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Fog machine revival - fixing foggers with little or no output

121K views 137 replies 51 participants last post by  corey872 
#1 ·
I've had an American DJ Fog Hog for 10 years. It has been perfect in every way, good output + reliable. I have never done any sort of cleaning and it has worked perfect... until last year. A few days before my haunt I brought it out of storage and it worked great for the first few cycles, then the output decreased dramatically. After a more minutes it was putting out almost no fog, I could hear the pump humming though. I called AMDJ asking about buying a replacement motor but they were no help at all. I tried running distilled water and vinegar through it and it just got worse.

Later I found a PDF about disassembling the pumps and cleaning them, so I tried it. I cleaned the piston, spring, and housings with a rag and water - oiled them and put it back together. It began outputting at a higher volume, but the next day it was back to nothing. So, I repeated the process only this time instead of oil I used Vaseline. I brought the fogger out again this year and it worked, however the hose from the tank to the pump was leaking (it was dry rotted).

I went to Home Depot and bought the closest thing that I could find, it is a little larger than the original hose though. WHAM! The output is every bit of what it was when I bought it 10 years ago, possibly ever more.

Overall I spent about $3 and a few hours.

Here is a link to the PDF that I used - essentially I only looked at the pictures to see how the pump would come apart. I used my own cleaning method - http://wolfstone.halloweenhost.com/_LocalMirror/How to Resurrect a Fogger.pdf

charlie
 
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#9 · (Edited)
I received a new type of fog fluid today - the instructions said to run distilled water through the system before adding the new fluid. I followed the instructions and then added the new fluid. Within 10-15 minutes the fog output began decreasing dramatically and the pump began to act as if it was going to seize up again. I removed the new fluid and put the old stuff back in, within 3-4 cycles the output was completely restored and it was running great.

This is exactly what happened last year when I added TheatreFX fluid. The fluid that I am using that it works great with is green, but I have no idea what brand. I am trying very hard to find out what it is and where to get more because the density of the actual fog is incredible and it seems to lubricate the pump much better than the other brands I have tried. There is a local store that sells Rosco fog juice (which is available in green) so I am going to get some on Monday and give it a shot.

charlie
 
#10 ·
My fog hog is not working, getting ready to disassemble the pump and clean it like the pdf explained but before I do that just wanted someone to tell me if that is probably the problem. It heats and the lights are on but it will not do anything else and i don't even hear a hmming sound from pump. Guys let me know what you think before i tear into the pump to clean. Thanks alos
 
#11 ·
A trick I use to get a seized pump going, is to take a large syringe, like a kitchen baster, and fill it full of fog juice, then when the fogger is heated, and the ready light on, and remote activated, shoot the fog juice down the tube. It often will unseize the pump, and or dislodge blockages and air pockets, other likely culprits.

HJ, Sometimes the ready light not coming on, is the result of a bad contact where the remote plugs into the machine. Try unpluging and repluging the remote repeatedly to make contact.
 
#13 ·
Help

I am new at this so would u guys please help me out. I have a AMDJ mobile fog hog machine that will not work. It heats and the green light comes on but when i push the remote for fog nothing at all happens. You cannot hear or see the pump respond at all. I have tried taking the pump apart and putting it back like the pdf said but still nothing.
Is it in the pump or could it be in the switch someway. Is it possible that the pump can burn up and be impossible to get started again. Any suggestions or help you guys could come up with would be greatly appreciated. Thanks alot
 
#14 ·
Last halloween my fogger had very little output by the end of the night... I've just gotten to taking it apart and I found that the pump motor worked great, and the heater heated up fine, so I took apart the heating element / combustion chamber and found it full of junk... looks like sand, bits of silica and some carbon... the tip was clogged with the stuff. I only use "black label premium fog fluid" which I get at a local DJ equippment store that is $25 a gallon, and it's clear. This was my second season on the fogger, previously purchased "as new" off ebay. I sandblasted the contaminates out of the combustion chamber (it's irregular sufrace wouldn't allow for any other cleaning method that I could think of) and I've put it back together resealing it with high-temp RTV (which is what was there to begin with) I'm waiting for the insulation to dry out before I put it back together... but I'll let you know how it does.

