Thread: Dry Ice or Regular Ice in Chiller?

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Just wondering if there was much difference between the two in regards to effect and how long they last. Thanks.

It works great at the start. It faded quick for me. Like 1 hour. That was 30 lbs of ice. My smoke machine did not help. It uses 1.3 gallons of juice an hour.

I guess it depends on if you are using it indoors or outdoors, how many watts fog machine is, and size of fog chiller. I did have great luck with dry ice, but it was inside a 2 car garage. My fog chiller and fog machine aren't big but i can't provide sizes. (sadly all of my stuff is in storage, we moved to the UK so Halloween has been "on hold" for the past 2 years, and this makes 3 ) That dry ice is really cold, -100 F or so, the fog was reallllly low laying!!! And as a plus I didn't have to deal with water run off from regular ice-melt. Our party started at 8 PM and went to 2AM, at the end I had a tiny ice cube size of dry ice left. Try it and see if it works for you. (maybe have some regular ice on hand just in case)

Happy Halloween!!

I will say this, dry ice is going to work faster with less and not have any melted water after. The main thing in getting really good low lying fog is long contact time with the hot fog on the cold ice/dry ice. Dry is sort of flash freezes the fog because it's so cold. However, usually Dry Ice comes in large blocks (like 1lb or or more) or a block inside a bag. You need to open it and break it up into ice sized cubes or smaller so that the fog can roll through it. The smaller/more pieces, the more smoke has contact with more pieces and gets cold. The down side to that.. although I don't know if this is the case with dry ice.. but smaller pieces may melt or disappear faster due to not having more cold around them when in bigger form.

But most important is an expansion chamber for the fog to expand in before it hits the ice, yet enough pressure to force it through the ice to cool it quickly so it lays low. I also recommend Froggy's low lying/freezing fog. I don't know what they do, but it results in better thicker fog than some of the other similar priced varieties I've bought.

What sort of fog output are you using, and what sort of chiller?

@Porter, what fog machine do you use that uses 1+ gallons an hour? That's insane amounts! I have the VEI960, and it doesn't go through the container in 5 hours of use or so.

Your fog should not be going directly into your chiller. The fog comes out of your machine at 130+ deg F . It needs to cool and expand. I generally run 15' of the plastic sump pump hose with a 1.5" Y fitting that the fog machine is firing into. The hose should not be coiled together. It needs to be spread apart to dissipate heat. The Y adapter will allow air to come into the hose at the same time as the fog allowing it to expand and also allow the fog to move faster through your hose. There should be one of these at the entrance to every fogger you have. They make a big difference in output.

We used ice water, for more contact with the tubing inside the chiller. One bag lasted most of the night, and the fog looked great. We used the dry ice in cauldrons inside, looked better for that purpose.

Thanks for all the input! I have two 400W fog machines for my outdoor cemetery display. the chillers were made from kitty litter containers, so not that big of a chiller. i have had good luck with them making fairly low lying fog. I will try adding the sump pump hose to give it more time before entering the chiller. i will also pick up some dry ice today to try it out before Halloween.

I use some salt over regular ice. Its helps get the ice a little colder as if you were making ice cream same idea.

DistortedDesigns has it right. The idea is you need air to expand the hot fog before it hits the ice. It will still work if you plow it right into ice or dry ice.. but not as good. It will probably lay low but warm up and rise faster once it starts rolling out of the end.

The vortex chiller design I believe uses the science behind hot air rising.. although I am not 100% sure. I think the idea behind the best fog chiller is to do what DistortedDesigns did.. put a Y adapter before your expansion chamber.. that way as the fog goes into one of the Y sides, it sort of sucks air on the other Y side and that helps combine with the fog to expand faster. This "mix" should go into an area before the ice/dry ice to expand more, allowing more fog overall, then it all hits the cold layer which causes it to lay low.

The question I have been trying to figure out.. since heat rises.. does it make sense to use a sort of two stage chiller, where by you have an expansion area then above it lays the ice/dry ice, so as it expands and is still hot, it rises up through the chill layer. At the top you have the PVC opening that then goes down and bends 90 degrees near the bottom (on the 2nd stage) to let the cool fog that is now falling down because its cold.. out of the chiller.

There are many different builds out there for chillers. Vortex seems to be the best in terms of output to size ratio.. from videos I've seen the kitty litter sized vortex seems to do a good job chilling bigger fog machines. If I had the time I'd build various types to see which does the best job for the same fog output.