What Springs and Coils in Lava Lamps do: Time Lapse Comparison using Mathmos Astro

The coils in my Mathmos Astro sparked my curiosity, so I did a little experiment to find out how necessary they actually are. I recorded some footage of the "standard" lamp, then removed the two springs and did a second recording without springs. Then I edited the recordings side-to-side to examine the differences.
Music: "Acoustic Love" by Lesfm from Pixabay
0:00 Intro
0:31 Removing coils
2:30 Time lapse footage
4:36 Real time footage

[@flaw885]

Wow. It's incredible how the lamp wasn't permanently messed up from doing that while it was running.

[@MBommeli]

Hab ich mich auch schon gefragt ob das wirklich so viel ausmacht. Danke fürs testen!

[@seantimmer4110]

They use the springs not too spread the heat but to enlarge the size and length of the lava bubbles. If you watch closely the lamp with springs make larger and "longer" bubbles sometimes all the way to the top. Which makes sense because the spring makes the wax stick to it, you can see that when you took that spring out. Its the same effect you have when making soap bubbles. But the source here is heat instead of air.

[@Makstuff]

Not saying you're completely wrong, but a) they say in the FAQ specifically that it's to accelerate the melting (why would they lie), and b) I personally see long and short bubbles on both sides almost equally. Anyway, anybody can look at the footage themselves and form their own opinion, no need to trust either of us 😁

[@AlyssaNguyen]

@@Makstuff Trust no one ;)

[@crimcyan3037]

@@Makstuff the coils purpose is for surface tension, it re-heats the wax that drops down better and makes the globs a bit bigger

[@Ohkeh640]

Looks better that way too

[@grantparisi7707]

Thank you, btw LOVING the music !!!

[@perishingtardis]

That's pretty surprising actually. Sometimes when a lamp gets too hot (like my iO, specifically), the wax detaches from the coil and doesn't flow at all. I guess then that this is simply due to the wax being too hot, and the fact that it detaches from the coil is a coincidental side effect, rather than the cause for the flow to stop.

[@Makstuff]

Hmm, hard to tell intuitively. Actually I don't even know what effect exactly could cause the flow to stop during overheating. But good point in general that the spring might be more useful in less-than-optimal flow situations, I didn't even consider that.

[@allthewade]

Thank ypu for your post I made the mistake of shaking and it wont work any more . Do you know what wax to use and where to get it Thanks for tour time

[@Makstuff]

Give it a bit of runtime, maybe it will recover. If not, replacing the wax is quite complicated and you are probably better off buying a new lamp. At least if it's a cheap one.

[@GinaLWolf]

What kind of lamp do you have? I like the twist cap

[@Makstuff]

Mathmos Astro 😌

[@Ohkeh640]

I have a lava lamp and it says to use a 30 watt bulb. Can I use a higher one like 40??

[@Makstuff]

Yep, should be fine, just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn anything. Best solution is combining it with a a plugin-dimmer to gradually increase the heat.

[@DrTalk]

No, it’s not to help heat the wax. It’s a surface tension breaker.

[@sirelleannebonayon6853]

Daaaa

[@louleeman9903]

coils?.... we don't need no stinking coils..

[@kurtiskoppdrums]

Big fat money

[@SidShakal]

@@kurtiskoppdrums what im hearing here is lava lamp is in the pocket of big coil 🤔🤔🤔
😄