendered mode (F6) automatically.
Ouch! What happened to your left middle finger's outermost joint? Some tool seems to have bitten off a piece of flesh and skin from there. I hope you recover from that injury quickly! 😉
Wonderful project! I also have to say it's so endearing that you physically printed off a screenshot of the OpenSCAD script to show us and explain. Sure, there's ways to to screen capture and editing to show the computer desktop in real-time, but that's not the BigClive way. Simple, direct, easy to understand, and fun. :D
Yup. Big Clives videos are always fun and to the point. (With a bit of destructive mayhem thrown in when necessary :-)
Every time I saw a glitter lamp demonstrated, it was in a well illuminated display, leaving me completely unimpressed and completely unaware of the most wonderful feature of projecting tiny spots of light throughout a darkened room.
I have one and they don't look this good in with the standard incandescent bulbs. Well, at least mine doesnt
I love these projects Clive. It reminds me of the computer magazines back in the 80s where they would just print out the source code for a video game and you would have to type it in yourself. It was a great way to learn about programming.
That intro sounded like some kind of 60s fashion show runway commentary. I think the lamp and the stair carpet really sold it.
So calming effect, so I been inspired to order crystals and to start an experiment myself! Keep the good work up BigClive and thx for your many inspiring videos.
I love the gold/yellow/amber color, it's my favorite. Beautiful lamp.
Awesome project!!! Now I want a 3D Printer even more than yesterday!!!
I have a tall, glass Voss water bottle. You don't see much anything packaged in glass anymore. Plastic everywhere.
So I kept it thinking it would useful for some RGB LED project or another.
a couple of these around the room will give a very ethereal ambiance
Funny you post this. I am making one with a glass globe lamp I got from poundland, using water + glycerine, glitter of a few colors, multicolour LED , but it kept needing shaking. I am now about to add a fan in the water, on a 555 timer, to disturb the water, ever few seconds or so... Great Vid... ty
How does the calcium nitrite compare with perchloroethylene (brake cleaner) often used in lava lamp creation/repair?
I've made glitter lamps with perc balanced with baby oil, but I think it gradually dissolves the plastic. The glitter is also prone to clumping and sticking to the sides of the glass bottle.
Thanks for another great video Clive. At 1:20 in the video, did you mean to say to support the weight of the glitter not the weight of the liquid?
Voss water bottles would be great for this! Just like an old glitzer lamp.
The straight sided Voss bottles do look ideal.
I always love your projects with these 3D Printing scripts. It make many things so much better to do myself.
This might be fun to use with some of the color rotating LEDs.
Providing the OpenSCAD scripts is fantastic. Been using OpenSCAD a lot lately for making various brackets and mounts for PCB's.
One enhancement, replace the variables with the following changes to comments and they all get laid out nicely in the customiser view. The $fn variable will get a combo box with options.
/*[ MAIN ADJUSTABLE VARIABLES ]*/
// total height of tube
height=15;
// glitter bottle diameter (60+)
bottle=70;
/*[ OPTIONAL VARIABLES ]*/
// thickness of tube wall (1.6)
wall=1.6;
// base thickness (2)
base=2;
// screw pillar diameter (7)
pillar=7;
// screw pillar height (10)
post=10;
// screw hole diameter (2.5)
screw=2.5;
// circle resolution (facets) (100)
$fn=100; //[10, 20, 30, 50, 100]
Well I dont have a 3D printer but thats never stopped me before. Okay, maybe once or twice.
