(more) Healthy and Reusable Tea Light

once every year we have the same in the news. Candles can be bad for your health. Now you can guess when this "news" is aired...

So when the cristmas sweets are out in the stores (late September to beginning of October here in Germany) You have the debate about good and bad candles. When you want to be save, use RAL certified candles:

https://ral-c.com/en/candle-information/

or build a bio-ethanol alternative. the idea itself is not new and there are a lot of projects out there which concentrate on the candle as a light source:

https://www.instructables.com/Alcohol-Candle-2/

But the most projects are hard to refuel which makes the user-acceptance not worth building one. (In my case)

We use candles most likely to fire our tea warmer. Goals are:
- Same size as a tea light
- easy to refuel
- Need to work with bio-ethanol

You'll need a little metal can. These are normally used for cosmetics.

Furthermore we need a wick. You can also by them somewhere or you can use some cotton thread. I always use the thread of a flour bag. Here in Germany these bags are threaded not glued like in other Countries.

Pinch a hole into the can, I'm using a compasses... because I'm a barbarian. You have to du it from the inside to the outside. This was the ridge prevent the wick to drop into the can accidentally.

Furthermore you need a second hole to refuel the candle later on.

Now we are basically done. Fill in the ethanol and fire it up.

When the candle is empty. ONLY THEN. you can refuel it with a syringe through the second hole.

The candle on the picture is now 2 Years old and still works fine. With this wick 10ml bio-ethanol is burned within 2-3h.