Which Fogger/Hazer

[Bradfo69]

Haha.... No, not at home. I manage a banquet and conference center with a ballroom that can hold 600. While they are hazers, I only need to run them about 10 minutes during a typical 4-5 hour event. I've been on the same gallon of fluid for well over a year.

I've tried a bunch of different foggers and hazers trying to find what worked best for me. I've got hundreds of dollars in units sitting around I don't use. (I have two Geysers too. )

[Bradfo69]

And I WANT a Pea Soup.... Just because I hear they're great. I hope to see one live first.

[JD3]

Haha.... No, not at home. I manage a banquet and conference center with a ballroom that can hold 600. While they are hazers, I only need to run them about 10 minutes during a typical 4-5 hour event. I've been on the same gallon of fluid for well over a year.

I've tried a bunch of different foggers and hazers trying to find what worked best for me. I've got hundreds of dollars in units sitting around I don't use. (I have two Geysers too. )

OHHHH HAHA. I was seriously thinking " I dont make enough money or something.. "

Care to post which ones you have used? just for my reference.

Care to sell any? haha

[JD3]

I also should ask this...

When you use a hazer, what types of effects are you looking to get? Just visible beams, fans, cones? Or do you like the liquid effect moving haze gives through a fan/wave. Im assuming since you only run it 10 min you get none of the latter effect (which i like alot)

I like to have the ability to pump some thick stuff up for people to look at if a fan is static, then pump it with a strobe.

[Bradfo69]

Ok, had to switch to a laptop. Typing those responses above on an iPhone was a pain.

Anyway... I know this is floating around in another thread somewhere but, in a perfect world, I'd use (and have used) both haze and fog. I market lasers predominately to weddings and I personally think fog is a bit obnoxious so, I prefer the hazers to build up slowly so the guests don't even realize there is particles filling the room. Oil based works best because of the stupid long hang time. As I mentioned, I can run them for a total of maybe 10 minutes over a several hour event. Now... to give liquid sky's and beams that paisley look, the occasional burst from a water based fogger works wonders - and once it's later in the evening and people have been dancing and drinking, I don't mind the use of fog so much. I sometimes used the Chauvet Hurricane 1100's for that but have also recently started using the Geysers.

I have a few cheap fog machines, a High End Systems F-100, two Antari Fazers rebranded by Irradient, an Antari HZ-400, an MBT that's similar to the Antari HZ-400, the two Geysers, the two DF-50's, the two Hurricanes and I "think" perhaps that's it. Yes, I'd consider selling something and actually have been thinking about it for some time. I'd want to know your intended space before mating a suggestion so you didn't waste money on something underpowered for your intentions.
If you've got $1300 to spend, you may be better served by some of the above suggestions. I've seen the Unique II live and it's decent. I've not sent the Antari that KGB mentioned but, I know him well enough to trust Brooks recommendations and opinions.

[Bradfo69]

But what I will say is go oil over water based. The initial purchase is higher but the cost of the consumables is much lower. Sort of like buying a printer... do you want a $29 printer that uses a ton of $50 ink cartridges or, do you want to buy a $300 printer that use only 1 ink cartridge every two years?

[WookieBoy]

This seems to come up quite a lot, so here's my tuppence once again...

I've got two tour hazers.
One PeaSoup Phantom.
One Le Maitre G300
Two (very broken) Le Maitre Neutron Star Hazers
Various Le Maitre smoke machines.
I've also regularly used DF-50's, Unique (as Norty said, it's a TH in a different case), Martin/Jem and various others in venues ranging from small clubs, conference centres to outdoor festival stages and Arenas.

I can positively recommend the PeaSoup for all of the above if you get the variable flow version.
It quite simply produces the best haze I've worked with.

The DF-50 gives a nice haze, but it's quite thick until you spread it about and can leave a nasty residue inside your equipment which is a pain to clean out.

The TourHazers are very nice for the money and pretty robust. I happily dry hire these and have only had one failure of a heat exchanger in over 4 or 5 years... however, getting spare parts can be a pain here... no idea what it's like over there... but I think TNB may be stocking them nowadays... but check with them rather than take my word as I could be mistaken!

My only complaint with the Phantom is the CO2 costs... it makes it a slightly more expensive machine to run, and also I won't dry hire it to just anyone... only someone I know and can trust to be careful with the cylinders...

The Le Maitre hazer produce a good haze, but the neutron range die without warning whenever they feel like it and are expensive (in time especially) to repair.
The new MRS hazer is very nice, but the couple I've seen had some annoying design flaws (which may now have been fixed...LeM assured me they were looking into it when I spoke to them a while back) such as not storing the dmx address when powered off and developing a nasty rattle if handheld slightly roughly...

The Unique is pretty nice, as it's basically the same machine internally as the tour hazer, however I've had many Uniques develop problems during shows... something my tour hazers haven't done, which puts me off them. This may be down to maintenance issues with the companies that supplied them, but as it's more than one company, that would be quite unlikely...

