Hacked LED glitter lamp.04:33

Since discovering that Calcium chloride can be used to raise the specific gravity of water enough to make glitter lamps I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation. This lamp is one where I have replaced the original E14 base with a GU10 base so I can use the cheap 3W LED lamps available on ebay. These have a small electronic power supply and three 1W LEDs and the results in a glitter lamp are stunning. The three sharp points of light create a mega sparking effect that more than makes up for the slower fluid movement at the lower temperature. Despite being only 3W the LED lamps result in a much brighter lamp than the traditional 30W tungsten lamps. Running costs will be just a couple of pence/cents a day for 24 hour operation.
The glitter I used is sold by a theatrical supply company called Rosco and is silver 1/64″ hexagonal-cut polyester glitter. I chose it because it is one of my favourite glitters due to its consistency and quality. Polyester has a very high specific gravity so the fluid needs to have a matching specific gravity of about 1.39 and this requires a LOT of Calcium chloride.
The calcium chloride I used was the hexahydrate version and was sold as food-grade. It’s important that it’s pure as any impurities may create cloudiness. For a 500ml vial/bottle I used about one pound of the calcium chloride with roughly 150ml of water. The heat from the LEDs is low, so the glitter has to be at near neutral buoyancy in the liquid. This involves fine tuning it so that if the glitter settles at the bottom you add more calcium chloride, but if it settles at the top you add a few drops more water. The fine tuning can be done to the level of a single drip of water. After any adjustment give the bottle a shake and let it sit for a while and see if the glitter is moving to the top or bottom. Ideally it should be trying to stay in neutral suspension, but a very slight drift upwards is preferred over a downward drift since glitter at the bottom of the vial will obstruct the lightsource.
The video can’t really do the effect justice. It’s a shimmering green (or whatever colour of lamp you choose) that makes the vial sparkle brightly and projects a rippling light effect around the room.