Bubble light how does it work

Underneath their joyful appearance, there lurks a hidden hazard. The fluid inside old or new bubble lights most frequently is methylene chloride. Methylene chloride can cause serious poisoning if it is inhaled, swallowed, or spilled on the skin.

In the body, methylene chloride is converted to carbon monoxide. The symptoms are the same as from other sources of carbon monoxide : nausea, vomiting, headache, drowsiness, coma, seizures, heart attack, and even death. Also, many of these antiques have become fragile with age. They can break very easily in the hands of active children. Cuts from broken glass are a common holiday injury. Fortunately, the amount of fluid in a single bulb is very small and usually not enough to cause serious poisoning.

However, it is important for parents to remain vigilant and discourage children from playing with these lights. Poison Control is here to help 24 hours a day, holidays included. If someone breaks a bubble light or you suspect a poisoning from other holiday decorations, call Poison Control right away at Call or. Case 1: A month-old boy was found with a broken holiday bubble night light. This is above room temperature in most houses, and not far off of what the normal light bulb temperature is you don't want it too hot or else people get burned and houses burn down.

So, as long as the tube has enough surface area to keep the top below the boiling point the cycle will continue. Certainly, you could put so much power in the bottom that you would heat the entire device above the boiling point and then bad things would happen boom! In mine, the bubble tube is glued directly to the top of the bulb for maximum heat transfer.

The bubbles form there and rise to the surface of the liquid, cooling as they go up further from the heat source. I think that is why they don't explode; the vapor in the bubbles condenses back to liquid in the length of the tube. It's a delicate balance between just enough heat to make them work and too much heat and catastrophe. Probably, if you had a long tube, the bubbles might condense before reaching the top.

Or, on the other hand, they might not ever get hot enough to form bubbles. That's a good experiment for someone.

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Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why don't bubble lights explode? It was a nasty fight, with representatives from both companies defending their positions quite aggressively. At one point, a temporary halt was put to the proceedings when Raylite steadfastly refused to provide NOMA with a sample of their bubble light for examination.

Raylite claimed that they had only one sample, and would not part with it or allow it to be taken apart by NOMA representatives. NOMA filed a motion for a further "Bill of Particulars", asserting that they could not properly prove infringement unless they could demonstrate and compare Raylite's product against their own. Raylite claimed that they had only one sample, as the product had not yet been put into production. NOMA claimed that Raylite had "demonstrated their light to the trade", and therefore samples must be available.

The presiding judge ordered Raylite to provide a sample, which they still refused to do. A judgment was entered in NOMA's favor, granting drawings, samples and all pertinent information so as to allow NOMA the ability to compare the Raylite product against their own.

The court order was dated December 23, While all of this was going on, a few of the Christmas lighting companies, including Raylite, offered NOMA a royalty of three cents for each light they produced. NOMA offered to split this three cents with Mr. Otis, but he refused. It was at this point that he became directly involved in the court cases, and intervened as a defendant. The District Court for the Southern District of New York rendered a judgment invalidating parts of Carl's patents, and he promptly appealed.

The case suddenly became even more complicated. As the proceedings dragged on, NOMA and Raylite agreed to drop their fight involving two of the patents, numbers 2,, and 2,, when it became clear that the court was sure to invalidate them. NOMA then promptly cancelled its license with Carl for both. Carl appealed this action and lost.

Everything was now hinging on the validity of his sole remaining patent, number 2,, The crux of this patent was Carl's assertion that he had invented a new method for assuring that the bubbling action in the glass tube of the lights would be reliable, fast starting, and even. This was accomplished, he claimed, by either of the two methods covered in his last patent-the glass slug or the porous chemical mass fixed at the bottom of the tube. Carl testified that without either of these devices, the methylene chloride would either circulate within the tube and thereby fail to reach a boiling point, or produce an action known as "bumping", which is the accumulation and subsequent sudden release of a large mass of bubbles in an uneven and unattractive cycle.

He claimed that his methods of isolating a small amount of liquid, bringing it rapidly to a boiling point and then controlling its release were unique and heretofore not previously addressed, anticipated or patented. Raylite moved swiftly, presenting an earlier patent by Phillip Rosenblatt, number 2,, that was granted on March 31, , well before Carl Otis' patent of September 4, Rosenblatt's patent was for a "Display Device", and is pictured on the left.

The specifics of this patent for a bubbling display address the "bumping" issue, and in fact the invention was presented specifically as a solution to that problem. His apparatus incorporated a wad of glass wool in the bottom of the fluid container and adjacent to the heat source, the effect of which assured even production and distribution of appropriately sized bubbles.

Rosenblatt even went so far as to say that while glass wool was a preferred substance, materials like shot or glass beads could be used, both of which were mentioned in Carl's patent. Carl argued that the specifics of Rosenblatt's patent included reference to a large bubble formed within the glass wool fibers, almost completely enclosing it.

The outside liquid then enters the vapor space of the bubble, and is in turn vaporized itself, breaking away and forming a stream of bubbles. He related that his patent made no mention of a large, entrapped bubble, but relied on a process he called "superheating. The court disagreed. It felt that the process was essentially the same in both devices, whereby a small amount of liquid chemical is held close to a heat source, essentially apart from the main body of fluid.

The court saw little difference in the effects of Rosenblatt's glass wool, or Otis' hardened and porous chemical mass.