fog/haze without a fogging machine?

[solidude]

15 characters dude

[Galvonaut]

Hey guys after teknical showed a video of his goldenstar laser in a smoke-filled room, i want to try something like that when my laser arrives.
I dont have a fog machine, just want to see laser beams in my small room. What will you recommend me do to get some not harming smoke in my room without an expensive machine? Thx.

You can pick up cheap smoke machines but they don't last long.

Keith

[White-Light]

For a one off, you could try canned smoke. You can buy it from places such as Maplin. That said, the can I tried left greasy deposits everywhere.

It's also expensive at around £8 per can from memory which doesn't go very far. So it's ok for a one off demo before buying a machine but its no substitute for the real thing.

Best advice is buy a quality smoke machine if you're going to be pursuing this hobby or if you can afford it, a quality hazer. You can pick up a Martin / Jem Fog machine for around £100 and it should last you for years and years.

[WookieBoy]

Or just make your room very dark and boil a kettle under the camera shot along the beam path...
Steam works just as well. Or dust.
Just make sure your projector case isn't colder than the room or the steam will collect on it and turn back into water, shorting out the electronics!
If you've spent $ on a laser, you should really spend some on a haze/smoke machine as well, otherwise you're only getting 10-20% of the value of the laser anyways! :/

[teknical]

employ a couple of stoners to sit in your room caning bongs

[Insanity]

I filmed this during the day with nothing more than incense, you can see it just in the doorway....

[The_Doctor]

Beg borrow or steal a smidgen of smoke fluid. Glycol... A few tens of milli-litres is all you need. Heat a frying pan on a hob till it is hot enough to make water droplets run about instead of spreading and hissing, but no hotter than this. Now drop glycol droplets instead of water. You can use a much smaller object to heat it in, just make sure it isn't flat and unbounded because the drops need to stay in.

Take care with incense or anything else that leaves a solid residue. Strong lasers and solid residues don't mix without harm to optics. Clean glycol isn't so bad, unless it mixes with solids and sticks them to optics.

[Galvonaut]

Nice video Mark!

That is 19 Watts of laser though, so a little smoke would go a long way with that lot!

Keith

[dnar]

I second the frying pan idea. Works a treat. You can pickup glycerine at most Chemists.

[Insanity]

Nice video Mark!

That is 19 Watts of laser though, so a little smoke would go a long way with that lot!

Keith

Cheers Keith,

You would be surprised how little of that 19 watts is visible in a clean house without some smoke. But you are right, the tiniest bit brings everything to life... My enclosures are pretty well sealed, so not much gets in there... They also had a major cleanup after that test...

i got this question now, how did your camera survive that?

Like all my camera's including my iPhone, it has a CCD that resembles a well used dart board... As you can imagine, I was nowhere near those beams when I filmed that...