Fogger Hack: Draw straight from gallon?

[Long_Tom]

Has anybody ever hacked their fog machine to make it draw straight from the gallon jug, instead of the reservoir built into the machine? There are a bunch of reasons to do this:

1) It's a pain to have to go refill the machines in the middle of Halloween. Set and forget is much preferable.
2) I dread the whine of a pump trying to pull from an empty reservoir ("Oh, @#%!, I hope it's not burned out...")
3) The reservoir on the LiteFX 1200 Continuous is a nightmare to fill. (Who the heck designed that little ergonomic disaster?)

I'm especially interested in doing this to my LiteFx 1200 Continuous, but I'm a little worried to try. On this model, the outlet is on the bottom of the tank, which makes me think the pump might not be strong enough to pull out the top of a gallon jug. Maybe I could elevate the gallon jug up on a couple of bricks, to develop a siphon effect, which would let the pump not work so hard.

Anyway, if anybody has already tried such a thing, I'd appreciate any wisdom you have to impart. Thanks in advance!

[Moon Dog]

Take the cover off of the fogger - look for the hose that connects the tank to the pump -
remove it from the tank - drill a hole through the case of the fogger - either place a coupler
of some sort in the hole, or attach a longer tube on the pump that will go through the
hole and into the top of the gallon jug and reach the bottom.

You could also attach the part of the hose that goes into the jug to a rod of some sort to
make sure the hose stays at the bottom of the jug.

[Long_Tom]

Thanks, Moon Dog. The idea about the rod to keep the tube in the bottom of the jug is a good one.

When I got the fogger, the inlet tube had fallen off the pump, so I know how to open it up and do surgery on it. Mainly I wanted to know if anybody had already tried it and either found it didn't work, or had burned out their pump trying.

[Otaku]

Be careful about setting up a siphon. I don't know what type of pumps are generally used in foggers, but if it's a centrifugal pump without a backflow check valve the pressure from the siphon will allow fluid to leak past the pump impeller and into the heater tube. A positive displacement pump (piston or diaphragm) shouldn't be a problem, though.