My fog machine experiences...

Holly Cow! After many years of frustration with various foggers I finally broke down and bought a Rosco fogger.... and am I impressed! I have a VEI Super Fogger 950, Chauvet 900, AFX UltraFog DMX 2K, and some Chinese DMX Ebay model (don't really see any markings on it other than 1500.

The Chauvet 900 I used it for 1 Halloween and the next time I went to use it the pump didn't work, did a warranty inquiry and my fault I couldn't find the receipt and they wouldn't warranty... regardless a new pump was like $65 and I didn't want to spend $65 for 1 season of use (spirit has cheap foggers that probably last more than 1 season) the output was decent but for $99 a little disappointing.

The AFX will put out a thick burst of fog for about 25 seconds then anywhere from a 7 second reheat to 25 seconds, if I command for max fog it will burst then reheat, each time the burst gets shorter and the reheat gets longer. Not unexpected but still for a supposed 2000w fogger I did expect more. This will be the 4th season I am using this machine, happy about that. DMX controlled or remote.

VEI 950 Super Fogger this was my first fog machine and was allot of money even back when I bought it 8 years ago. It worked for 3 or 4 years then the pump went out, I repaired/replaced it $70 I think? Then the wired remote quit working, I bought the wireless remote and that has worked fairly well ever since (another $90 I think). The VEI puts out 50 seconds of fog but then 2 to 3 minutes to reheat back up.

Ebay Chinese DMX fogger, this has been installed in my coffin with the popup lid, dmx lights, and sound, this unit just works and up until this point would put out about 55 second bursts of fog with a reheat time of 30 to 45 seconds. This unit was like $135 but it was DMX and I had to have DMX at the time, for the money this has been an awesome unit and I have been using it for 5 seasons now including this year.

Rosco Mini-V fog machine I just got it yesterday so I have some new toy happy going on... But this thing is awesome, it is bigger than the Chauvet but not by much, easily smaller than all the other foggers and easily puts out more than any of them! Only has 2 fog settings, constant on, and user controlled bursts. Now I left this thing run for 5 minutes and the output was heavy the entire time, since I was just testing I didn't want to run it forever but that's what the manual said I could do, the only time I would have to shut it down was when I ran out of fog juice!!! I really like this unit and will probably buy the larger unit when I can afford it??? The bad thing about the Rosco: expensive (but you get what you pay for) the Mini-V is their new line of foggers and tis the beginner unit, per warranty you can only use Rosco fog juice otherwise warranty is void, now they did win an academy award for fog effects so its pretty good stuff but again $50 a gallon is expensive and the mini-V eats 1 quart per hour at constant on.

If I had to rank the units:
1) Rosco Mini-V
2) eBay DMX
3) AFX 2000
4) VEI 950
5) Chauvet

3rd and 4th could be switched back and forth, they really are close.

Hope this helps someone and let me know if you have any questions.

Thank You,
Dustin