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Thread: making your own fog juice?

  1. #111
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    Actually in this case there is tons of data regarding human exposure to glycols. The theatrical scene has been fogging in one way or another for hundreds of years. I posted a paper regarding this. If you want the tox data from the paper just look up the references.

    "Data on the levels of propylene glycol and its metabolites in body tissues and fluids are not needed because this chemical is a GRAS food additive (FDA 1982)." http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp189-c5.pdf

    http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/si...erm+@DOCNO+174 (animals but good data)

    There is tons of human data for PG. The most common issue is for people with asthma. I started this thread concerned and alarmed but the more I dig into it the less concerned I am provided you have a good operational fogger with good thermal control. Seems if the fogger starts to smell bad then you have a problem and need to stop. Otherwise should not be a problem.

  2. #112
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    Quote Originally Posted by dream View Post
    please tell me how harmful acrolein really is.
    The NFPA 704 hazard communication label for acrolein has a 4 in the health hazard category, which is the highest risk.

    The issue with acrolein is not that it's a super-deadly poison like cyanide, but rather that it is harmful to the respiratory system even at incredibly low concentrations. It's been estimated that the human nose can detect acrolein at around .25 to .3 parts per million. But that is 2 orders of magnitude above the acute minimum reference level for health effects.

    For comparison's sake, consider another common respiratory hazard: Anhydrous Ammonia. It's also a severe respiratory irritant. But the permissible exposure level for ammonia is between 25 and 50 parts per million. Acrolein is considered to be immediately dangerous to life and health (IDLH) at less than 1/10th that level.

    This is why it's considered highly toxic. You have to factor in both the effects and the threshold concentration.

    The 2-year-old boy died 24 hours later of asphyxia." (I'll link the article when I finish reading it). Doesn't that mean they just didn't get enough oxygen?
    Asphyxiation is a lack of oxygen to the cells in the body. It can be due to an oxygen-deficient atmosphere, or a problem with the body's circulatory or pulmonary system. The mechanism of injury with regard to acrolein exposure is the damage to the lungs and respiratory tract which impairs the efficient transfer of oxygen in the lungs.

    So far two articles I've read say there's no evidence to assume it causes cancer.
    This was addressed previously, but yes - they haven't proved it's carcinogenic. There is some evidence to suggest it, but it's inconclusive. Further research is needed.

    if glycerin is not used in commercial fluids anymore and glycols don't produce acrolein, why do you think they contain some chemicals which will react with it and turn it to less harmful substance?
    Because glycols decompose to oxalic acid, among other compounds, which are also respiratory irritants (although not as bad as acrolein). See my post above for more information on this.

    Regarding acrolein being present in food, the primary difference is that food is ingested, not inhaled. Stomach acid will readily break down acrolein into simple sugars and alcohols. The lungs have no such protection. (Note that in high doses, ingesting acrolein will also cause serious health effects, as it is also poisonous. That's one reason it's widely used as a biocide. But in minute quantities, the acid in the stomach will destroy it before it becomes a hazard.)

    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?
    I posed a few links in my post above, but here are some more:

    http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/107028.HTML
    http://oehha.ca.gov/air/chronic_rels/pdf/107028.pdf
    http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/si...m+@rn+107-02-8

    we still don't know 1) if enough acrolein is produced to be dangerous
    Given the incredibly low threshold (3 parts per billion), it doesn't take much. This is part of the risk analysis I was referring to. When you are dealing with threshold quantities that are orders of magnitude below the smell threshold and also well below the detection limits of all but the most advanced GC - MS or NMR instruments, you don't take chances.

    2) if the residual fluid will reach an equilibrium with the heater before the heater will go below the 280C.
    This we can answer definitively. The heater maintains a 400 degree temperature (the heater is on until the high-temp switch shuts off at 400). So any fluid that drips into the heater (and is not being forced through by the pump) will sit in there and continue to warm until it reaches equilibrium with the heater.

    Perhaps there is a misunderstanding here about how fog machines work. The heater is not tied to the pump run circuit. The heater is always on (except when the high temp switch cuts it off). So the heater should always be at or near the maximum temperature, no matter what the pump is doing. (Admittedly though, if the pump is run continuously for a long period - say 30 seconds or more - the temperature could drop, but in this case the pump is shut off by the low temp switch to allow the heater to warm back up.)