You are a true proponent of the ever expanding movement, towards an all LED world! And I thank you ..
i bought a lava lamp, so called, today from B and M for 8 quid. it is a lava lamp, it looks great. i love it! it is from the same place as me, the 1970s. but it isn't made by Matmos? it should have been 16 quid but box was crushed and it was the last on the shelf. annoyingly the cool purple colour comes, in part at least, from a layer applied to the glass. i can see a few dots where the dye didnt quite stick to it. but the way they finely adjudged the relative densities is awesome. i been watching it for an hour. the times it makes a blob, rises, but the blob half fails, so half falls back to the bottom, so it looks great is remarkable. my neighbour had one when i was about 8. it was nowhere near as good as this one, the goo used to stick to the top. it is made by "glow", i suppose matmos lost the rights sometime in the last 40 years? matmos? is that not a dr who baddie?....off to look online...... yep, that was quite interesting. it seems the original 'lava lamps' were in fact called 'astro lamps' by their creator, matmos. so anyone can make a thing called a lava lamp. i live and learn! i just read the box, it says non-toxic so i might unscrew it and have a little taste of a finger-tips worth... i did. yuk! soapy and oily, but mineral oily not cooking oily. bleeurhg. - extra addendum, i recalled correctly, you will be pleased to learn. matmos was a pulsating,glowing alien brain thing from dr who.. so apposite name for the lamps..........i have noticed some wax sticks to the top, only a little bit, but it gets hung up on the meniscus, it it probably useful as it seems to bounce off rising blobs more readily than otherwise. but why didnt they fill the whole bottle with fluid? was this bit planned? if i shake the glass enclosure this bit breaks up and buggers off, but 20 mins later another one is there. it really looks amazing, like sid barrets dreams, one imagines, for 8 quid!
Great project. Watching this makes me wonder if I can convert my old Lava Lamp I had when I was young, the wax is now broke down a bit and is stuck to the glass so it's rather useless, keep meaning to look into it but this makes me wonder if I can convert it.
Best one of many you have done so far.
I didn't know you had an upstairs? Great info, Clive.
It's a walk-in attic.
What if you stored the solution with some strips of aluminum foil in it for a month first. Would that reduce it's appetite for the aluminum content in the glitter?
I've actually pondered whether quenching its appetite for aluminium might work like that. Maybe even just adding an aluminium salt.
3:50 I completely disagree. Everyone needs a 3d printer.
A bit too advanced for me - yet a very satisfactory video. On a Sunday morning as well.☕🕯️🙂 Thank You Clive.
Have you thought about printing a transparent or translucent safety cover for lamps where you removed the globe?
It wouldn't be as optically clear as desired.
This is an "adulty project"? Wondering just what sort of glitter-fulled glass sculpture you're going to put on that base with lurid pink illumination.
It might make operation easier if you were to make that bass into two pieces: one cylindrical piece to hold the glitter container, and a second base piece to hold the light bulb.
I suspect eBay is flagging listings that contain the word "nitrate" and removing them or at least manually reviewing them.
"Lets take a closer look at this...on the bench"
*cue the smooth jazz* 😂
Sodium benzoate is used in engine anti freeze as a corrosion inhibitor, maybe a smidge of that would help?
My guesses to solve the corrosion issue:
Nitrates are good oxidisers so that could be the culprit. It could also be the case that having an acidic pH facilitates breakdown. I would try making a tiny adjustment to the pH using a buffer, and if that fails then trying some metal corrosion inhibitors like sodium metabisulfite (used in winemaking).
The pH of a 45% calcium nitrate solution is 6.5, so it is slightly acidic. Maybe bumping that to 7 by a small amount of AlOH would work, since it would also preload the aluminum ion concentration in the solution.
I'm cautious about mixing random chemicals in glass bottles. But the PH idea is interesting.
@@jouniken.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_hydroxide quote " Aluminium hydroxide also forms a gelatinous precipitate in water. " - that could help the random walk of the glitter...
I always wondered what would happen to Glitter lamps and Lava lamps when Tungsten globes become unobtanium.
