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Very often, it’s desirable to have fog stay low to the ground. This effect creates a dreamy environment on a stage and is utilized quite frequently in ballets, operas, concerts and other theatrical productions. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance of the classic ballet “The Nutcracker” that didn’t use this type of effect. Since the fog from a fog machine is warm, it tends to rise and fill up an area instead of hugging the floor, which can make it difficult for the audience to see what’s happening on the stage.
Fortunately, there are a few different effective ways to create a low-hanging fog effect.
- Use a Dry Ice “Pea Souper” Fog Machine. Basically, a pea souper is simply a container filled with heated water. When fog is needed, lots of dry ice (20-40 pounds) is lowered into the water, usually inside a metal basket. As the dry ice subliminates from a solid to gas in the hot water, it produces clouds of cool carbon dioxide for a few minutes. This gas is piped to the desired location with dryer hose. Pea soupers are very effective for creating thick low hanging fog since carbon dioxide gas is heavier than air, it stays low to the ground. Since the main consumable of a pea souper is dry ice and not fog juice, they quickly become much more expensive and difficult to use than a normal fog machine. A popular model of Pea Souper is the LF05E made by LeMaitre (pictured above) and at nearly $700, is a lot more expensive than it seems like it should be. However, most rental houses have them on hand if you need it for only a short time.
If you decide a pea souper is your best option for low hanging fog, here are a few tips:
- Look up industrial gas supply companies in your area to find the best prices on dry ice. It’s far cheaper to buy it in bulk from them than from the supermarket.
- If you break up the dry ice into smaller chunks, you will get a lot more fog output in a shorter time than if you use larger chunks, but will also get less fog time. An effective way I’ve found to break up dry ice into smaller pieces is to then use metal tongs to put it in a heavy cloth bag and then hit it with a hammer until you’ve reached the desired size.
- You can safely store large quantities of dry ice in a normal insulated cooler for a few days, but do NOT store dry ice in a normal freezer. To the 110 degree below zero dry ice, putting it inside a freezer almost 130 degrees hotter than it is akin to putting a regular ice cube inside a hot oven. If you do this, your dry ice will evaporate within hours.
- Be very careful if you use dry ice. At a temperature of -110 °F, dry ice requires that you take special safety precautions during handling and storage. Always wear thick gloves, eye protection and use metal tongs to handle dry ice. Never touch dry ice with your bare skin, it will cause frostbite burns within seconds and can leave lasting damage.
Now, a few other ways to achieve low hanging fog with a normal fog machine.
- Build a Fog Chiller to cool the fog from a normal fog machine. I’ve tried this numerous times with mixed results, but sometimes it actually works pretty well. The idea is to use dryer hose to duct the fog output from the fog machine into a chilled chamber to reduce the temperature of the fog in order to discourage it from rising. This can easily be achieved by cutting a hole in the side of a waterproof box (Styrofoam coolers are a great way to inexpensively try this) that is filled with ice. A hole on the opposite side of the cooler can be connected to more dryer hose to pipe the fog closer to where you want it to come out. Tip: I like to use those reusable sealed cooling packs instead of ice because they stay frozen a lot longer than normal ice and don’t make any mess when they thaw. I’ve also tried using a small amount of dry ice (about 5 lbs) to cool the fog, which works pretty well. The downside to this technique is that fog output from your fog machine will be reduced somewhat. Some of the fog will condense back to fog juice inside the cooler, so you need a pretty powerful fog machine to get a decent amount of low hanging fog. This technique won’t achieve the same thick low hanging fog effect that the pea souper would create, but it is a good way to get a similar look without the mess and expense of large amounts of dry ice.
- Get a fog machine with a built-in cooling system. American DJ makes a fog machine called Mister Kool that takes the principle described above and builds it into the same unit as the fog machine. You just fill the Mister Kool with 4 pounds of regular ol’ ice and fog juice and out comes reasonably low hanging fog. As before, this is not going to replicate the pea souper effect exactly, but it can get fairly close. It also has a built in water drainage system to make getting rid of the water from the melted ice a piece of cake, something that’s definitely not as easy with a home-built low lying fog solution. If you need thick ground-hugging fog, using a Dry Ice based system is the only reliable way to consistently achieve it. However, if you just want the fog from your fog machine to stay closer to the ground, chilling it is usually an effective way to obtain that effect.
American Dj Machine Remote Juice Photo
American Dj Machine Remote Juice Pic
American Dj Machine Remote Juice Picture
American Dj Machine Remote Juice Photo
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