    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?
    Someone posted here that they had separation in their fluid. Regardless, an emulsifying agent is cheap, and it would go a long way towards increasing the shelf life of commercial fluid. Also, remember that there are probably other esters besides glycerin (or glycol, for newer formulas) in the mix, and keeping them all suspended is important if you want consistent performance.

    Adam

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    " 15 characters"
    Last edited by Laser Wizardry; 11-13-2015 at 11:46.

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    I just had to join the forum to get my oar in on this exciting thread. So far it's peaked at full-blown spectral analysis of chemicals and then degenerated into the sort of scaremongering you expect to find on hippie sites telling you that shampoo causes brain cancer.

    Glycerol/glycerine/glycerin was used in some fog fluids in the very early days of the lighting industry until the much nicer triethylene, propylene and other glycols became standard. Glycerine is STILL used in water based cracked haze fluid and in specialist heated fog generation equipment. Here's a link to a current PDF for specialist smoke generators for military and industrial applications.

    http://www.safetyindustries.co.uk/Da...20Jan%2007.pdf

    Glycerine is used in some of the mixtures for theatrical effects, but finding MSDS data sheets that aren't deliberately vague or just completely misleading is harder these days than it used to be. It has the rather redeeming feature of excellent persistence.

    WAYYY back in 2002 when the Internet was very small and had to be accessed by a slow modem on a phone line, I put up a webpage about smoke fluid based on literally weeks of scouring through all online data I could find. Back then typing "how to make smoke fluid" into Alta Vista (this was pre-Google) brought up no results whatsoever. So I REALLY had to dig deep through all manner of long text based documents online to finally glean the data I wanted from the somewhat more honest MSDS type data sheets of that era. In those days it was clear that glycerine was probably used more because it was readily available as a food ingredient. But then they also used "haze pots" back then which basically heated Sal Ammoniac (Ammonium Chloride) to the point it liberated noxious fumes that reacted in the air to form a very fine particulate haze.

    But I digress. If you want to see that webpage I put up it's still available at my website, albeit looking a bit out of place due to it's being from a text based era where images took literally minutes to load. (hence no images)

    http://www.bigclive.com/smoke.htm

    I still use glycerine based fluid for my own applications from time to time, but wouldn't choose to use it in a public area due to the smell and risk of gunky residue on adjacent lighting equipment. There's also the risk that if someone has an asthma attack and any officialdom get involved then it complicates things if you are found using a home-made fluid regardless of its constituents.

    For your entertainment here are some videos of a small smoke machine running various concentrations of glycerine in distilled water, ranging from just water up to 50% glycerine.

    Plain distilled water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNnBjuvte_E
    2% glycerine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQzH8C70Nbw
    5% glycerine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTGTvc-tCII
    10% glycerine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L6yte3elAk
    20% glycerine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPoA4AVC6ec
    30% glycerine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdb8KB40_-g
    50% glycerine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YifGAgeyo6c

    Now about the temperature of heater blocks and decomposition of glycols. Most heater blocks run at quite high temperatures in the region of 300C to encourage the complete atomisation of the glycols into tiny airborne droplets by the explosive vaporising of the water content. The seemingly high temperature is also to ensure that the block has enough thermal mass to maintain a suitable vaporising temperature as the liquid absorbs the heat on its way through.

    The boiling point of the glycols themselves is as follows:-

    Propylene glycol 188C
    Triethylene glycol 285C
    Glycerine 290C

    All glycols will potentially break down when the remnants of the vapour are trapped in the labyrinth of the heater block. The quantities of "burnt" glycols are tiny and the acroleins that can potentially be produced are negligible compared to the smoke from frying pans, barbecues or cigarettes. You probably expose yourself to significantly more acroleins by frying up some bacon and eggs than you would being in the same room as a smoke machine all night. And if you work in a club that allows cigarette smoking then the smoke machine is really the last thing you should be worried about.

    Now lets talk about moderation shall we? Just because you have a smoke machine doesn't actually mean you should fog a venue out until nobody can see their hand in front of their face. All the glycol fogs are by nature quite hygroscopic and tend to absorb moisture from the "mucous membranes" of the human body. In short, sore throat, dry nose and stingy eyes. This is directly proportional to the amount of glycol fog in the air. The whole point of the fog is usually to make the beams of light visible, and this is best achieved with a light haze. This also saves oodles of money in expensive fog fluid, the effort of refilling the machine and reduces the number of complaints from people in the room. Total win.