Looks like this is a nice project. Could you use a couple of resistors glued to the base to heat the liquid? I would think if the LED was slightly underrun, it should last pretty well forever so the lamp would never need to be pulled apart.
yes resistors are the "quick way" to convert an old glitter lamp but you need high power resistors as you are now replacing a 20-25w lamp with a 2-5w led. If you make a new one from scratch it's better to alter the liquid like Clive is doing so it works with the much less power hunry leds. Also the 3D printed case will be weakened or even melt with a 20w heating element inside like a tungsten lamp or the resistors
They should be ok as appliance bulbs aren't going anywhere any time soon.
@@chinanorthairguns there are led-based appliance bulbs already and the tungsten lamps are being already phased out at least here
@@marcogenovesi8570 They have LED bulbs that go in ovens?
Lava lamps basically have to run at the temps they do, since they depend on the properties of hot wax. Not sure room temp oils very enough in density with small temp changes to get the whole blobbing to work
Finely chopped "crisps" packs, mylar by any other name.
Hey! Who's that guy dancing by the glitter lamp...
;)
I had a look at possible alternatives for calcium nitrate, mainly looking at the solubility in water. Obviously I tried to ignore anything which might be particularly harmful or difficult to get in terms of availability or price.
I came up with 2. Copper nitrate which has a similar solubility to calcium nitrate and will give a nice blue colour and potassium thiocyanate which has a higher solubility. Both are readily available on eBay.
A cheaper alternative might be fructose which is extremely soluble but I'm not certain it would not be compromised by bacteria and molds.
I tried sugar as one option, but couldn't get the gravity high enough.
@@bigclivedotcom Not all sugars are equal. You have to pick your sugar, fructose is highly soluble, about 3400g/l, glucose about 1/10 of that.
Love this project...hopefully I will be getting the 3D printer soon so I can try these projects :)
Well, projects like those make me pay AliExpress a visit to see what those small Chinese electronic shops come up with.
And yo and behold - plenty of glitter lamps with an assortment of LEDs - RGB to gaudy golden ... in all shapes and forms - as long as the shape and form is that of a HUGE butt plug.
I'm reminded of the Opal Fruits tagline here for some reason. I'd be a little careful of the search terms you use in aliexpress - for example I'd stay clear of K9 harnesses for example or your outlook on life might be somewhat broadened in interesting ways (this is not a recommendation...).
You should be able to find COB LEDs on daughter boards floating around on there - the stuff they do is amazing, from stationary engines, to micro petrol v8, via electronics and android toilet lids... That's a great Hubitat idea, put a contact sensor on the bog seat that triggers the boyfriend/husbands shock collar... 😂
The things chemo does to my mind 😂😂
Have you tried Mica Glitter in these?
Yes. It was too heavy.
Speaking things that some ladies use to make their nails look pretty that can be otherwise useful, the glue they use for false nails is cyanoacrylate, aka superglue, but a pack of 40 x 2g tubes of nail glue can cost less than 4 x 5g tubes. If, like me, you only ever use small amounts of superglue, frequently but not regularly and you hate finding a solid tube or bottle when you return to it, nail glue is the cheapest solution.
That's brilliant Clive! I must try this out. Does the gold bottle have colouring in the liquid or is this just the reflection of the glitter?
It's gold coloured glitter.
Do you think this would work with an MR16 downlight globe? Or do they not get hot enough to move the glitter? Could you get away with good old fashioned sodium chloride, or does that not raise the sg of the water enough for this?
Solubility of common salt is too low, only about 36g/100ml compared to 130g/100ml for calcium nitrate.
It would work with an MR16 lamp, but the base is only suitable for a low power LED one.
Just off topic for a moment - what temperature do you run your iron for leaded solder and (ugh) no-lead solder? And is there a visual clue as to which is which when it is in solid state?
I tend to run my iron at around 350C for lead based solder. I don't use lead free. It's often best to go by feel.
@@bigclivedotcom thanks so much. It's about what I use, and I don't use unleaded solder either. Does it require a hotter temperature to desolder unleaded, in your opinion? Seems so to me...thanks again!!
