I’d like to buy one of those small, cheap smoke machines that retail for like fifty bucks for my Halloween display. I’d probably use it from dusk (7:30ish) until bedtime (10:00ish) each night for about six weeks.
Any idea how much oil/fuel/whateverit’scalled those things go through?
Back when I was a roadie for a wedding DJ, we called it “fog juice”. The tank in the ones we had never went dry during any event. Some would last a few events even before needing a refill. Though I’m not sure how much fog the DJ’s used during the events. Probably not more than a few blasts per. So to answer your question, I don’t know.
Former owner of multiple smoke machines here.
A small smoke machine will most likey use canisters (in various flavours) over 6 weeks you’d get through a lot of cans.
Cost wise you may be better off hiring a bigger machine that uses a tank of fluid.
By the way… smoke machine ‘fog’ is designed to make beams of light visible (from mirror balls, LASERs etc) so it spreads upwards. If you want a ‘dry ice’ effect, you’re better of with actual dry ice. I don’t know where you get that.
“Spreading upwards” is a matter of physics. What’s the method, besides spraying upward?
I have one of those. The smoke stuff lasts a long time. IIRC it uses PEG similar to the electronic cigarettes. There’s no scent added, the natural smell bothers some people but it dissipates pretty quickly. One or two bottles of the liquid will probably do it for you. You don’t run it constantly, you hit the button and get several seconds of ‘smoke’ at a time.
Getting dry ice isn’t the problem, I know where I can get some (legally). But producing enough mist that my entire yard is covered, and that lasts for more than a couple of minutes, might be a problem.
If you run the fog through a homemade chiller, it will stay closer to the ground - more like dry ice, but it lasts a longer. Cut holes in the side of a foam cooler, run something like a dryer vent hose through it, fill the cooler with ice and connect your fog machine to the hose. There are plenty of DIY videos on the web.
Will this be used for fogging outside? Unless the wind conditions are ideal, the results from one of those disposable (they are, sorry) machines will probably be unsatisfactory.