 
#16 · (Edited)
just got it back together and tried it out, works better than it ever has....oodles and oodles of thick fog. I resecured the fiberglass insulation by wrapping some copper wire around it to hold it in place (had to cut it along the side to get the element out) The RTV says it's rated at constant 500 degrees, with peaks up to 600.. not sure what the heater runs at. I might use a temp gun to find out. Even without access to a sandblaster I'm sure folks could get a bit more use out of DOA foggers due to this issue.
 
#17 ·
A side note. I am confident the reason that my fogger seized in the first place was because of bad fog juice. I did quite a bit of experimenting with various brands this Halloween and it almost seized again with one particular brand - fog output went from great to almost nothing and the pitch of the motor changed. I quickly swapped in another brand and it came back to life and worked like a charm.

charlie
 
#19 ·
Unfortunately, I have no idea. The juice that I swapped in was the mystery green juice that I was trying to track down initially. I never did find out what it was for sure - but I found what I consider to be the best fog juice ever made - Rosco. It was expensive, but I bought it because it was green (and I was in search of my mystery juice). It produced the most dense fog I have ever seen, and it hung forever. Before my haunt began I filled my main fogger with the Rosco (all other foggers went outside because the Rosco was so thick one fogger was more than enough). After 3 hours I checked my fogger to find that the fluid level had only gone down about 1 inch. Depsite 3 hours of having my garage completely fogged (its a 3 car garage) I only used a small amount of the juice. At this rate 1 gallon of Rosco will last like 10 years!

1 full pump of Rosco out of my Hurricane 1700 was enough to fog my entire front yard and street to the point where you couldn't see more than a few feet in front of you. We had to stop because we were worried about causing an accident. Afterwards the huge cloud of fog moved as a unit down the street slowly - it is amazing how well it stays together, despite some wind.

Anyway, I'll never put another type of fog juice in my main fogger - there is no reason. Not only does the fog look better, but I have to spend less time messing with it to keep my haunt evenly fogged - and it takes far less juice to do it.

charlie
 
#20 ·
seems that the fog hog`s tend to break quite easily i looked at a few other forums, u can call amdj and ask for a vaporizor pump that should do it, along with some ingenuity and some hardware. BTW... does anyone know where to get a replacement pump for an old gemmy fogger, i went online on their website..... nothing there... sooo i dropped them a line, and they dont make replacement parts... kind of stupid. so i was thinking maybe a car window washer pump? lol please help me out here!
 
#21 ·
Looks like a lite fx constant fogger block

The pumps in the lite fx constant foggers are REAR WINDOW WASHER PUMPS they have more push than the regular ones.
You will need some deacon 1400 degree gasket sealant to seal the block back up right, the heater block gets up to about 800 degrees in some spots.
You have to use a pliable gasket sealant that can handle 1400 degrees constantly and allow for expansion and contraction of the heater block as it heats and cools.
DO NOT GO TO AN AUTO STORE AND GET AUTOMOTIVE SEALANT IT WONT WORK FOR VERY LONG and the fog fluid will break the sealant down.
How do I know all this wonderfull stuff?
I own a fx shop.
 
#24 ·
Fog Machine Repair


Thanks for the welcome!
It's been a while since someone tried to send one of those to my shop for repair but I would be willing to bet that it's the same pump.
90% of the cheap foggers that use a 12v transformer to convert the 110 use a rear window washer motor for the pump, there are some lite fx machines like the 400w and 700w version that use micro solenoid pumps which are near to impossible to get unless you get them in bulk from moia over in china where the stupid things are built but they are junk anyways.
ALWAYS BUY EUROPEAN PUMPS! They last forever!
Heres a interesting tid bit for you guys and gals, about 4 yrs ago we got board at the shop and took a 1200w constant fogger heater block and canned the pump and replaced it with a kick AZZ high pressure 350ml out put micro pump and now that fogger runs circles around the VEI V-950 fogger.
See lite fx actually made a hellofa heater block when they made the 1200w constant fogger but they put a nickle and dime pump on it, so ya upgrade the pump for $80 and a little work and have a nice dependable fog machine, personally I like the little built one we did better than the chauvet 1200w or even the 1200 fogstorms, the smoke seems to be whiter and not as grey.
I know no matter what happens that pump will never die, I would bet the bank on it!
Did I mention you cant even hear the pump run even after 4yrs of complete abuse, the only way to tell its running is to touch it and feel it.
Personally I think the 1200w constant fogger is nice toy after you do a little work to it and fix the issues but then you have to remember this is comming from someone who works on foggers all the time so it's not a big deal to me.
I still like my Glaciator best though, LOL!
 
