Hazers

Hi Fellow PL'ers

I'm looking for a hazer for use at home and at Wedding / Social type venues and have been looking at the likes of the QTX HZ-3 and other similar units.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/QTX-HZ-3-7...item4623d855c9
Can anyone give me an opinion on this and other similar units in the £200-250 price range.
I know there are far better hazers out there but as this is going to see only occasional use I can't justify spending much more. Most of the show's I do on a regular basis have the likes of the Look Unique at work provided by the lighting Co.

Carl

Carl, as an owner of 1x FX1000, 1x HZ2 and 2x HZ3's, I was (until this year) very happy with them.
This year, i lost the FX1000, HZ2 and half an HZ3 (some functions stopped)

That wouldn't be a problem in itself, however, AVSL who distribute the things simply don't supply spares anymore, so unless it's one of the commonly available pumps that has gone wrong, you're a bit screwed.

I worked out that I have hazers to the value of a Smoke Factory Tour Hazer here broken, and as an owner of 1 Tour Hazer already, I'll be buying a second one for next season, if not sooner.

If you consider it disposable then its an ok buy i suppose. see if you can get a reconditioned one cheap on ebay or something, it'll hurt less when it inevitably becomes junk.

Ok, make that an HZ3 completely dead.... *sigh*

Cheers for the insight Norty.
Out of curiosity how many hours do you think the HZ3 did before failing on you and if I decided to buy one how long would a tank of fluid last?

I can heartily recommend the tour hazer!
I have 2 and they work hard for their money.
One had some problems after two or three years of use but it was easily fixed and SmokeFactory are reasonably quick at getting spares to me...

Fluid use is pretty economic and the fact it's built into a handy flightcase and doesn't mind being tipped is a great bonus.
It may be more than u need, but for the money I doubt you'll be disappointed! :-)

I think this HZ3 was about 1 or 2 years old but only had about 30 or 40 hours use.
I could do a tank of fluid on an all night gig. I use Thomann's HD fluid and I've found that although my Tour Hazer fluid costs about 4 times the HD fluid, it uses it about 4 times slower.

The other less obvious side effect of using a decent water based hazer is that the haze is much 'dryer', and produces much less residue on kit than the cheaper ones

Oh yeah, you'll always get your money back on a tour hazer. They just don't come up second hand much because people hang onto them.

The Unique is pretty good as well, although once you add a flight case (Thomann - @£130), it adds up to an amount not far off a Tour in price (about £60 cheaper).

I used the Smoke factory tour hazer 2.
Super reliable for a LONG time now and very efficient.
Has space for a 5 liter tank and is build into it's flight case for convenient traveling :)

Cheers guys.
Some options to think about.:)

Looking through the thomann site found this http://www.thomann.de/gb/stairville_..._hazer_dmx.htm
Anyone come across this unit?

Nope, but the bonus of buying from Thomann is their 3 year warranty.