    Asthma. In the case of fog this is generally caused by the paranoia of seeing the fog in the air. There are certain effects used in the theatre industry that involve short blackouts while the stage is filled with smoke, then a reveal where the lights are brought up to show the foggy scene. It's just a standard result that nobody coughs until you turn the lights on and they see the smoke and the coughing starts. A lot of it is psychological.

    Have I managed to bore you all yet?

    I've just had a search on Google for MSDS data to see what's changed. I really hope Antari aren't using "ethykene glycol" in their fog fluids..... (Yeah, spelt with a "K"?)
    http://www.elationlighting.com/pdffi...fluid_msds.pdf

    Ethylene glycol is one that I would certainly NOT use for creating an airborne vapour!

    Right, I think that's enough for a first post...

  5. #115
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    Clive, welcome.

    Grab some new data:

    Free to download while still open for professional comments:

    http://tsp.plasa.org/tsp/documents/published_docs.php

    You'll have to give the sponsor a valid email, if you try the opt-out of the quote, you may not get a download window.

    Generally the idea was tell the new kiddies if they don't know what they are brewing up, don't suck it in. And if they do brew it up, don't use it in public. Salvaged or repurposed chemicals are not such a great idea, if you don't know what the additives are. Here in the states it is getting damn hard to figure out what is really in a bottle, MSDS are now a joke. But they still are the best data we often have.

    Besides the new commercial stuff from 96 and beyond, is so, so, much better...

    If this had not turned into such a mess, I'd gladly have explained how to make nice, safe, heaterless haze with off the shelf parts.

    I've been at this since 1986, and knew the founder of MDG quite well...

    Steve
    Last edited by mixedgas; 06-14-2014 at 17:50.
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    When I still could have...

  6. #116
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    A very convenient way to make a super simple continuous haze is to add a small amount of the demonic glycerine to water and run it through an ultrasonic room humidifier. It produces a surprisingly useful haze on an ongoing basis without the use of heat.

    Regarding MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet). I've noticed a trend not just to be vague about proprietary formulas, but to actually mislead by implying chemicals are being used that would not work in the situation.

    One other useful note about smoke machines is the quality of the heater block. The cheapo consumer machines have a very small path through the block that results in poor fog generation compared to traditional machines that use the snaked copper tube sandwiched between heat plates.

  7. #117
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    [QUOTE=BigClive;294631]A very convenient way to make a super simple continuous haze is to add a small amount of the demonic glycerine to water and run it through an ultrasonic room humidifier. It produces a surprisingly useful haze on an ongoing basis without the use of heat.

    I'll sign off on that humidifier trick as perfectly safe with bottled water and USP Glycerin (Vegetable,) from the drug store. :

    Steve
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  8. #118
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    I must admit going back to the OP's original issue with expensive fluid, it still has me puzzled. Something I almost mentioned and Norty later did was Thomann, who ship practically to anywhere. If you want to overcome shipping costs, which are usually reasonable in any event, buy a little bit more eg a multipack offer or a drum.

    Second, is get a good hazer such as the Unique or Phantom! I have the Unique II and although it's fair to say I only play around occasionally for an hour or two at home so I'm not the heaviest of users, I got with my hazer 2 bottles of fluid (one free, one bought - not cheap at £25 per bottle). However, that was 2 years + ago. So far it's sipped maybe 100ml out of the 1st bottle!!!! The 2nd bottle is still sealed and in it's polythene shipping jacket! I'm pretty sure Jem, who I know had one of these commercially, and who at the time did some shows, said he could run a full evenings entertainment for only around a cm or two's depth of fluid.

    By contrast, you can buy a cheaper smoke machine and run through a full bottle of £10 smoke fluid in an hour or two, I know I've done it!

    So the OP should consider, that expensive haze isn't always expensive haze, it just depends what you run it through!

    Sometimes the investment in the equipment up front more than pays itself back in the long run and it's a lot less hassle than mixing chemicals, however safe or otherwise.

  9. #119
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    If you can source one of the cleaner glycols like propylene glycol then it's a better choice than glycerine. The availability of bulk quantities of BOTH those chemicals has been spurred by the e-cig industry. If you do a search for chemical suppliers online then you'll find triethylene glycol is cheaply available too.

