Turn your Fog Machine into a Heavy Fog Machine

[Mr.Coffee]

eh, just get a 55 gallon drum, put a heater and a basket in it, add a hose port towards the top, and a well fitting secure lid with a blower on it. let that thing heat up and dump some chopped up dry ice (marble to golf-ball size) into it. That'll give you all the low-lying fog you want (till the water cools off anyway).

[buffo]

The dry ice in water trick is nice, but using ice (or even dry ice) to cool the fog from a fog machine is much better. For one, the fog sticks around a lot longer. (The water vapor from dry ice fog dissipates very quickly) Also, a fog machine will make a lot *more* fog. And finally, you can control when the fog comes out.

I've been thinking about building another fog chiller for this Halloween. With some Froggy's Swamp Juice in the fogger and a load of dry ice in the cooler, I can make a thick blanket of fog spill down my front porch steps like a slinky! The best part is when it hits the walkway at the bottom it fans out across the front yard. CREEPY!

Adam

[Mr.Coffee]

That is very true, Co2 fog dissipates quickly. But they're sooo much fun to use, just dropping a load of dry ice into one for the sheer unadulterated hell of it.

that being said, I have to reluctantly agree with you, using a good fogged and a cooler full of ice will give you a longer lasting, more replicable effect.

one note, you might want to put a blower on each end of the cooler to help with backflow issues. (if you can adjust the speed of these blowers, you can adjust how "chilled" your fog gets as well)

[buffo]

Good point about the blower... I had thought about adding one the last time, but time grew short and I decided to put it into service as is. It worked well enough, but a blower or fan would have helped. Maybe I'll add one this year...

More fun with dry ice:

Put some water in a bowl and add a few drops of dish soap. Then drop some small dry ice pieces in the bowl. Presto! Opaque fog-filled soap bubbles! (They look really weird...)

Take an empty 16, 20, or 24 oz plastic soda bottle and pour about 1 inch of lukewarm water into the bottom. Add 2 or 3 small pieces of dry ice. (About as much dry ice as the size of 2 of your fingers - don't use too much!) Now, working *very* quickly, screw the cap on the bottle tightly and throw the bottle away from you.

If you are really fast, the bottle will land on the ground and swell up slowly until it bursts with a *DEAFENING* explosion. If you are slow, it will explode as soon as it lands on the ground. (The force of the impact sets off the explosion.)

I don't recommend being slow, because in extreme cases of slowness it can explode in your hand before you throw it! Doesn't hurt that much, but it will scare the bejezus out of you. (And when I say this is loud, I mean louder than a shotgun. It *will* be heard by your neighbors inside their homes.)

Adam

[Mr.Coffee]

Oh yeah, dry ice bombs can be alot of fun,but you have to watch out with them.

if you want to play around a little more with your soap bubble trick, you can cut open a couple of (pre cracked) glowsticks and add that to make the bubbles glow a bit. you can strain the glass ampules out if you're worried about them (and if you have kids about that will stick their hands into the bucket).

also with glowsticks, if you take a freshly cracked one and nuke it for ~10 seconds, it will get incredibly bright for a bit. just don't nuke it too long, popped glowstick smells bad. you can use this to rejuvinate old glowsticks at the end of a party too.

[buffo]

with glowsticks, if you take a freshly cracked one and nuke it for ~10 seconds, it will get incredibly bright for a bit. just don't nuke it too long, popped glowstick smells bad. you can use this to rejuvinate old glowsticks at the end of a party too.

Hmmm... I never heard that before. How long will it stay "extra bright" after you nuke a fresh one? Are we talking about just a few seconds, or more like 10 minutes here? (Starts thinking about all sorts of things to do with extra bright glowsticks...)

Adam

[Mr.Coffee]

Depends on how freshly cracked, and how long nuked. I'd say 10-15 minutes.
if you get the uber-long 15" glowsticks, they get brighter and last longer when microwaved. (higher thermal mass I'm guessing).

[Mr.Coffee]

On a more direct note, I wonder how well an old intercooler would work. I'll bet you could get one from a junkyard on the cheap. though i guess it would be rather noisy.

[White-Light]

You can get ultra bright glow sticks anyway, its just they only last 5 minutes:

http://extremeglow.com/Merchant4/mer...gory_Code=5MIN

[mliptack]

No, this is just a regular fogger, which pumps the fog thru ice. Since the fog is warm when it comes out, it rises up, if you cool it, it sinks. The further you cool it, the more it sticks to the ground.

One big issue to overcome is as soon as it heats up again it will float. So if you use this technique on a black stage for example, the stage lights warm the floor and the smoke rises. This is where dry ice foggers work well. Some dry ice foggers have a basket inside so you can control it by lowering it into the warm water (which is usually warmed by a water heater)

At $1,500 I'll stick to the ice box!

Cheaper to buy a full heavy fog machine at that price.

The professional low flow coolers work really well. But you can make them yourself with a radiator system and a refrigerator pump. They wont work as well as a professional one, but at near-no-cost you really cant beat it.

More fun with dry ice:
Take an empty 16, 20, or 24 oz plastic soda bottle and pour about 1 inch of lukewarm water into the bottom. Add 2 or 3 small pieces of dry ice. (About as much dry ice as the size of 2 of your fingers - don't use too much!) Now, working *very* quickly, screw the cap on the bottle tightly and throw the bottle away from you.

If you are really fast, the bottle will land on the ground and swell up slowly until it bursts with a *DEAFENING* explosion. If you are slow, it will explode as soon as it lands on the ground. (The force of the impact sets off the explosion.)

I don't recommend being slow, because in extreme cases of slowness it can explode in your hand before you throw it! Doesn't hurt that much, but it will scare the bejezus out of you. (And when I say this is loud, I mean louder than a shotgun. It *will* be heard by your neighbors inside their homes.)

Adam

Adam, I see you and I have more interests in common. When I was much younger my parents wouldn't let me play with fireworks, but there was dry ice sold at a local convenience store (why? I dont know).

We would play around with this stuff for hours. If you time it right you can let the pressure build and toss it on its cap, the bottle will then rocket off rather than upsetting the neighbors.

Just a word of caution regarding 'dry ice bombs' they are illegal! You can get in lots of trouble for making them. I had a chemistry teacher use dry ice bombs as a demonstration in high school. We had to have an officer present during the demonstration.

-Max