Hazers

[planters]

It seems that a good atmosphere for shows will often benefit from a hazer. Looking into several sources these units unlike foggers seem a little pricey. What is the underlying mechanism? If we obtain standard haze liquid could some of us who are inclined to construct projectors assemble a reasonable hazer at lower cost or with better performance than a turn key unit?

[dnar]

If this helps, I am using a smoke machine with Base Haze fluid. I modified my smokey with a timer remote that provides short regular bursts. Running Hazer fluid produces an excellent result.

[dave]

Unique fluid? CLS does a cheap substitute..

[Phredy1]

What is the underlying mechanism?

If you are talking water based hazers, basically it is a pump, heating element and fan. I think it is easier / cheaper to just buy one.

There are a ton of inexpensive water based hazers out there. Or, spend the money now and buy something like a Unique 2 hazer.

The cheap ones tend to plug up the coil in the heating element. I have a little trick that so far has kept my elcheapo hazer from plugging a second time.

But if you want something that kicks ass and takes no prisoners, look at something like the Look Solutions Unique 2.1. I love my Unique!

[VJ AIWAZ]

if you want to build a cheap hazer then all you need to do is get some haze fluid(or restaurant grade mineral oil) and a compressor

all you have to do is get a heavy stream of air to make bubbles in the fluid and you haze a room in 1 m or less

all i did was plug off the end of the hose i submerged in the oil and made a small pin hole to make a high pressure stream

[dnar]

if you want to build a cheap hazer then all you need to do is get some haze fluid(or restaurant grade mineral oil) and a compressor

all you have to do is get a heavy stream of air to make bubbles in the fluid and you haze a room in 1 m or less

all i did was plug off the end of the hose i submerged in the oil and made a small pin hole to make a high pressure stream

Mineral Oil???????? No!!!

Glycerin and Distilled Water.

[VJ AIWAZ]

yes hazers use mineral oil (at least real hazers/oil crackers)

[VJ AIWAZ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haze_machine

[White-Light]

Be careful to use the right oil though as haze oil is a medical / food grade product and not the same as lubrication oil used eg in cars which would probably be carcinogenic.

[Phredy1]

Be careful to use the right oil though as haze oil is a medical / food grade product and not the same as lubrication oil used eg in cars which would probably be carcinogenic.

Mineral oil is also a laxative.....

[tigerpaws]

Mineral oil is also a laxative.....

Yes. Yes it is



(Text to minimum word count)

[mixedgas]

I do NOT encourage home built hazers/foggers. Compared to 10-20 years ago, the commercial gear prices have came way, way, down. Home made foggers/hazers can be very dangerous.

Which type to buy is subjective as well, and is subject to trial and error.


Large Hazers that work well are a developmental artwork. Its not like a fog machine where any hot chamber with flowing steam will crack aquafog.

For small indoor rooms and oil based:

http://www.laserfx.com/Backstage.Las...obbyHaze2.html

The heating element design is somewhat critical. It needs to be a sealed pot. Mark worked very hard on that design, and I did what I could to help him. That is the third or fourth prototype. Deviations from the design are not a good idea.

Note the 1999 Date.

The problem is we would go to Canada and watch indoor shows in a very large room that had been professionally hazed for 2-3 hours with a MDG Atmospheres. This machine creates beam show nirvana, nearly odorless, and exactly the right size particle. You could not replicate the effects with aqua-dog, I mean aquafog, at home. Hence the "Hobby Hazer".

Something that I would love to have at SELEM, is a MDG Atmospheres machine, properly adjusted and fed into the proper intake on the building. The issue is the cost, a MDG was and is still state of the art in some ways. About 3000$ or more. When done right you do not need a fogger for accents. I now expect a flame war to start from some one who has owned a MDG but did not know how to use it. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,,,,,,, Wait for it, the post will be incoming, shortly.

The oil type is very critical.

Co2 is far better then air. A proper closed chamber hazer only needs a litre or so of liquid C02 a night for a hotel ball room.

You need to have a way of preventing flash point issues from exiting the hazer.

You really need a pressure regulator, a closed chamber, safety sensors, timers, and really tight temperature controls. However hobbyist closed chambers have a habit of smelling, clogging, or exploding.

The above design, is open chamber and needs frequent cleaning to avoid smells.

I have a low cost supplier of the special oil. The oil has a special selected characteristic I'm not going to mention, and that characteristic is a trade secret I have to respect. However a gallon is not cheap but my supplier beats retail by a mile. He would love to pick up the PL market.


The above design was the result of going to conferences, seeing the wonderful MDG "Atmospheres" machines, and trying to clone the results, not the MDG design. This was done with the critical insight and helpful hints of one of MDG's founders/engineers. The above design is more then a year of careful work. It took a lot of work to get that far, and it still has a slight odor. Because the chamber is at atmospheric pressure, the design has issues. Its designed for hazing a moderate size room or a hobbyists basement. (Read it does a nice job on a 3 bedroom, 2 story, mid-western ranch style house, without commercial building type airflows.)

