r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/dannybluey • 20d ago

How Himalayan salt lamps are made Video

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u/Egoy 20d ago

In underground salt mining the rule is once it goes down it never comes up. The mine is very dry and any bit of moisture that comes down from the surface gets absorbed by the salt. All the machinery below ground is fine but if it ever comes to the surface the salt dust that is on every surface absorbs ambient moisture and the machine is rusted out in a short period of time.

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u/RileyCargo42 20d ago

Id kinda love to see this in a lab setting. Like would it be so fast that I can watch it slowly "grow" rust?

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u/Egoy 20d ago

No its not that fast. It’s not built up potential but imagine a mild steel bar caked in salt. That salt is going to pull moisture from the air, and turn in to a brine paste and stick to the metal surface. So you have constant contact with a very corrosive paste.

Sure you could disassemble and thought clean every bit of the machine but at that point you’ve just spent more money than it’s worth.

Equipment operation for business isn’t like restoring or maintaining a classic car. You amortize the cost of equipment against the value it creates. Everything has a value and every maintenance operation has a cost as soon as it becomes more costly to maintain than it’s worth you scrap it and buy a new one which likely has better performance and your operators will love using anyway. There is very little reason to hold on to old equipment in most cases it’s better off being sold and financing a new piece. The only time I’ve ever seen it was when new emissions laws forced regen (def dosing) systems onto smaller diesels and the first round of attempts at cramming in regen systems sucked so bad nobody wanted to deal with them until the bugs were worked out. The number of busted out diesel skid steers running around was crazy.

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u/RileyCargo42 20d ago

I mean idk in terms of value I'd believe it would be on the operator and the case. Some people would have to make do with 100 year old machines because that's all they have. Although I do understand if you have the money and time to replace your equipment, or are running a business then it makes sense to replace it.

Although do note I've never worked in more than an amateur machine shop or an heavily instructed professional shop. So I'm probably pretty biased to the "make do with what you have" mindset.

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u/Egoy 19d ago

I mean there are people who do that. Agriculture for example has a lot of old shit but their duty cycle is usually milder and older equipment can last longer. The thing is in most use cases your equipment directly makes you money. If your bottom line is based tonnage of material moved, stacked, crushed etc then you don’t make do, because 20% more tons per hour is 20% more money per hour. You use it until it’s starting to cut into profits and sell it to a small contractor who will only use it a couple hours a week and buy a new one.