And the codec goes wild! 😂
When you said, "purify it," did you mean in the sense of simply letting it settle out and gently siphon / pour the clear result?
Yeah, the easiest way is to have extreme patience and let it settle and then syphon it like wine. Any cloud of settled impurities getting into the liquid affects the visual effect.
My farmer friend told me that my tomatoes needed calcium nitrate, so I phoned the local nursery. By the tone of the salesman, you'd think I'd asked if I could kick his cat. I guess Karens are everywhere. Eventually got it from a farm supplies store. Always wondered what the fuss was about.
Interesting thing about that calcium fertilizer. If it were pure Ca(NO3)2, it'd have 17% nitrogen and 24.3% calcium as far as molecular mass is concerned. It seems like there's some other calcium salt mixed into the fertilizer, lowering the nitrate anion to calcium cation concentration ratio.
The most recent bag is marked Calcium Nitrate and has that same Ca(NO3)2 formula.
Most commonly nitrogen is reported as equivalent ammonia but I am unsure about calcium.
Yeah, fertiliser is fun. My father travelled to Poland to look at the facilities of an agrochem company they'd just bought. Was proudly introduced to the companies new two floor store... With the dangerous poisons store (pesticides etc) on the top floor and the "safe" fertiliser store on the ground floor... Can you see what's wrong yet? (in the style of Rolf "Creepy" Harris).
Dad promptly exploded (pun intended) and carefully explained that there's a reason why you can make bombs from fertiliser... And what do you think happens when your poisons store is on top on about the same amount of explosives as can be found in the magazines of the entire King George V class (1939) of battleship...
For those who haven't seen it yet.. Everything was *carefully* moved out of the 1st floor poisons store, and all the fertiliser was moved *extremely carefully* to the 1st floor, and all the poisons were put on the ground floor. That way if things turned explody - only the fertiliser would go up, instead of covering the local area in neat agrochem nasties (and we're not talking about the nice stuff like glyphosate and neonics)....
And you thought GCSE chemistry was useless in real life.. Although I could have done without the asbestos tripod plates...
how much of one type of salt is dissolved in a volume of water doesnt effect how much of another type of salt can be dissolved (mostly) so you can create dense liquid mixtures by using combinations of common salts instead.
which i think the commercial ones do
It might be viable to mix salts.
@@bigclivedotcom ua-cam.com/video/mryQbC25G9k/v-deo.html
Nitpicky, but calcium nitrate is Ca(NO3)2, not CaN (imbalanced calcium nitride?). 💯
Pedants Unite! we have nothing to lose but other peoples inaccuracies.
What about using antifreeze suitable for aluminum engines or maybe coolant used in a Computer cooling system?
I've tried glycols and they aren't dense enough to support the glitter.
Fun. Could you somehow use lasers (like the little pen/handheld ones) in place of the other light to give a more directed flashing of the light off the glitter?
It would look good, but would not be safe. It's best to avoid direct eye contact with a reflected laser beam.
@@bigclivedotcom I was thinking pointing upwards through the liquid and bouncing more directed beams (maybe more than one/multi color?) with the top opaque so the beams couldn't accidentally be viewed from above. I was thinking the glitter would be moving fast enough that even if it did strike your eye, it wouldn't be damaging, but perhaps the risk of eye damage is higher than I thought.
Clive, thank you for the scripts; very useful as is your video - super! Now, I have no excuse but to go and buy a 3D printer my girls have been nagging me about for other projects! 😆
Currently being shown one of your videos in my adv diploma class
I'm fine with my videos being used in education.
Is it possible to hack a blobby type lava lamp to run on LEDs? I suppose you could separate the heating function from the light and use a power resistor along with the LED...
It would be nice, but they require a huge heat differential for a decent effect.
You've used glycerol for lamps in the past. Is that still a good solution with these glitter lamps?
No. The plastic used for most glitters is quite heavy, so it requires a very dense liquid.
