question about fog chilling

[allisonmagic]

i have a nice little fog chiller im using this year.. however.. im trying to find the best way to cool the fog. should i use dry ice, regular ice with alot of rock salt to make it colder, or half dry half regular, or what ? any good ideas on how to make the fog colder than a witches tit on the brass side of the moon ?

:rolleyes:

[pagan]

I have used a mix of regular and dry ice with good results in the past.

[allisonmagic]

cool, thanks for the input

[RoxyBlue]

We've used the dry ice/regular ice combo and just plain ice in our chillers. Both work pretty much equally well. The dry ice will cool things down more but it certainly isn't cheap like plain ice is.

[Beffcake666]

I have run allot of comparison tests on this question and here is the long answer:

It all depends on the air temperature. I live just outside Toronto, and on a typical Canadian fall evening the thermometer dips down to around 0-10C (or 32-50F).

I have a homemade vortex fog chiller that I use a 1000W fog machine with and I have used regular ice on nights this cold. The fog just can't get cold enough. It comes out of the chiller and just rises into the air. On Halloween night I used dry ice and holy crap what a difference. It was only 5C(41F) and the fog was on the ground and staying there. Compared to the outside air, the fog was cold. Even my ToTs were commenting on how the fog seemed cold and haunted.

One huge thing to remember is fog juice. I cannot emphasize this enough; USE FROGGY'S FOG JUICE! The difference is night and day when compared to the crap you get in the store at Halloween time. I use their Froggy's Freezing Fog for my chiller and its comes out super thick and hangs forever. When I switched to Froggy's fog I actually had to go and buy a timer for my fog machines because the fog hung for so long I was getting too much fog.

Here is the short answer:

-If you live in colder climates were the air temp is around 10C (50F) or lower then yes use dry ice. It will make a huge difference.

-if you live in warmer climates were the air temp is around 18C (65F) or higher; it wont make much difference so save your money and use regular ice.

-USE FROGGY'S FOG JUICE! its worth every penny and you'll be sooo happy with the results.

Hope this helps!

[Daughter of Darkness]

Probably obvious but, don't touch that stuff(dry ice)at all with your bare hands,not even for a few seconds. I even forgot that on Halloween night and burned the crapola out of my hand:devil:

[niblique71]

Probably obvious but, don't touch that stuff(dry ice)at all with your bare hands,not even for a few seconds. I even forgot that on Halloween night and burned the crapola out of my hand:devil:

Technically you flash froze your hand, which causes cell damage similar to a burn. Yes treat dry Ice with the utmost care and always use good gloves.

On another note, it's possible to overchill your fog (Sorta). I used 50/50 dry ice / Ice in a smaller chiller a few years ago and the fog actually froze to the dry ice creating a total blockage in the chiller. It worked incredibly well untill the chiller got clogged. I found that a 90/10 or 80/20 ratio of regular ice to dry ice works the best if it's going to be very cold out that night. BUT regular ice actually worked best if the temp was a little warmer. The ice seemed to add a little extra moisture to the fog as it melted. There is something about the regular ice melting that really increases the thickness and texture.

So BC is right, You have to "Tune" your chiller to the environment and tempatures.

[Lunatic]

^^^ I agree with Nib. The ice does add a lot of heavy moisture to the fog.

I use whole ice cubes only with no small pieces to clog it. Fogging in cold temperatures is a challenge but the ice still works very well for me in any conditions. It's that darn wind that stinks. We had calm winds on Halloween this year and we produced the best fog ever. Lucky me!

[LittleBlueBMW]

Long time lurker first question:

I have a Vortex chiller with my Chauvet 1250 fogger and had some struggles this year to get good ground fog. I was using froggy's freezing fog and in the chiller I used those reusable freezer blocks I get from my lab. My fog ended up mostly in the air.

So the question is: Is it better to use real ice/ mixed with dry ice?

[pagan]

LBB..
I think your results probably are due to a couple of things..
Firstly the surface area presented to the fog by the blocks is probably nowhere close to that afforded by hundreds or thousands of ice cubes so your cooling effect was likely suffering.
Secondly, as alluded to previously, the ice may provide some extra humidity that the frozen plastic blocks did not, although gut feeling is that the primary culprit was inadequate chilling due to lack of surface area.
P

[niblique71]

LBB..
I think your results probably are due to a couple of things..
Firstly the surface area presented to the fog by the blocks is probably nowhere close to that afforded by hundreds or thousands of ice cubes so your cooling effect was likely suffering.
Secondly, as alluded to previously, the ice may provide some extra humidity that the frozen plastic blocks did not, although gut feeling is that the primary culprit was inadequate chilling due to lack of surface area.
P


I agree, You need blatent surface area. You just won't get that with those refreezable plastic blocks.

10 lbs of ice cubes has MANY times more surface area than 10 - 1lb plastic refreezable thingies.