Pifo hair dryers were common out here in the colonies waaay back! I think there were other appliances as well but……
DaveB NZ From: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com [mailto:neonixie-l@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Adrian Godwin Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2022 03:17 To: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Re: [neonixie-l] Bubble Lights and other Christmas Lights of interest Interesting to read about these old-school suppliers. In the UK, the supplier of all things cheap, tacky and seasonal (as well as miscellaneous electrical the rest of the year) was Pifco, with products usually made in Hong Kong. Did they reach other parts of the world or were they just a brit phenomenom ? On Thu, Dec 8, 2022 at 1:15 AM Mac Doktor <themacdok...@gmail.com> wrote: On Dec 7, 2022, at 6:42 PM, Terry Kennedy <terry-gro...@glaver.org> wrote: I posted about these some 8 years ago. Long before I joined this group. I missed out on a lot but Im trying to make up for it. I worked in the factory (in a different division) that made those in the 70’s - Masden Industries on 23rd St. in North Bergen, NJ. They made the glass enclosure and the contents, and then sold the sealed units to a customer (Beacon Electric, somewhere in New England, IIRC) who provided the bases and lamps and did the packaging and sale. I have some that are 3’ (yep, FEET) tall. "Mr. Bubble", as Rich likes to call himself, has made some very long custom tubes but I doubt that he's made any quite that long. The chemistry was quite simple* - the ball of material in the bottom was a mixture of sugar and sodium metaborate. The liquid was methylene chloride. The solid would outgas at low temperatures (even from the heat of a hand) and release bubbles which would float upward and eventually be reabsorbed in the liquid. The trick with the giant ones was to wind a spiral of thin heating wire around them to keep the bubbles from disappearing partway up. Yeah. I wonder how they did it with those Wurlitzer jukeboxes? Those tubes are pretty long. The most annoying thing about this factory was that it tended to explode a lot - the machines that did the glass sealing were all 1-offs and old, and the flame would back up into the main gas line, and kaboom. Oops. * If these are made today, I’m sure the formula is different - the one I posted would run afoul of safety regulations these days. I have no clue as to what else can be used for a fast bubbling action. Rich's oil tubes have rapeseed oil in them, among other secret ingredients. The nucleator is tiny pieces of pumice. Telsen Electric Company in Britain made tubes that were like Lava Lamps, in that the bubbles were colored and the rest of the fluid was clear. Shooting Stars are like Lava Lamps in reverse, clear bubbles in a colored liquid. They use freon as one of the liquids. That's hard to get these days. The nucleator looks like flakes of mica. The problem with the Telsen tubes is the same as a real Lava Lamp. They get too hot at the top and bubbles just collect there. They have to be shaken periodically to make some of the fluid drop down again. Rich experimented with this but it was just too unreliable. He gifted me one in return for a very large order. Anyway, that factory produced several tractor trailers full per week during the busy season. There were various dyes to color the liquid. Getting dyes that remain stable when heated or in direct sunlight is another problem. I've had some that did that and they were replaced under lifetime warranty. Also, you will often see vintage tubes that are only half full or even empty of liquid even though they're still sealed. This is due to microscopic cracks in the glass, probably from thermal cycling. Rich uses borosilicate. BTW, if anyone is considering purchasing some bubble lights this season avoid Christopher Radko like the plague. His bubble likes are SO colorful when they're tuned off. When they're turned on, not so much. The blackbody radiation curve limits the colors possible with incandescent lamps. White, yellow and pink bases look yellowish-white. Red looks orange. Green is a bit dark and blue is almost a ghost. And the blue tube is so dark you can't even see the bubbles. Also, if you see a set with NOMA artwork on it for twice the price of a no-name Chinese set, buy the Chinese set. Unless you really love that NOMA looking box. And always buy two sets for when a bulb blows. If you have a variac handy dial them down 10%. That will help. It's just not Christmas around here without variacs and 12V transformers all around the stairwell. Terry Bowman, KA4HJH "The Mac Doctor" https://www.astarcloseup.com Edward R. Murrow: “Who owns the patent on this vaccine?” Dr. Jonas Salk: “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”—See It Now, 12 April 1955 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. 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To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/CALiMYrsCrVvzbgmW8TYNKn5vbzq367zyDrYfB-%3DvovoeWYLfiw%40mail.gmail.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/CALiMYrsCrVvzbgmW8TYNKn5vbzq367zyDrYfB-%3DvovoeWYLfiw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/004b01d90c08%24d5d77840%24818668c0%24%40silverbears.nz.