Sod plastic, I'll use glass. Does Clive recommend The Dalwhinnie or the Cardhu? Refuse to use the Glenrothes (unless I fill it with petrol!).
Would you have a bulb hack recommendation for lava lamps? Thank you for all the lessons sir.
Sadly no. They require a lot of heat by their nature.
Ans the effects on the wall remind me of a very slowed-down transporter shimmer effect from Star Trek, so it's like you're trapped inside a transporter beam, probably like Scotty in TNG's "Relics"... :P
You can carefully decant the clear solution after letting the impurities settle for a while, or filter it.
Would the 3d printed base melt if you were to use a regular incandescent or halogen bulb?
It probably would.
The aluminium cap probably also helps with losses through the rubber over time. In a few years the water may migrate out through the stopper upsetting the delicate balance you have achieved.
Putting red, green, and blue LEDs in the three die bulb, with silver glitter, might give a nice effect where the colors in the reflections mix seemingly randomly, making everything between the primary colors, yellow, magenta, cyan, and white... or so I think. I may be wrong.
My first thought for an alternative to the calcium nitrate was propylene glycol--it's much (4x) more viscous than water--but then I looked up the density and found that it's only a few percent greater than pure water. Then I considered a sugar solution, but at ambient temperatures, even though you can dissolve more than a 2 grams of sugar per gram of water, the solution ends up with a specific gravity of ~1.4 as compared to the 2.5 you get with the calcium salt (due to the salt's greater density). It may be interesting to experiment with adding propylene glycol to see how it affects the flow.
Incidentally, if you add propylene glycol to the soap solution children use to blow bubbles, the bubbles will last longer.
I tried many glycols and glycerin, but the glitter still settles out at the bottom.
@@bigclivedotcom I suspect that was due to the low specific gravity. Adding propylene glycol or glycerine in addition to the salt solution might result in even slower eddies.
Nice project, though building it from scratch without salvaging any parts like the bottle/base from an existing lamp could get difficult and/or expensive.
And if you (re)fill an existing bottle, a new lid from TPU could work to create a decent seal while still allowing emergency pressure relief.
So I am working on making glitter lamps out of 1 gallon glass pickle jars (since that's the clear glass I have around). At 1KG per 650mL, that would be 12.84lbs of CaN for 1 US Gal of water. (Since 1 Gal of pure water is 8.34lbs, no wonder this solution feels so dense). Is that 1KG per 650mL figure about what the end-product needs? Also, what is the end volume of that batch, or is the 650mL the end volume of the solution?
I'll be 3D printing a base for the electronics, which will be a strip of RGB addressable LEDs and an ESP8266 microcontroller.
How did you cut your finger? 🤔
😮 looks gnarly ⛑️🩹…..great video as always 👍
I adore channels like this.
Have you tried the 12V lamps and a transformer? I don't know if they can be easily hacked to lower power though.
The base should work with many low power lamps.
I wonder how hard to make one using a "glass cheque" bottle.
I'm sat here looking at one. The ridges in the glass would lense a little? I think
Mildly intrigued, to see Big Clive's Search history on eBay.
Brilliant Clive love it thanks
What kind of paint (acrylic ink ? ) did you use for that lovely golden liquid?
You can use food colouring or printer ink to colour the liquid. Alternatively coloured glitter can be used.
Awesome Video big clive
Big Clive, have you tried urea for adjusting the density? You can get it fairly pure and it can make a very dense solution. It is also non-toxic and non-corrosive.
I'm not sure it would have a high enough specific gravity.
What printer do you have? maybe do a video on it (unless you already have)
Epson ecotank.
@@bigclivedotcom When I read this question, I assumed it was asking about 3D printer.
@@bigclivedotcom I meant the 3D printer
@@darkknight145 Ah. This was printed on an FLsun Q5.
You could also leave the whole LED light and add Radium flakes so they will illuminate in dark too.
