Balafire: when a light bulb goes wild

Just wanna pin a little clarifier that somehow I missed the fact that the balafire box claims it actually has a carbon filament - and others found that Kyp-Go kept the precise formulation which allowed it to survive all this flailing about a tight secret. So when I was talking about the failure mode of evaporating tungsten, that probably doesn't apply to this bulb at all!

nifty

I quite like the warm light of old-style bulbs - too bad they're so wasteful.

Could you perhaps do a video on the advantages of residential hot-water recirculation systems? Apparently, a lot of potable water gets wasted across the US from people waiting for their water to get hot... so this seems like the perfect blend of convenience, eco-friendliness, and clever system design to fit your channel theme! Similar to the heat pump discussion.

I can't stand buying things, but occasionally I really wish I had some things whenever I decide to partake in hallucinogens.

Ehh it is flickering too fast.

Oey! Where's the rest of the bloopers!!!

No Effort November sounds, you know...

How long does the filament last if it's banging around in there?

Somehow I think this is the light-bulb cousin of the inflatable tube man.

When you said, "I don't love them." I felt sad.

My impulse thought is to hook one up to a DC power supply to see what happens

Lightbulb go brrrrr

I would love to get a set of these, and put them in a guest bathroom with one of those open globe bulb vanity lights 😂😂

Should run one on DC or a frequency drive

The mirroring could be silver fuming which would add an amber shift to the light after it passes through the cadmium red.

I'm devastated you didn't plug in either of the funky magnetic bulbs into that box that modulates brightness, just to see what that might look like or how it might interact with the magnetic behavior

where do i get them i want 30

"Goodness gracious great Balafire"

I need one

im gonna be honest i would display this thing on the head of a wizard staff.

I'm amazed they run for more than a few hours

Can we appreciate how many decades that little wire has been bouncing around in those bulbs since the 1960s and that they are still doing such in 2025? Im honestly impressed.

@slowmoguys PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

That BalaFire bulb is very awesome. next to ather ones they made kinda like these more then the led stuf.

Wildly smooth jazz

Slomo guys need to film that thing!

I could never own one of these because I would spend my days growing out a big long beard, standing at the top of a huge tower overlooking a forest, and running my hands over the orb looking contemplative.
....
Actually how much are these? I kinda want one

The cut at the end was great lmao

Balafire was called balafire as they were in balacynwyd

Is it possible to find new bulbs like these?

Somebody needs to rebuild the song loop machine engine for video and feed all the B-roll you have of that bulb into it.

LOL, "I'm going to pad it out to the point where I normally c".

Yeah I laughed. Nice job Alec.

I remember seeing these in the Exploratorium gift shop as a kid (clear sphere version) and never saw them again, I thought I had made them up in my head

You made my eyes bug... I got my Balafire in box at a prep school rummage sale in 2008 for $3.
Also of note: In 2011 Robert Kyp's granddaughter contacted me (after I posted a video of my Balafire on Flickr) about a documentary about him and his lighting she was putting together, as did his great-nephew who had put the lights back in production "handmade, one by one, in our little shop in DeLand, FL."

What if you used the SimFlame with the GasGlo or BalaFire bulbs?

Core childhood memory unlocked with the Gas Glo flame-shaped light bulbs! My parents had weird 1960s early seventies wooden chandelier over the dining room table that had one of those circular dimming switches, and when you turn the chandelier on you could actually HEAR the filaments shaking as you would dim them up and down! I'm 54 years old and I totally forgot about that. 😘🥰😍

What if you connect one to a flyback transformer? 🤔

I'd love to see a super slow-mo of this thing

You refer to these as tungsten filament when the box clearly labels them as carbon filament.

They have a light bulb in a firehouse in Chicago that has been running for over 100 years. No it is not running at full power. No it's not very bright.

So, question.

The filament vibrates at 60 Hz because the current alternates through it at 60 Hz. According to "Stats for Nerds", this video is 30 FPS. Why, then, are we not seeing temporal aliasing? After each frame, the filament should oscillate two times and then wind up right back where it was in the last frame, resulting in no perceived motion in this recording.

Can you get interesting effects with external magnets?

Makes me wonder how the balafire and the Gas Glo would behave using the dimmer. Would it increase the randomness of the "flame"?

it is still possible to get those "Balafire"
just take a normal bulb. and screw it on a socket then turn it on
using its light, get some pepper and cut it in small chuncks, very lightly - don't use gloves though, as they can interfere with the process.
then, without washing your hands, scratch your balls ta-da!!! balls of fire!!! :D

Accurate closed captions, especially at the end.

How dare you pad out the bloopers 😂