The downside is that if the particle size is not right, you have a safety issue. 1 to 1.75 micron garbage goes deep into the lungs when almost nothing else does. That was the caution from the MDG engineer at the time, be careful, if you like your lungs. Professional machines try very hard to avoid that size range. Theatrical standards agencies and unions have taken a really close look at Hazers lately. Good ones have oils with special characteristics that mitigate the problems. Standards are now coming into place.

So if you build one, you can run into risks with long term exposure. The machine to properly evaluate the particle size is not cheap, we had one at my former employer, and the sticker shock would cause most people to have a heart attack.

By the time you assemble the parts, your not saving anything over a low to moderate cost off the shelf hazer. You can save money on the oil, that is about it.

Drug store mineral oil or baby oil will have a acrid smell no matter what you do. So will most machine grade oils.

You really need food grade glycols or better for aquafog as well. I do not suggest mixing your own. If you buy the wrong glycols, they are very toxic. Ethylene glycol, for example, when cracked will put you into the hospital quickly if not kill you.

Yes, mineral oil is a laxative.

Steve

[Laser Wizardry]

It is VERY critical to use the proper mineral oil. There are some fairly strict tolerances on things such as viscosity and specific gravity to name a few, that will affect the haze particle size, hang time as well as the overall efficiency of the haze generator.

steve-- FYI the cheapest mineral oil hazer commercially available that is even worth looking into is still well over $300 last I checked.

That price class of haze machines from companies such as AMDJ are still just an air compressor and nozzles that produce particles of well over 5 microns and will not really have much more hang-time than a good fog machine such as an F-100 with the proper juice. The simple compressor type hazers also leave tons of residue in the venue, which is a reason a lot of people think that mineral oil is worse than fog juice. It is not! It just so happens that the cheapest oil hazers are just compressor type units and are therefore the most common.


A true hazer such as an MDG will produce particles less than a micron and can literally take DAYS for a venue to be completely cleared of the haze. Some of the MDG models can also be turned up to output levels that rival that of any current arena sized foggers and hazers on the market.

[mixedgas]

[QUOTE=Laser Wizardry;195298]It is VERY critical to use the proper mineral oil. There are some fairly strict tolerances on things such as viscosity and specific gravity to name a few, that will affect the haze particle size, hang time as well as the overall efficiency of the haze generator.


Says he who knows more about specialized oils then he's willing to admit. You wanted that MDG as much as I did, every time we were there!



Steve

[MLS]

I had a Jem Martin 24/7 Hazer and it worked really nice if you are looking to spend about $500, they pop up on Ebay quite often. I now use a Rosco Delta Hazer and the water based output is very smooth and extremely quiet. The DF50 hazer is nice if you are looking for oil based but the downfalls are: Price, no variable speed or DMX control, chunky oil leaves residue on lighting.

[Laser Wizardry]

Says he who knows more about specialized oils then he's willing to admit.

Steve

I'll admit it.. I just happen to be the sole distributor of the once-popular OptiHaze brand mineral oil.......

If there is enough interest, I'll post a sale thread, until then, Pm me if you want to know more but I'm not out to side track this thread so I wont post details here.

[CountFunkula]

The DF50 hazer is nice if you are looking for oil based but the downfalls are: Price, no variable speed or DMX control, chunky oil leaves residue on lighting.

They're also LOUD!
...'dat compressor...

Otherwise, they're great hazers.

[FourDee]

I was wondering about the HZ-500 from Antari, I've read so little about them ...

[wondertwnz]

I just installed the HZ300 in two different clubs , Using Froggy's fog a Fifty Fluid and they are working GREAT.
Granted they are oil based so there will be build up over time I am sure but for a low cost Oil solution I highly recommend them.

If you want water based, I am using the LeMaitre Radiance and they work Very well but are expensive like the Look Solutions of the Haze Base both of which I have used and like as well.

On another note , the HZ300 will use a new "Water Based" Fluid that Elation sells for them and it works pretty well, Less hang time than the oil but I am not seeing hardly any residue.

Larry

[CountFunkula]

If you want water based, I am using the LeMaitre Radiance and they work Very well but are expensive

I can attest to the awesomeness of the Radiance. They're VERY quiet (even with the fan at full tilt), SIP haze juice, and have an enormous output. They are so effective, it's really easy to "over-haze" (if you consider that a bad thing ). ALSO...DMX with thumbwheels, not DIP switches!

[eighty8]

I have used water based foggers placed on minimum settings with a fan in front of the unit where the fog comes out for LED Light shows. It is noisy, but with the music going you don't notice and it can serve as a multipurpose for cooling the DJs too if used correctly ;D . The fan makes the fog so that it is not thick and the results are better than a hazer in my opinion. It also does not set off fire alarms if you do it right. Just my own expierence.
-Eighty8

[Picasso]

I just want to add more love to this topic for the MDG Atmosphere. I have had one going on 8 years and NEVER had a problem with it. co2 can be a pain but having it made me get into beer brewing so Im happy about that. I started with the the mdg3000 the gray unit, but the clouds it makes are over kill for my use. I have mostly used MDG brand oils but I have also been cheap and put baby oil in it about 50/50. Only thing I clean on it is the little fan on the front. rare to see MDG units on ebay. A lighting friend of mine also loves and raves over the MDG.