Thread: Fogger advice

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Been looking around the forums and havent seen what I need to know...

Whats a good rating for a fogger?

I have a few I've picked up here and there... 50% off post-halloween sale at Spirit, Walmart etc...

Problem is they fog for 10 seconds then need to reheat for 2-3 mins...

Whats a good rating for a fogger that wont take SO long to reheat?

Aos, side question... Whats a TOT?

Originally Posted by lorddamax

Been looking around the forums and havent seen what I need to know...

Whats a good rating for a fogger?

I have a few I've picked up here and there... 50% off post-halloween sale at Spirit, Walmart etc...

Problem is they fog for 10 seconds then need to reheat for 2-3 mins...

Whats a good rating for a fogger that wont take SO long to reheat?

Aos, side question... Whats a TOT?

TOT= Trick or Treater
as far as foggers go, I use all types, small are for localized props (~200-400w), mdium for light graveyard 'stuff' (~700w) and my low lying vortex style is 1100W... They all have cycle time, but it's not too bad. If you want 'constant' fog, that'll be a fairly expensive unit...

Dunno about foggers much but TOT is for Trick Or Treater

Thanks. I kept seeing TOT and having no idea what it meant

I know they'll all have a cycle time. Just seems the ones I have have abnormally long ones. Not sure the wattage on them - they are still in storage for a few more weeks.

If you have a good size compressor you can have cheap constant fog. I found a post about a compressed air / mineral oil fog machine. I built it for around 20$ and it works great! Like I said though, you need a good size air compressor. Other than that you need a 5 gal. Bucket, 1" PVC (T) , 5 feet of 3/8" copper flex tubing, mineral oil, & 3/8" compression to 1/4" Mip fitting with air hose attachment. I'll post a video tomorrow.

Wouldnt that put mineral oil all over everything? And wouldnt that be really unsafe to breathe?

I poked around craigslist today and saw a 1200watt fogger avaialble - I may check it out. it's pricey, but less than half new retail... so... maybe...

Originally Posted by Calvin

If you have a good size compressor you can have cheap constant fog. I found a post about a compressed air / mineral oil fog machine. I built it for around 20$ and it works great! Like I said though, you need a good size air compressor. Other than that you need a 5 gal. Bucket, 1" PVC (T) , 5 feet of 3/8" copper flex tubing, mineral oil, & 3/8" compression to 1/4" Mip fitting with air hose attachment. I'll post a video tomorrow.

Interesting, If you can find the post, can you put a link to it?
Waiting to see the video....

Ok, here is the video and a pic of what the inside is like. The video is the one I built. and the pic of the inside is the one i found online that I modeled mine after. Any questions please feel free to ask. I will also post the instructions that I followed to make mine as well at the bottom.

Enjoy!

http://s745.photobucket.com/albums/x...t=IMG_0135.mp4

http://i745.photobucket.com/albums/x...chine_open.gif


Fog Machine


This another great idea I copped from sombody else’s web site. I learned a few things about it that are worth mentioning so here goes.

How to Make One

The fog machine is very simple - blow compressed air into mineral oil and it vaporizes into fog. I made mine from a plastic food bucket of about 2 gallons capacity that has a snap on lid (see pictures below). Bend about 2 feet of 3/8 copper tubing so it will sit in the bottom of the bucket, and drill a hole for it to exit from the lid. I clamped it to the lid so it would stay put. The end of the tubing in the bucket is pinched closed, and drill about 8 very tiny holes (1/32 or so) in the tubing so they face the bottom of the bucket. I ended up soldering some of them closed again so start with about 4 holes and if you need more fog drill one or two more. The tradeoff here is more holes need more air and this thing uses a lot of air.

The fog exits the bucket via an ABS tee fitting which helps keep the bubbling oil out of the exit pipe. You can attach a suitable pipe to the tee to send the fog where you need it. I used 1 1/4 inch corrugated black plastic pipe used for sump pumps.

How to Make it Work

Put enough mineral oil in the bottom of the bucket to cover the copper tube - this shouldn’t take much if you put the tubing right in the bottom of the bucket. Attach a source of compressed air about 30-40psi to the copper input tube and you should see fog from the exit fitting within 20 seconds or so.

Notes:

This thing uses a lot of air ! I used a 4HP compressor with a 12 gallon tank and it cycles about every 2 minutes if I leave the fog machine on. If you use fewer or smaller holes in the tube you use less air, but you get less fog too.

A cheap source of mineral oil is unscented baby oil. You can get half a liter at WAL-MART for about $2. I put about 1 liter in mine, which should last for about 10 years. The oil vaporizes to a very fine mist and it uses very little in operation. If you run it for a couple of hours you will detect a very fine oil layer at the exit of the fog tube but its not messy at all.

I’ve seen some questions as to the toxicity of the fog. I concluded there is less risk from this than a conventional glycol based machine but then again I’m no expert. Mineral oil is sold in drug stores as a laxative, so perhaps if you breathed it for long enough...

Pros:

Very quick and easy to make. Very low cost of materials and operation assuming you have a source of compressed air already. Produces quite decent amounts of fog, which is cool so it tends not to rise. The compressed air forces the fog out so you don’t need a fan. The small fog tube is easier to conceal than the much larger ones used on heater type fog machines.

Cons:

Uses a lot of air. Your compressor will run a lot which is very noisy (I put mine in the garage and ran an air line to the fog machine in the front yard). The fog machine itself is kind of noisy because of all the air hissing and bubbling thru the oil. On my Witch and Brew prop, this simply added to the sound effects !

here is the link. i just found it again.

http://www.iosphere.net/~rheslip/html/fog_machine.html