Experiment With Unintended Consequence

It has been a longtime between updates.  A NXT Roasters search and highly placed search links in Google which are mostly attributable to this blogger or blogspot site tells me that it is a good idea to "feed the beast".  OK, I know, The Filter Bubble has been playing on the car sound system for the past couple weeks which certainly warns about the pervasiveness of Googles' data collection and data sales.  I don't like it but there is no better strategy at hand for the moment.

The original intent was to move the content to   nxtroasters.com   but the great positioning of a search results for "Freshly roasted coffee" Edmonton led me to reconsider.

The insulation experiment was to be a "quick & dirty" evaluation of the insulation value of a potting additive.  A light bulb was buried 25 mm below the surface and switched on.  The curious thing was that the light was getting brighter and brighter.  It did not make sense that the heat of the lamp was melting the insulation so the test continued to gain some conclusive insight.  In addition to observing the tests, measurements were taken with an infrared thermometer.  That was failing miserably because the surface was getting progressively hotter at an increasing rate.

 The test lasted less than 15 minutes giving enough time for wild speculation.  I often find that it is possible to guess most of the forces that will come into play when running an experiment BUT it takes a clairvoyant to rank the influencing laws of physics that are at play in the experiment.

Though I have melted wine bottles in the past this experiment was to be done at a much lower temperature.  The small glass finger broke off from the stresses that were not dissipated during a long cool down period.  The detail was nevertheless quite impressive though, I digress.

The experiment was stopped when the light bulb was obviously close to the surface.  Apparently it had for some reason moved upwards 25 mm.  After the "test bed" cooled down it was time for the autopsy.  Digging out the bulb made it clear that only the top of the bulb had moved and that the experiment was stopped in time, though the light was still functional it would hardly fit in a trouble light cage.

In conclusion the radiated heat of the element and the rising hot gasses is quite high and of course the heated gasses pushed outwards the glass were it was softest.  If the method is used again the voltage will be lowered if it is still possible to find an incandescent lamp.