On location smoke effects

cowasaki

cowasaki

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Darren
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Anybody any ideas about safe smoke makers for on location use?

I can pick up a mains smoke generator for under £30 <LINK> but obviously I can't plug them in so no good there. I was thinking about a 12V to 240V convertor but not sure if that would do it yet (will check power usage etc later).

Has anybody any ideas? I've seen a few smoke machines designed for the purpose but at £300+ they are out of the price range.

Smoke tablets?
 
I've got a fog machine that you are welcome to borrow if you can get it from me / power it ( An inverter maybe the best idea they cost around £20 - £30 I would have to check the wattage on the machine .) , not sure what you had in mind as to smoke / fog . The liquid I have is quite a light one so doesn't lay low but is fairly dense. Also if outdoors how would you control it ? The offer is there to you . John
 
Sound s great, I think the thicker the liquid the thicker the fog right, its for outside use so would need to be heavy laying low smoke I think, it for use in a graveyard shoot amongst others
 
smalls said:
possible to use smoke bombs from a joke shop and a big piece of card to spread the smoke?
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yes thought of those gas engineers use to test flues but not sure they are dense low lying enough, its not a case of spreading more hovering lowish may be 1-2" hight level rather than a fog
 
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I think that the only real solution for low lying is dry ice , I have seen a couple of machines that use standard liquid and ice cubes to cool the fog but they're around £500
 
Have you thought of dry ice? it stays very low.
 
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Ive found some 1Kw 12v to 240v converters on ebay for about £30-40. Now add to that a 12V car booster pack and we should have 240v on tap. Only problem then is that the output of these devices will not drive some devices. Motors can be a problem so it might not work out.
 
Theres plenty of people on eBay selling the 13g smoke pellets for plumbing use and claim that they give off 5cubic meters of smoke. Might be worth a try?

If your going to use traditional dry ice then please make sure you handle it with care as it can be dangerous stuff due to the extremely low temps. We've had one smash a metal bin wide open once in the theatre!

Cheers

Simon
 
Just Dave said:
LOL that looks just the thing but you ned the blower how much does that cost, lookin a bit over Ds budget
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You don't need a blower ,it's seems to be just a coolbox with some piping in it that you fill with ice cubes to cool the fog . I have found loads of home made ones on youtube and they seem to work quite well . Also there is a couple with irrigation pipe so that you get a wide spread of low lying fog . I may have to give it a go it shouldn't cost too much to knock one up , a cheap cool box , some hose then just add ice and away you go .
 
A few things for you
Dry ice, easy to get hold off just find your local BOC depot and go in and buy some, take gloves with you its cold that stuff. You will also need some sort of insulated box to try and stop it submling but your not going to. drop it in water and it does its stuff. The problem is you need warm or hot water to get the best out of it or you end up with the dry ice freezing the water. Not an issue if you can work quickly.

The other alternative is to rig up some drain pipes linked together put loads of holes in them to allow the smoke to escape and put ice cubes in the pipes then feed the smoke machine in to the pipe run, the ice cools the smoke so it huggs the ground. similar to that $130 odd dollar thing on ebay.

You could try putting smoke grenades in the pipes or anything else that produces smoke. it should give the ground hugging effect.

This was half a cup of dry ice pellets in a 12 litre bucket of tap warm water
12850_167622188386_673418386_2899815_417381_n.jpg


I think it was about £15 for a 10Kg bag of pellets
 
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