making your own fog juice?

[Bradfo69]

I guess there is something to be said for graphics shows.

(Interesting and entertaining thread since there hasn't been a lot more going on around the forum.)

[djeric68]

The American Dj Fog Fluid MSDS is from 1989....25 years ago!

Product Nme: American FOG JUICE (Fog Machine Liquid) 05 05 033 0369040
Prepared: 05/31/89 Supersedes: 07/20/88
Attn: Plant Manager./Safety Director
SECTION I - PRODUCT IDENTIFICATION
General or Generic ID: Blend
DOT HAZARD CLASSIFICATION: NOT APPLICABLE
SECTION II - COMPONENTS
IF PRESENT, IARC, NTP, AND OSHA CARCINOGENS AND CHEMICALS SUBJECT TO THE REPORTING REQUIREMENTS OF
SARA TITLE III SECTION 313 ARE IDENTIFIED IN THIS SECTION.
INGREDIENT % (BY VOLUME) PEL TLV NOTE
• PROPYLENE GLYCOL CAS #: 57-55-6 10-30 (1)
• GLYCERINE 30-60 10 MG/M3 10 MG/M3 (2)


HOWEVER, the latest fluid they sell has an MSDS created in 2013...

HEALTH & SAFETY PRODUCT DATA SHEET (Regulation CE n° 1907/2006 changed) Version : J anuary 2013
Name of the Product : FOG JUICE ECO & PREMIUM Page 1/6

Chemical nature of the product: This product is a mixture
Liquid formulations of osmozed water and glycol derivatives. food coloring
No. CEE / main component: 203-953-2 , 246-770-3 (EINECS)

So, I googled 203-953-2 (EINECS)

TRIETHYLENE GLYCOL http://www.chemicalland21.com/petrochemical/TEG.htm

and 246-770-3 (EINECS)

Dipropylene Glycol http://msdssearch.dow.com/PublishedL...romPage=GetDoc


So, it appears that AMDJ stopped using Glycerine after 1989. Why they stopped is unknown. But their latest fluid does not seem to contain any.

Note also the "FOOD COLORING". Antari uses coloring to code the density of the haze produced in the hazer/fazer machines. http://www.antari.com/index.php/web/FAQ
Lots of good info about safety too.

It's not just about money, being from Turkey I can think of problems like long shipping time, customs handling, as well as other reasons:



Okay, fine, suggest an alternative. But don't whine if the OP doesn't find it suitable for him and even explains why, and call that "not accepting an answer to his question" and "not listening", because it isn't an answer to his question, it is an alternative.


And you know this because...?


They have actually... -_-
I'm tired of quoting old posts, press Ctr+F in your browser, type "glycerin". You'll find it.
Oh, and
http://www.americandj.com/pdffiles/AMERFOG.PDF
http://www.elationlighting.com/pdffi...fluid_msds.pdf


Yes nobody had, and nobody said they have! kecked did it himself, in his own will, because he was interested or whatever. What is wrong with you people?

[mixedgas]

User Mixedgas thanks User DJ Eric for this wonderful and insightful post. +1

Steve

[djeric68]

Regarding the pressure/velocity,

The output of the fog heating block is a short length of tubing (pipe), usually copper with a capped end with a small hole drilled into the end. Look closely at these pictures...



and you can clearly see the "Hole". This hole is smaller than the tubing and is a restriction. This restriction functions as an orifice meter, which operates on the Bernoulli principle. Constant pressure at the inlet of the orifice results in a pressure drop and increase in velocity on the outlet side of the orifice. Notice the cone shape of the fog output in the 3rd picture. Now look at this explanation of orifice flow... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orifice_plate The fog flow from the machine matches the flow profile through the orifice.




When talking about fluid compatibility with different machines and also if the time the fluid spends inside the heating block is long enough to decompose the fluid, it depends. The various manufacturers of fog machines all use different diameter copper tubing inside their heating blocks with different size orifice. If one tube is larger it holds more volume, which could potentially be trapped in the heating block. To further complicate things, volume is dependent on temperature and pressure, both of which vary during operation of a fogger, and also differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. Again, it depends.

The pump provides pressure & flow. The orifice creates 1) the expansion of the fog (due to pressure drop) and 2) the increase in speed (due to the increase in velocity). If you really want to fully understand the operation of an orifice plate, Emerson has a great white paper discussing this in detail. http://www2.emersonprocess.com/sitea...techwpaper.pdf

Hopefully this adds to this discussion and helps in understanding how foggers operate.

My Chauvet foggers produce high velocity fog when the pump is wide open, and a slow, creeping, low velocity fog when the unit is in continuous mode with the pump running slowly. My large Antari performs similarly, though the difference is less dramatic. (Then again, my Antari is quite old, and the heater is probably partially clogged at this point.)

That being said, I suspect the fog velocity difference is due to the pressure difference inside the heater. More fluid = more steam = more pressure = faster fog velocity. But this is still related (albeit indirectly) to the pump speed.

More importantly though, even after the fluid flashes to steam, the particles in the fog are still in contact with the heating element until such time as they are expelled from the nozzle. So the temperature is still rising even after the fluid flashes.



It does.

If you watch a fog machine that is just sitting there with the heater on, you will see wisps of fog drifting out of the nozzle from time to time. That's the small amounts of fluid that are left at the input end of the heater dripping into the heating block and being flashed to steam.

Adam

[buffo]

From what I understand before you said that some fluid remains in the heater and might remain there enough to reach the cracking temperature.

Correct.

But now you say anything that remained in the machine and drops from the heater input turns into vapor and comes out of the machine.

