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Interesting Chauvet Hurricane 1250 observations

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61K views 428 replies 42 participants last post by  DawnDead  
#1 ·
I opened up all three of my new Chauvet Hurricane 1250 foggers yesterday to get them filled with juice and tested. I'm concerned about power draw for my haunt so I put my meter on each of them.

All three foggers drew about 800 watts each when the heater was running. I found that quite interesting since these are supposed to have 1200 watt heaters.

I put a call in to Chauvet and they made some comments about 1200 watts being the maximum the heater could draw but it might not need to all the time. Sounds strange to me. They're supposed to do some testing and call me back.

I also noticed that the heater does not run while the pump is on. I found this on another fog machine as well. That seems to be strange since it guarantees that the heater will cool down and need to recycle. I always thought that the process of heating up the fog juice cooled down the element requiring a pause and reheat. I never knew that they don't run the heater at the same time. I wonder if there is a limit on how long the heater can run continuously without burning out? This would seem to be a standard thing on all (non-continuous) foggers.

One last observation is that the split yoke bracket/stand is useless as a stand. There is so much weight to the rear of the machine when it's filled with fog juice that they drift to a nose high attitude after a little while no matter how much you tighten the knobs.

I'll follow up with what Chauvet has to say when they call me back.
 
#393 ·
If the advertising says 1500W, that's what it should be drawing. That number is the one you used to make your buying decision. You don't get to see the box and user's manual until you've made the purchase. If the heater comes in at 1000W and VEI says "That's what's in the manual.", you've got an open-and-shut case for bait and switch.
 
A
#396 ·
Wow.. that easy. I would have thought the electronics could up-convert wattage from amperage or something.. I forget my electronics now, but I thought you can produce more wattage at the expense of amperage or voltage.. something like that. Ok, I'll probably go get one of these things tomorrow and measure. This is really going to suck if VEI, currently this forums most talked about fog machines did the same thing Chauvet did.. or whatever it was, this close to Halloween makes it pretty much out of the question now to get it taken care of if it turns out to be wrong.

Funny thing is, the box says 1300watts.. I was thinking that possibly these 960s have the 935 heaters in them or something hokey like that. If it's only 1000watts then the 935s are actually better. Ugh!!

Well, until we get the kil-o-watt reading, we'll have to hope for the best.
 
A
#398 ·
Picked the better one up for $40 from Fry's electronics. $20 for the cheaper model. Radio Shack also has them, but for the price you said, $30 and $50 or $60, can't remember.

I ran the tests... I put a new thread for VEI fog owners... I'd love to see if the other new models are also less than indicated. My guess is the 960 is the only one that is wrong and is using either the same heater as the 935 since it runs at about 1150watts on full blast, or that it's using an even lesser heater and thus we basically spent $50 more for a lesser model than the 935. I know Gorey will take care of us and I have no doubt he'll be talking to VEI very soon about this issue. I am not going to inundate him with this problem now, it works good enough for halloween, but at 350watts I definitely either want a $65 refund to give it the same price as the 935 (from VEI, not Gorey), or replace it with a 1500watt at their full expense to ship it back to them and shipping back again. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that if these units were built in China, there was some sort of translation error and it may not even be VEI's fault. As long as they stand up for their product and take care of things, I am completely fine with the inconvenience as the machine is still powerful enough for me to use this Halloween and then return/replace after. This is the 2nd year in a row now I've had to deal with this tho, so for me, I'd really like a replacement with a true 1500watt heater that puts out 20,000cfm instead of 10,000cfm.

On that note, I am lost as to how 300 watts more puts out almost 2x as much fog. The next model up, the v3000, is 200 watts more heater, and yet puts out another 15,000 more cfm of fog. It seems strange that 200 watts in heater puts out that much more. Maybe there is a more powerful pump? I am not sure. Would love to know how that works with such limited increases in wattage.
 
S
#399 ·
Hey all.
New to the forum here...so hello!!

Question:
Is the Hurricane 1300 that much better than the 1250?
I know that the wattage is almost 500 watts lower on the 1250 when measured but what about fog output?

Has anyone done a side by side fog comparison?

I have a 1250 that I purchased in September of 08 and I still have the manual, original box and shipping box.
I'm just wondering if it's worth the swap-out if I have to go through all the bs from Chauvet.

I kinda like the looks of the 1250 better but if the fog output is much higher it may be worth it for me.

Let me know your feelings.
Thanks!
 
P
#403 ·
Chauvet 1250

I purchased my chauvet 1250 in oct 2007 and used it for laying down a low fog outside in a semi enclosed area.

I ran it into a 10' long 4 inch irrigation tube with holes that was filled with ice. Of course there had to be a breeze on Halloween and the effect didn't work very well as the ice blocked the tube and lost velocity at the end that made it just puff at the end.

I cleaned it per instructions and stored it and tried to use it in 2008 Halloween but they pump failed. I've been told that UnClog-it is the best thing to run through it to prevent impurities from plugging it. I need to send it back for repair...

I am looking at the H1300 as a replacement and would also be interested in replacing the pump myself in the 1250... has anyone done this?

Paul
 
#408 ·
Ugh. I had to call them because I couldn't get a response out of them via email.

And I come to find out they did NOT ship out when they picked up the old fogger like I was promised!!!! And they still haven't shipped it out :mad::mad::mad:

Now I'm really getting close to the line and wont have any time to even test it properly.
 
#416 ·
You think Chauvet is the only Guilty Party!

So I was wondering why a 7hp compressor I got has such a small electric motor, its really wierd that the motor looks like about 2-3 horsepower in size as a real 7hp motor would be heavier than all the remaining parts of the compressor. and would most likely kill you if a vertical compressor fell over on you.

So I did some googling and found this very interesting article.

Evaluating True Horsepower and CFM Ratings of Air Compressors
 
#419 ·
This is what we make

I realize my previous post may be off topic to some but its bang on; on one of the most read articles on halloweenforum.com.

Its all about money, all companies bend the truth and call it marketing. Some more than others. I believe this phenomena is studied in university.

Its also like lcd manufacturers trying to compete with a superior format (plasma) coming up with misleading contrast ratio's ("dynamic contrast") of their product.

As far as I am concerned it is as old as time "buyer beware"

Shame on Chauvet, but remember we are but a small few who purchase their product. The remainder will never really know they have been duped, just like compressor purchasers, or lcd tv purchasers....

For shame the government that fails to protect the people...

IB
 
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