So basically, for me anyway, it boils down to the TourHazer or the Phantom...

Personally, having run both side by side, I'm definitely happy I paid the extra!
Especially for lasers... something about the ultra fine haze makes the beams look just that little bit nicer to me...

TourHazers are great, you just have to decide if you want to pay the extra for the excellence of the Phantom...

[Bradfo69]

I've also heard good things about Haze Base. Dan from X-Laser who sold me his personal DF-50 was in the process of switching over to them and if he likes them, that's someone else who's opinion I value and trust. But as I said... a Pea Soup Phantom is on my wish list (and eventually invest in list).

[JD3]

This seems to come up quite a lot, so here's my tuppence once again...

I've got two tour hazers.
One PeaSoup Phantom.
One Le Maitre G300
Two (very broken) Le Maitre Neutron Star Hazers
Various Le Maitre smoke machines.
I've also regularly used DF-50's, Unique (as Norty said, it's a TH in a different case), Martin/Jem and various others in venues ranging from small clubs, conference centres to outdoor festival stages and Arenas.

I can positively recommend the PeaSoup for all of the above if you get the variable flow version.
It quite simply produces the best haze I've worked with.

The DF-50 gives a nice haze, but it's quite thick until you spread it about and can leave a nasty residue inside your equipment which is a pain to clean out.

The TourHazers are very nice for the money and pretty robust. I happily dry hire these and have only had one failure of a heat exchanger in over 4 or 5 years... however, getting spare parts can be a pain here... no idea what it's like over there... but I think TNB may be stocking them nowadays... but check with them rather than take my word as I could be mistaken!

My only complaint with the Phantom is the CO2 costs... it makes it a slightly more expensive machine to run, and also I won't dry hire it to just anyone... only someone I know and can trust to be careful with the cylinders...

The Le Maitre hazer produce a good haze, but the neutron range die without warning whenever they feel like it and are expensive (in time especially) to repair.
The new MRS hazer is very nice, but the couple I've seen had some annoying design flaws (which may now have been fixed...LeM assured me they were looking into it when I spoke to them a while back) such as not storing the dmx address when powered off and developing a nasty rattle if handheld slightly roughly...

The Unique is pretty nice, as it's basically the same machine internally as the tour hazer, however I've had many Uniques develop problems during shows... something my tour hazers haven't done, which puts me off them. This may be down to maintenance issues with the companies that supplied them, but as it's more than one company, that would be quite unlikely...

So basically, for me anyway, it boils down to the TourHazer or the Phantom...

Personally, having run both side by side, I'm definitely happy I paid the extra!
Especially for lasers... something about the ultra fine haze makes the beams look just that little bit nicer to me...

TourHazers are great, you just have to decide if you want to pay the extra for the excellence of the Phantom...

Thank you so much for this! I really wish i could justify getting the pea soup. Im just not sure i would use it enough to justify the price since most venues I do shows at already have some type of haze/fog system in house.

So now it seems to boil down to the TourHazer and the Antari HZ500. I have sent Antari an email asking them to explain (sales pitch me) the differences / advantages over the TourHazer.

[JD3]

Ok, had to switch to a laptop. Typing those responses above on an iPhone was a pain.

Anyway... I know this is floating around in another thread somewhere but, in a perfect world, I'd use (and have used) both haze and fog. I market lasers predominately to weddings and I personally think fog is a bit obnoxious so, I prefer the hazers to build up slowly so the guests don't even realize there is particles filling the room. Oil based works best because of the stupid long hang time. As I mentioned, I can run them for a total of maybe 10 minutes over a several hour event. Now... to give liquid sky's and beams that paisley look, the occasional burst from a water based fogger works wonders - and once it's later in the evening and people have been dancing and drinking, I don't mind the use of fog so much. I sometimes used the Chauvet Hurricane 1100's for that but have also recently started using the Geysers.

I have a few cheap fog machines, a High End Systems F-100, two Antari Fazers rebranded by Irradient, an Antari HZ-400, an MBT that's similar to the Antari HZ-400, the two Geysers, the two DF-50's, the two Hurricanes and I "think" perhaps that's it. Yes, I'd consider selling something and actually have been thinking about it for some time. I'd want to know your intended space before mating a suggestion so you didn't waste money on something underpowered for your intentions.
If you've got $1300 to spend, you may be better served by some of the above suggestions. I've seen the Unique II live and it's decent. I've not sent the Antari that KGB mentioned but, I know him well enough to trust Brooks recommendations and opinions.

I want 1 hazer that can do all jobs. I do shows in venues from 100cap to 2000+cap. It needs to be able to handle it all.

Seems like ill eventually do as you do and combine haze with fog for effects. I do use my geysers regularly but they are freaking loud man! I also dont like the effect of the light coming on before the fog and the fog taking a second to get to height. Wish it had a higher CFM.