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Thread: Hazers

  1. #1
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    Default Hazers

    I see a lot of haze machines in the $200 range now and was wondering if anyone has any experience with them. I have a cheap fog machine now and I use it when I want to see my beams. My lasers are relatively weak so I need to fill the room full of fog to see them as good as I want to. Will those hazers do the same thing without having to blast the room full of fog every few minutes? I only need something for my garage by the way.

  2. #2
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    Default NeoHaze!

    There's a guy who lives in Medina, Ohio named Mark. His handle is NeoLase; (North East Ohio). He invented a home made device that uses a coffee percolator heater, some galvanized metal pipe, a fan, some fittings, etc... It heats up clear, light, unscented mineral oil and makes a nice fairly odor free haze. This is what was used to take the beam shots on my site.

    http://www.akrobiz.com/laserboy/p_laserboy_101.html

    His device is called NeoHaze!

    He's one of the guys that I met through L. M. Roberts. He's the one who bought the house I grew up in. It was very weird to see all of his electronics and junk right in the same room where all of mine used to be!

    In principal, a portable, electric, single element cooking heater, an iron skillet and a fan would work very well.

    Or you could just fry up some hot dogs!

    James.
    Last edited by James Lehman; 05-30-2008 at 13:31.

  3. #3
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    Default

    That sounds like the device that is described on the LaserFX website. I have considering building it since it is so simple. It could be a fire hazard, though. Thanks for the feedback.

  4. #4
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    Default

    I just bought 3 Chauvet Ultimate HZ's off fleabay. They all need repairing but if I get them going, I will let you know if they are any good..

    Hazers are the best for laser shows, they provide a very thin even mist, rather than the thick clouds. Haze also hangs around a lot longer, so you get through less fluid...

    Cheers
    Mark

  5. #5
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    Default

    Thanks. I look forward to hearing how you like them. I am mainly interested in knowing which makes a brighter beam: a heavy blanket of fog or a fully hazed room. It would be nice to see some demos using same room and same beams with a fog machine and then with a hazer.

    Has anyone ever ripped open a professional hazer to see how it works?

  6. #6
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    Default

    From my experience hazers are far better... Foggers can block the beams if you have too much..

    I have one hazer at the moment, the other two are on the way. I will have them apart to hopefully repair them very soon. Will get some pics and post if you like....

    by the way, here is a pic of the hazers ready for my operating table

    Mark
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails hazer.jpg  


  7. #7
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    Default

    That is the design you saw on LaserFX.

    Haze and fog are two completely different things. Haze is smoke. It's tiny particles of crap in the air that float until they stick to something.

    Fog is water vapor. It might be initiated by fog juice (oil), but what you see is water. It falls fast.

    James.

  8. #8
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Insanity View Post
    From my experience hazers are far better... Foggers can block the beams if you have too much..

    I have one hazer at the moment, the other two are on the way. I will have them apart to hopefully repair them very soon. Will get some pics and post if you like....

    by the way, here is a pic of the hazers ready for my operating table

    Mark
    Yes, please do take some pics if you can. I'm curious to see what is inside of them.

  9. #9
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    Cool

    Quote Originally Posted by James Lehman View Post
    Haze and fog are two completely different things. Haze is smoke. It's tiny particles of crap in the air that float until they stick to something.
    Not quite. *Some* haze machines use oil-based fluid. These machines produce very fine particles (usually using compressed air to atomize the fluid) that hang in the air for a long time. These machines do indeed leave an oily residue on surfaces.

    However, some other haze machines use water and glycol or water and glycerin based fluids. These units use heat to atomize the fluid rather than compressed air. (Just like fog machines do.) Also, because the fluid is not oil based, the residue is less noticeable, but there are still "tiny particles of crap" floating in the air. The down side of the larger particle size is that the particles don't hang in the air as long. (max of 1 hour for a water based hazer, vs 6 hours for an oil based hazer)
    Fog is water vapor. It might be initiated by fog juice (oil), but what you see is water. It falls fast.
    This is incorrect. Fog juice is not oil based. (Well, with one or two very rare exceptions.) For the most part, fog machines all use either water and glycerin fluid or water and glycol fluid. Oil-based fluid is almost exclusively used in hazers (and even then, only in certain models.) The oil-based hazers are among the most expensive, by the way.

    Also, while you do have a good bit of water vapor in the initial cloud that sprays from a fog machine, that vapor dissipates in a matter of seconds. Thus the water vapor is *not* a significant component of the resulting fog.

    The "fog" effect comes from the tiny particles of glycerin or glycol that are suspended in the air as a result of being sprayed from the heated nozzle of the fog machine. (Better units actually crack, or thermally decompose, some of the molecules into smaller clumps, creating a fog that will hang in the air for longer periods.)

    However, because the particles are still much larger than those created by a hazer, the fog from a fog machine will dissipate more rapidly. (Even when using premium fog juice in a professional fogger, it's rare to have the fog last longer than 15 minutes.)

    The primary difference, then, between a fogger and a hazer is the size of the particles they produce. Hazers produce small particles that stay aloft longer, while fog machines produce larger particles that settle faster. Both foggers and hazers can use heat to atomize the fluid, but some hazers use compressed air instead. (There are no compressed-air-driven foggers that I'm aware of.) Foggers have an advantage in that they can produce a *lot* of fog in a very short period of time, while hazers have a relatively low output and are normally run continuously to build up a fine haze in the air.

    You can simulate the effect of a hazer by using good quality fog juice in your fogger and then spreading the fog around with a circulating fan. You still will have a nearly-opaque plume of fog where it first exits the fog machine, but once it is blown around the room it will spread out into a nice haze.

    Hazers produce a very uniform distribution of particles, which sometimes takes away from the "liquid sky" effect that many laserists use. If you have a sheet, fan, or tunnel of light, you will see very interesting patterns if you have slight variations in the density of the fog in the air. These density variations are nearly impossible to reproduce using a hazer. However, a thin haze is nearly invisible in a room until you turn on the lights (or lasers) and notice that you can see the beams. Fog, because it's thicker, is often easy to see in the air even before you turn on the lasers.

    Finally, there is a class of devices that aim to give you the best of both worlds. So-called "fazers" claim to be able to produce a continuous stream of very small particles to maintain a general haze in the room while also allowing bursts of thicker fog (larger particles) to create better liquid sky effects. Some of these units actually use an oil based fluid to create thick fog, which to me sounds like a good way to make a mess. (I haven't had the opportunity to work with a fazer, so I don't know how well they actually work.)

    If you want long-lasting fog but are put off by the high price of a hazer, I recommend you try some Froggy's Swamp Juice in your fogger. In a standard fog machine, it will create a very thick fog that can be blown around with a fan to rapidly fill a room with a fine mist of particles much like a hazer. (The difference is that it takes about 30 seconds to get the particles evenly distributed, vs 20 minutes of running the hazer.) I use this stuff exclusively now, and it works *great*. Just be sure you have a fan to move it around...

    Adam

    Further reading:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_machine
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haze_machine

  10. #10
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    Default

    Thanks for the tip on the frog juice. I'll try it out before I spend money on a hazer.

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