WTB: Hazer

[drlava]

Hi guys, I'm looking to buy a hazer.. I've seen 'water based hazers' that to me sound more like a fancy fog machine and 'oil based hazers' which are the traditional real-deal, please enlighten as to your experiences with these, if you have them.

thank you!

[norty303]

You're opening a can of worms here!

Basically, lots of people swear by the 'cracker' oil based hazers due to their smaller droplet size and longer hang and frugal fluid use, but the down sides are that they are messier and less flexible than the water based equivalent.

If you have really deep pockets and good transport then you could go for one of the CO2 assisted machines, but they're thousands rather than hundreds.

A popular choice for water based (and my personal preference for both indoor and outdoor work) is one of the Smoke Factory Tour Hazer 2/HazeBase Base Hazer Pro/Look Unique 2 hazers.
Once you've seen them you'll see they are all basically the same components, in slightly different configurations. the benefits of the Smoke Factory and HazeBase are that they come built into flight cases.

You can use the fluids for them all interchangeably, so buy whatever is the cheapest in your region. Fluid is 'seemingly' expensive (around £35/gallon) but they are very frugal, I did 1.5gall between 2 units over a festival weekend, stage running until sunrise on 2 nights and midnight on the other.

Parts are also readily available, along with the service manual, so they are not something to throw away when they break.

Oh, and forgot to say that the flexibility of water based is that you can get lots of different effects from them, so high fan speed and low pump gives a really nice even haze. Lower fan and higher pump causes more cloudy output, more akin to a fog machine, so great for liquid skies or simply whiting out a room.

They run without duty cycle and a single unit is capable of filling a fairly big space (HVAC depending!)

[Scenaria]

I'm finally cracking open the bank for a pea soup. Have a smoke factory, awesome hazer...but the pea soup is In a world of its own. biggest drawback is cost and transporting co2 but I suspect it will be well worth it

[CountFunkula]

DF-50s are awesome, but I am a big fan of GOOD water-based hazers (not FAZERS). The Ultratec Radiance Hazer is awesome. I've used them in professional contexts and have never been anything but thrilled with them. At home, I have a LeMaitre Neutron Pro X. It's a great hazer, but can be temperamental if you don't let it go through its self-cleaning cycle on power-down. I have waaaay over-hazed my house for the last two consecutive halloweens.

[drlava]

Thank you all for your comments. I'll go with a water based hazer and have hear good thing about the radiance elsewhere as well.. still in the market for a used decent water based if anyone has one for sale.
Cheers

[carlos3621]

I can definately recommend the radiance hazer. Been using them for 8 yrs now, they are reliable and plenty of output for in or outdoor use!

[flecom]

The Ultratec Radiance Hazer

was looking for another hazer to add to the DF50 and got a Radiance, definitely was not disappointed, great unit, would definitely recommend