Thread: please give me any tips for using dry ice !

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Originally Posted by Instant Monsters

Now that's a cool idea! Maybe with a small electric light for the glow.

Electricity and water don't generally mix well, and with a small amount of water like that dry ice would soon have it frozen solid. If you plan on making a jack-o-lantern and having fog come out of it's mouth and lighting it up you may want to look at an ultrasonic mister like this one: http://www.hayneedle.com/sale/alpinefoggerwithledlightsandwirelesscontroller.cfm ?source=placpc&kwid=l&adtype=pla&kw={keyword}&ci_s rc=17588969&ci_sku=ALP332-1&gclid=CLK9zpPKh64CFYPc4Aodm2um3w

Yes, the dry ice will likely stop working quickly. Don't use the mister indoors (or at least, not in any moisture-sensitive areas) since you're basically humidifying the inside of the pumpkin, which results in it filling with water and condensation and dripping all over the place.

You can find waterproof battery "tea lights" online, I have yet to see any in stores but I haven't looked hard recently. Walmart has flashing "glass chip" waterproof LED lights (squeeze to turn on) in the floral section, but they're one-time-use only. Or you could use outdoor Christmas lighting. In fact, almost all of the ultrasonic misters I've seen have LEDs built into them anyway. I will actually need to black-epoxy over one of them so I have just the mister.

You can get the mister without the LED's in them, just look for the ones for reptile tanks.

Safety disclaimer, water, electricity, heat, and CO2 are all dangerous. Put safety first with any project like this.

If you want to get reliable results with dry ice, one thing you can get is an immersion heater. Immersion heaters are coil based heaters that typically operate off 120v AC, and can be inserted into a container to heat fluids. You need to make sure your container is safe around heat, as these typically get hot enough to boil water. Ideally you want one that you can adjust, or connect it to a dimmer circuit so you can adjust the power supply to change the heat output. This type of effect requires regular supervision, for obvious reasons. When the dry ice runs out, the water temperature will rise, the water will boil off, leaving exposed heating coils.

Sound like a lot of effort and risk? It sure is! That's why dry ice is great for small effects, but is not widely used in the professional world for creating fog/smoke effects. I suggest looking into fog chillers, which can reproduce the low hanging chilled fog you get with dry ice, without the health and safety risks of dry ice.