    One of the reasons glycerine has such a following is that not long ago the effect industry was really cashing in on proprietary smoke fluids and it cost an arm and a leg to buy a 5 litre bottle of the stuff. So the DIY haunt market used the more readily available glycerol purely because it was available cheaply, locally and in a food grade quality by default.

    I think this thread has been a bit to harsh with the toxin scare-mongering. If a really harmful level of acroleins was being generated then the machine would be putting out a jet of acrid smoke and people would naturally stop using it because it would STINK. Have you ever fried up some food and the smoky frying pan makes your eyes sting so much that you have to leave the kitchen? That effect wouldn't go down too well in clubs or peoples lounges. And to the best of my knowledge acroleins do not build up in your body. If they did there would be no chefs, road workers or cigarette smokers left alive.

    As far as I'm aware the ONLY ingredients in commercial fluid are the popular glycols and purified water. I don't think there are any separation issues with glycols and water. If a biocide like Benzalkonium Chloride was used I would really hope that it would be mentioned in an MSDS sheet. Even if it's use is likely to be in the fractional percentage rate. I'm not sure I'd even trust a biocide being put through a heated chamber. Keeping in mind that triethylene glycol used to be hazed into the air in maternity wards and hospitals to kill bacteria in the air and prevent cross infection, I wonder if the glycols themselves are naturally quite sterile. The common glycols are actually classed as "food grade alcohols" so perhaps that's where the alcohol bit comes in. Sadly they're not as exciting as an ethanol and water mix. (Vodka).

    As an interesting note, I did a lot of experimentation with glycerine based fluids and common tap water (it's extremely pure in Scotland) and recently found the old 2 litre drinks bottles I mixed it in complete with light food colouring tints and a label stating the ratio. These bottles have been sitting on a shelf for OVER 30 YEARS! (I can hardly believe that myself!) and the one with 2% glycerine had a little mould/fluff floating in it, while the ones with about 10% or more glycerine were still crystal clear and had no smell to indicate any deterioration. They had also remained fully mixed with no separation of the glycerine and water after 30 years.

    A quick extra note about using an ultrasonic room humidifier with a dash of glycerine in the water to create a rather pleasing haze that is constantly replenished... Do make sure you don't store the humidifier without cleaning it out. The very low amount of glycerine will not prevent the liquid from going a bit slimy like ordinary water can do in these things.

    So in summary. If you wish to make your own smoke fluid for personal use then go ahead and have fun doing it. It's very unlikely anyone will die, although you may make your house smell a bit odd. For professional use in public areas it's a much better idea to use bought fluids simply because that immediately exempts you from liability regarding the fluids contents. Proper smoke fluid is readily available cheaply now as high profile brands or more generic universal ones.

  10. #120
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    Quote Originally Posted by White-Light View Post
    I must admit going back to the OP's original issue with expensive fluid, it still has me puzzled. Something I almost mentioned and Norty later did was Thomann, who ship practically to anywhere. If you want to overcome shipping costs, which are usually reasonable in any event, buy a little bit more eg a multipack offer or a drum.

    Second, is get a good hazer such as the Unique or Phantom! I have the Unique II and although it's fair to say I only play around occasionally for an hour or two at home so I'm not the heaviest of users, I got with my hazer 2 bottles of fluid (one free, one bought - not cheap at £25 per bottle). However, that was 2 years + ago. So far it's sipped maybe 100ml out of the 1st bottle!!!! The 2nd bottle is still sealed and in it's polythene shipping jacket! I'm pretty sure Jem, who I know had one of these commercially, and who at the time did some shows, said he could run a full evenings entertainment for only around a cm or two's depth of fluid.

    By contrast, you can buy a cheaper smoke machine and run through a full bottle of £10 smoke fluid in an hour or two, I know I've done it!

    So the OP should consider, that expensive haze isn't always expensive haze, it just depends what you run it through!

    Sometimes the investment in the equipment up front more than pays itself back in the long run and it's a lot less hassle than mixing chemicals, however safe or otherwise.
    To expand on this, I use a Radiance Hazer (made Ultratech on this side of the pond), and while the fluid is pretty expensive at about $100 for 4 liters, it lasts FOREVER! The last club I worked in was 10,000 square feet with 32' ceilings, open 3 nights a week, and we only needed 3-4 bottles for an entire year. In contrast, another nightclub I helped build uses some Chauvet fog machines, and they are going through several gallons a weekend. Once again, you get what you pay for.

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