Candle Lava Lamp gets too hot: How to fix Mathmos Pod Overheating

The candle-powered "Pod" lava lamps by Mathmos chronically overheat, so I tried two ways to fix this problem. Both kinda work, but the second method both allows better adjustment and just needs normal supermarket tealights, so it's what I ended up with.
Video by @SafarWIP : • Insane Mathmos candle ...
0:00 Intro
0:37 Wire method
1:01 Plywood method

[@julistar7980]

I bought 4 of these and never experienced this phenomenon. Luckily.
The small tealights are to weak, that‘s right.
So i took the 8-hour ones, which are higher than the normal ones.
In Germany you can find them in any drugstore.

[@x-Luchia-x]

I find Yankee Tea Lights(with trimmed wick) work really well with FireFlows

[@SafarWIP]

good video, thanks for mentioning me. Be carafull with the plywood though it is flameable

[@Makstuff]

Fair point, didn't even think about that. Although tealights don't nearly get hot enough on the outside to actually start a fire, but still, wood is wood.

[@awandererfromys1680]

Mine did overheat with the tealights that came with the Pods. After I got some from the local drugstore the problem disappeared. They have a burn time of about 6 hours and a wick size of about 5-6 millimeter. I get a solid 4.5 hours of satisfying _gloop gloop_ from them.
My mum bought some from a different store and their wick is twice as long. Bigger flame, more heat. She has to snip them down to get them to work.
The problem with the Pods is that there's a lot of variation in tealights around the world.

[@zakindi]

Thanks for the informative video. How much heat is created above the unit? If it was under a shelf with 2 inches of clearance above would this be ok? Or is it too hot to hold hand above?

[@jotape736]

Do you recomend buying one instead of the electrical models? I like this one because of his shape and the reduced price but I'm worried about the tempertures and finding the right candles. Btw really good videos about lava lamps, never expected see so technical and accurate videos about lamps jajaja

[@Makstuff]

Nope I wouldn't recommend these, apart from the heat problems, tea lights are also much darker than light bulbs, which doesn't look great especially if the environment isn't completely dark.

[@Jezhumberston]

Anyone worked out a way of converting to an electric/bulb configuration?

[@Makstuff]

Not that I know of, but with all the gaps in the body I'm not sure it would look that great.

[@channelsixtysix066]

I would convert it to 12v halogen operation with a dimmer.

[@Stratoszero]

Well done for making these things work even moderately well. They are utter rubbish, how Mathmos get away with selling these useless lumps I don't know. If I can't sell mine I'm going to empty it and fill with fast flow glitter.