But don't put your face to the glass to much otherwise you teeth may fall out and little bumps will occur here and there
Almost as safe as NHS chemotherapy... Which I'm quitting by the way, but don't worry, I'm just leaving early to avoid the rush.. 👩🦲⚰️
That's true genius!
Nice work.
I have an LED lit lava lamp that I want to be more active. What size resistor can I put across my 110vac mains to give off more heat?
Intriguing! Nice effect.
my glitter lamp has that waxy substance in it, same as a lava lamp but totally clear when it's warmed up.
Pretty.
Hi Clive i just had a light bulb moment!.....wonder if you could use some of the new induction powered LEDs floating in oil with coils at different levels of the bottle?....may need to adjust the LED buoyancy but might be worth a go!😄
Hmm, you'd want each led to capture and heat a small amount of liquid around itself ... Sounds interesting, but hard
@@RossReedstrom or maybe make a small tube from epoxy
hey Clive, you might wanna check out the Rainbow Motion Glitter Lamp, by Art + Sound, too. It has three multi-colour LEDs to illuminate the lamp, plus a small dc motor with a neodymium magnet attached to the end of the shaft. The motor-mounted magnet magnetically couples to another magnet attached to an impeller inside, at the bottom of the glitter lamp. So the only contact between the base and the lamp is the magnetic coupling between the motor shaft, in the base, and the impeller, inside the lamp. The rotating impeller swirls the liquid and glitter around. It’s clever and simple. oh and the lamp is very low power, consuming less than 100mA.
I found the magnetic agitator type to be too vigorous.
@@bigclivedotcom I completely agree, the ‘magnetic agitator’ lamps can swirl the glitter way too fast. I slowed-down my lamp to just the right amount with a 5 ohm resistor in series with a 5V USB power supply. I modified the lamp to run on USB instead of batteries, so I could leave the lamp plugged in all the time. The slower swirl is now more pleasing to look at. I also added a 10 microfarad electrolytic capacitor across the 5V rail + a snubber diode across the motor terminals.
@@SCAM-BUSTER.777 Simply use the common terminal and either of the other two, and leave the third unconnected. The choice of which other terminal just depends on what position you want the switch handle pointing when the light is on. If you don't care (or it is just a toggle button) then it doesn't matter.
@@SCAM-BUSTER.777 I'll try, but I'm in the US and we use different color designations than most countries. I can't see colors you have now and wouldn't necessarily know what they mean even if I did.
First identify the earth/ground wire if there is one (often green or bare copper), and move that to the earth terminal on the new switch.
If the old dimmer has two current-carrying wires connected to it (typically black or red in the US), then the new one gets the same two wires. One goes to the Common terminal and the other goes to either of the two other terminals on a 2-way switch. The order doesn't matter.
If the old switch has three current-carrying wires, then it is one that needs a neutral connected (white in the US). If the new one has a terminal for neutral, put it there. If it doesn't, then just cap and tape that wire and push it into the box.
If the new switch needs a neutral but the old one didn't, then you're going to need to have someone who knows how to do it see if a neutral is present, and if not, how to get one there. Or get a different replacement dimmer that does not require a neutral.
Are there no instructions with the switch? At least here, most dimmers come with basic instructions with wiring diagrams for a couple different situations. If these aren't clear enough, then I strongly recommend getting someone who knows how to do it to help. Basic electrical wiring is not complicated, but it is unforgiving if not done correctly.
@@bigclivedotcom
Hi bigclivedotcom 👍
Please can you show us how to make a 2-way switch wired up just to be a 1-way switch ?
One way switches appear to be going less and less in the UK.
Presumably it's just as cheap to make a two way as it is a one-way.
There is only one video on UA-cam that describes how to do this, unfortunately the video maker lives in India. :(
I don't do online shopping so I am unable to buy anything from Amazon or eBay. :(
Thank you 👍
been trying one with a rather nice shaped wine bottle and metal flake bit not with much luck, would the calcium help with that?