I think you are misunderstanding my use of the term "flash". When I said the mixture flashes, I mean the water in the fluid turns to steam, creating a sudden pressure increase. If there is enough fluid in the heater, the part that does not flash (ideally the organic compounds - the glycerin and/or glycol which have higher boiling points) will be forced through the nozzle at high speed, causing them to atomize into very small particles. This is what makes the "fog" that you see. (See djeric86's excellent post above for a very nice synopsis of this process.)

However, given the high heat involved, it is possible to also boil some of these organic compounds, particularly at lower flow rates. This is where the danger is. Heating those organic fogging agents above their boiling points can cause them to crack, as discussed in detail above. This is why stabilizing agents are important.

So the worst case scenario is when a very small amount of fluid enters the chamber, and there isn't enough pressure generated by the water flashing to steam to propel everything out of the heater. (Such as when the pump is off and the remaining fluid is just boiling off inside the heater.) This is when the fluid (or fluid vapor, if it's already boiling) can reach excessively high temperatures, causing the toxicity problems we've been discussing.

Does that make it easier to understand?

Adam

[mixedgas]

[QUOTE=dream;294599]We'll I'm trying to understand.
But I'm not sure I do. Now it seems like your saying some glycerin will remain in the heater and boil if the water steam isn't enough to push it out of the fogger?


Dream, Are you using home made fog fluid?

Steve.

[White-Light]

Well not right now I don't obviously. Now I'm trying to find out how bad acrolein really is if it really is produced by fogger and glycerin. I've been using 0.3:1 glycerin mix as fluid for quite some time... "cause everyone was doing it"... and nobody complained about any health issues or mentioned things like acrolein.

So can anyone help me find out how harmful acrolein really is? I'd like to know what it did to my body , if it did happen in the fogger.

Found this study on google:

http://oehha.ca.gov/air/chronic_rels/pdf/107028.pdf

Only glanced at it but it appears:

Principle dangers are respiratory and eye irritation.

However, there's mortality in animals at high concentration.

Cancers / pre-cancerous changes caused in some animals in the nasal and respiratory passages but not lungs.

Also, caused Pneumonia in the lungs.

Would stress that from the study it appears very much concentration and exposure time dependent. So I wouldn't worry too much, but neither would I carry on exposing myself to it.

If you're really concerned, only solution is probably a visit to an ENT for a camera up the nose along with an explanation of what he's looking for.

[cipher0]

You are excluding the middle. This is not a binary solution set. Glycol is *less* risky than glycerin, but the risk is not zero. For one, glycol by itself is mildly toxic in it's natural state, where as glycerin is not. Also, absent any stabilizing agents, glycol can still decompose to hazardous substances. It's just that the decomposition products for glycol are not nearly as toxic as acrolein is (which is what you get when glycerin decomposes).

Okay, I understand.

This doesn't mean anyone is "OK" with glycol, absent a stabilizing agent. There is still some risk involved. It's just a lot *less* risky that glycerin.

Didn't feel like the case, but OK.

Here's the problem with your line of thinking: You are drawing conclusions based on your incomplete understanding of chemistry.

I think I was clear on this, I don't need to know chemistry. I'm not drawing conclusions from what I know about chemistry, but from what the other side knows. I just show that *their* facts didn't logically lead to their conclusions.
But at this point who cares?
The new reasons you gave to prefer glycol over glycerin convinced me as well, so it doesn't matter anymore.

We know that glycerin will decompose to acrolein, which is very toxic even in ridiculously low concentrations. So that's something we really want to avoid. We also know that ethylene and propylene glycol will not produce acrolein, so that's a good start.

Okay.
BTW, I couldn't find any article or study which showed acrolein is *very* toxic. I see it causes irritation and caughing which nobody here using glycerin seems to have experienced. Mind sharing a link?

We don't know the exact chemicals used, but we can infer a lot from how the solution performs. But yes, we are taking a lot of it on faith.

Well I'm glad we agree on that.

The driving force, of course, is corporate liability. If they didn't take precautions, they could be on the hook for tremendous fines (not to mention lawsuit payouts).

One problem I see here. We still don't know 100% that glycerin based fluid when used in a fog machine produces acrolein, or enough to be any treat. You gave reasons why you think it likely does, and I think they are perfectly logical reasons, but then again we still don't know 1) if enough acrolein is produced to be dangerous, and from people here who have said they have used glycerin fluid looks like none of them have experienced any effects of acrolein, 2) if the residual fluid will reach an equilibrium with the heater before the heater will go below the 280C. There's probably more reasons I can think later. Basically, we don't know for a fact yet.

The reason I'm saying that we don't know whether acrolein is really produced and at enough quantities is, if the corporations have tested and know it doesn't, then they don't have any risk of liability and lawsuits. And if so they are pretty much making up scare stories and selling us tap water

BTW, last I've checked water-soluble glycerin doesn't sink to the bottom of the homemade fluid even at 30% concentration. So why do companies add extra chemicals to prevent that?

Just some thoughts.

[White-Light]

Okay.
BTW, I couldn't find any article or study which showed acrolein is *very* toxic. I see it causes irritation and caughing which nobody here using glycerin seems to have experienced. Mind sharing a link?

1 post above. Precancerous / cancerous changes at some concentrations / exposures.

[White-Light]

If they study potentially carcinogenic chemicals, it's always done in animals as it's unethical to expose humans. Rats / mice and monkeys tend to be the animals of choice as genetically they're very similar to humans.

With potential carcinogens, they tend to favour the lower animals ie the rats and mice. That's why most of the tobacco companies cigarette smoke toxicology experiments were carried out using rats / mice.

Personally I would treat any potential carcinogen with care.