#25 · (Edited)
K-
Thanks for the additional info... After this season, I'm SURE I'm gonna tackle building a monster-size fogger. I'm gonna call it "Franken-Fogger"!! Heater or two from one machine...pump from the auto-parts store or salvage yard, etc.

Anyone have a how-to for a home-made fogger?? i.e. SAFE build. I dont mean that flat iron crap. I'm talking using components from this one and that one...Cuz' you KNOW these are gonna be all over ebay in a month or two.

OR....Is there actually a fogger that lives up to the hype. As we have seen, some foggers (Chaveut) are advertising 1200watts but their actual heaters are only drawing about 800w !!
 
#27 ·
Now that's some interesting info, alright. It sort of sounds as though some of the low-end foggers suffer from a lack of pump output more than heater capacity. Another observation about Chauvet foggers (and others) is that the heater power cuts off during pumping. Is this because they didn't want to spring for a DPDT heater relay? It seems that by using a DPDT you could keep the power going to the heater block when the pump is running and still have the protection of the thermostat, and prevent the heater temp from dropping so rapidly. There may be a good reason for cutting the heater power, but I can't see it.
 
#29 ·
There actually is a reason why they do the whole stop, reheat deal.
Once the heat block get low on temp we all know that if the pump keeps going it will just spit out raw juice or brown syrup, LOL!
But the manufactures have to not over heat the blocks cold clash cappability.
By cold clash I mean when a block is hot and you hit it with cool or even cold fog juice, I have seen several heater blocks that cracked because the temp sensor on the block didnt shut off and the block got way too HOT HOT HOT and then the unaware user hit the block with cold juice and then SNAP! You got one hell of a fogger on your hands for sure for a couple of minutes, fog starts shooting out from every orifice of the unit, it's actually kinda cool, monty1269 would apprecieate seeing something like that with the whole franken fogger idea.
If you guys need hard to find stuff let me know I have pumps out the wazu and if you guys ever want to get rid of fog machines that still heat up but the pump is shot let me know, I buy broken foggers all the time espically the higher end ones, I usually wind up giving away a couple of repaired foggers here and there, we have a couple of families here in Louisville that dont have much money at all so we see to it that the low income families have uber cool props for halloween.
After all halloween to me is what christmas is to the normals.
 
#32 ·
i have a fogger pump that laid down on me i tried cleaning and the vaseline thing but it just wont work.... i hate to say it but its a cheapo from china via ebay.... anyways the pump is a 120v 60hz motor and also has 30dsb-zjf on it will the rear window washer pump work for mine or do i need to buy a fogger from walmart steal the pump and take it back? lol
 
#33 ·
....... anyways the pump is a 120v 60hz motor and also has 30dsb-zjf on it will the rear window washer pump work for mine or do i need to buy a fogger from walmart steal the pump and take it back? lol
:eek: I'm totally shocked at this thought.... the very thought that a fellow american would encourage such activity...One time...or twice.. But to "long-term BORROW" THREE pumps, would just be applauding. :D
 
#36 ·
If yer interested in helping/suggesting next years' FRANKIN' FOGGER let me know!! I'm now on a mission to find the best parts and piece one together.[/QUOTE]

I will post a pic of the fogger we built, if you guys want some of this decon high temp sealant you can have all you want just send me a couple of bucks ( 5 bucks is sufficent), the stuff has a shelf life of one year before it has to put into service and we have a crap load of it, it comes in a rope type reel in a big can and you wont find a better high temp sealant.
One of our shop guys has a hot rod and used it ( A CRAP LOAD OF IT WITH OUT MY PERMISSION ) as a header gasket on his alcohol hot rod, so im pretty convinced it will seal what ever in the hell you want it to.
I mean look up the specs on decon 3300 its good from 500 deg to 1600 degrees.
About 4 inches of it will seal a constant fogger screw down plate you just slice it into strips.
THE ONLY CATCH is you will have to break the sealant in right becasue for the first few hours it stinks but after it cures its well worth it.
As always you guys can call me after halloween for details AFTER HALLOWEEN though, LOL!
My wife came out of the office and reminded me ( by smacking me in the head with bucky arm ) that I still dont have the decos for the yard done so looks like my works not over yet, DAM! I can't get a break!

Mike Bisch Kentuckyspecialfx.com 502-836-1674
 
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