The liquid gravity will depend on the glitter material. Actual metal flakes might be way too heavy.
Cute, interesting project and can justify that (rather expensive) 3D printer by making something for the house 😁
neato, but now I'm thinking of a dual pane vinyl window sash filled with glitter liquid and with led strips on the bottom and one side that will create a circular flow current. I'll hand it off to you for expert implementation.
I have considered large flat glitter panels with resistors siliconed along the base for thermal flow. Possibly with a mirror at the back.
@@bigclivedotcom w a mirror for a wall hanging or clear for a dynamic stained glass effect! nice … they'll sell like hotcakes!
Must have a flared base.....
Your videos are fun! Thank you for making them!
I've been wanting to ask you this for a few months, I'm trying to get into circuit boards for a project i'm working on.
Basically I have this watch with no guts. I want to put in a CR2032 battery, a round circuit board, red LED lights, and a push button switch. Do you know where I can learn more or maybe you can help? I'll take any information you have.
Thank you for your time.
It depends on what you want to do with them. For simple circuits you may not need a PCB.
"Room temperature". Clive's idea of room temperature is about 8C.
Any chance you have a script for a decorative cap to go on top of the bottles? Or any recommendations?
I have one, but it's specific to one bottle type.
Mostly unrelated, but the bulb in our new fridge went. Oddly it's an incandescent bulb, not LED, and a replacement was very hard to track down.
If it's a screw-in lamp then you can get LED retrofits for fridges.
The incandescent/tungsten lamps are indeed pricey now. I recently got a couple for my old school wax lava lamps and I almost had to sell one of my kidneys.
What if you did one like for a tungsten lamp but with a 100W LED?
The LED would need to have a custom heatsink to transfer all the heat to the bottle to keep the LED as cool as possible. 100W would need quite a big bottle to avoid the risk of overheating and pressurisation.
If it weren't for the awful corrosion problems you'd get I'd say submerge the COB directly in the fluid inside a straight-walled borosilicate cylinder
Could the secret ingredient be dish soap?
I wish it was that easy.
Great project....as a person who has a Chemistry degree....Calcium Nitrate is CaNO3.....the CaN label on your bottle made my labeling mind upset! LOL
It was more of a rough reminder of what was in the bottle.
Nice project. Not sure whether I ever will try to do it, but it is nice to know how to do something like that. It is still tempting to modify my old lava lamp, though.
The SCAD file, though, could have some improvement in the header section, like the comments of the parameters above and not on the same line. On the same line you could add a restriction for the slider in the customizer like
// The height for the foot
height = 20 // [20:1:200];
This you get a slider in the customizer which goes from 20 to 200 with 1 resolution. For a list of options like the quality you could use //[40,70,100] The comment on top will show as header for the parameter.
You can make sections for the customizer by putting something like
/* [Optional parameters] */
as header where the section for optional parameters will begin. This creates a header that folds out the parameter section when you click on it.
The take over of variables stops at the first defined module, by the way. It is easy to define a dummy module just for this case that is defined just below the customizable variables. There is no need if you don't define another variable later, though.
I personally like to ask the system variable $preview whether we are in preview mode, making the basic configuration faster by manipulating $fn. This can be done by
$fn = $preview ? 45 : 100;
This switches the sections from 45 in preview mode (F5) to 100 in rendered mode (F6) automatically.
4:23 This is exactly how I feel about Worrkestersheer sauce.
I always pronunce it open-scad as well.
sparkly!~
Our glitter lamp is in a cupboard some where so may be I could get it out and change it over to a LED lamp
I got one but 😢I thought it also had bubbles, so sad
Ouch! What happened to your left middle finger's outermost joint? Some tool seems to have bitten off a piece of flesh and skin from there. I hope you recover from that injury quickly! 😉
Just winter wear and tear.
Off-topic but what happened to your left middle finger?
Winter wear and tear. Cracked skin on the knuckle.