There's a couple things I found you can do to combat the wind. Or at least get the most out of the fog in windy situation.
One is if you use a fog chiller: Put a trash bag cut in half on the outlet with a rubber band and water down the lawn if it hasn't rained already. It'll slow down the velocity of the fog and what's left will cling to the ground more. It gives the fog a fighting chance better than nothing. I know it worked satisfactorily for me. Better than giving up. Do you have complete control? No. Is it better than straight out of the fogger or the chiller? Yes I think it is. Here's an example of . I don't know how much wind there was. But you get the idea of the set-up from a 1000W+ fogger and Igloo cube chiller with a trash bag on the outlet that we discovered in our voluminous Vortex Manual thread.
The other thing to do if you don't use a fog chiller and don't care about low lying fog but still want to contain an area with a decent amount of fog is to increase it's volume out of the fogger so the wind can't completely destroy it. I've seen it done at an amusement park and I tried it with a large tombstone and 400W fogger. The fog will build up out of the fogger against the back of a large object and go into the air slowly before the wind can completely destroy it. It will create atmosphere. Especially if you backlight it. What you do is you aim the fogger into the back of a tombstone or a black tarp fence about 6 inches away. The fog shoots out with enough force where the wind won't destroy it in that short distance. The fog hits the object and builds up for as long as the fog burst is. The longer the burst duration the better. Then the fog rises with more volume and then the wind has it's way with it. But not nearly as immediate and as terribly out of control as if it were straight out of the fogger. Here's a photo that sort of shows the set-up with a 4400W LeMaitre constant fogger in a protective box. Note the tarp fence. The fogger is NOT set-up in position at the time that photo was taken. In-use it would have been pointed at the back of the tarp.
How do I know this works? Well Cedar Point is a peninsula on Lake Erie. They lease over a hundred 1400W and 4400W foggers for their Sep-Oct Halloween events. The fog machines used to be set up just shooting straight out. The wind off the Lake would push it wherever it wanted right out of the fogger even from high wattage expensive pro foggers. So they used the black border tarp fence idea last year and it worked. They also have the advantage os repositioning them based on weather and have them hooked up to a DMX control board but the basic practice worked anyhow. They sometimes cut a hole in the bottom of the tarp and shoot the fog thru that when it's not as windy.
Just try it with a large board or tombstone. Lightning FX Fog Tests pictures by bpesti - Photobucket in July with a light wind. The fogger is 6" away from the back of the tombstone pointed right at it. In comparison, when it was 12" away the light wind didn't even allow the 400W Gemmy to shoot the fog to the back of the tombstone. So the fog didn't build up like you see it in the screengrabs. You can see how the fog is going a little to the left. But if it were straight out of the fog machine, it would be a lot farther off the the left and not more than a foot off the ground. So I considered it a success. I backlit the fog with a 1000W halogen work lamp hooked to a Lightning FX unit for that test. Yes a real test would be higher winds. But like I said it definitely worked for an amusement park on Lake Erie. They do use high wattage powerful stage quality foggers. But the concept works better than trying to shoot fog right out of the fogger.
Try it for yourself. See what you get.
One is if you use a fog chiller: Put a trash bag cut in half on the outlet with a rubber band and water down the lawn if it hasn't rained already. It'll slow down the velocity of the fog and what's left will cling to the ground more. It gives the fog a fighting chance better than nothing. I know it worked satisfactorily for me. Better than giving up. Do you have complete control? No. Is it better than straight out of the fogger or the chiller? Yes I think it is. Here's an example of . I don't know how much wind there was. But you get the idea of the set-up from a 1000W+ fogger and Igloo cube chiller with a trash bag on the outlet that we discovered in our voluminous Vortex Manual thread.
The other thing to do if you don't use a fog chiller and don't care about low lying fog but still want to contain an area with a decent amount of fog is to increase it's volume out of the fogger so the wind can't completely destroy it. I've seen it done at an amusement park and I tried it with a large tombstone and 400W fogger. The fog will build up out of the fogger against the back of a large object and go into the air slowly before the wind can completely destroy it. It will create atmosphere. Especially if you backlight it. What you do is you aim the fogger into the back of a tombstone or a black tarp fence about 6 inches away. The fog shoots out with enough force where the wind won't destroy it in that short distance. The fog hits the object and builds up for as long as the fog burst is. The longer the burst duration the better. Then the fog rises with more volume and then the wind has it's way with it. But not nearly as immediate and as terribly out of control as if it were straight out of the fogger. Here's a photo that sort of shows the set-up with a 4400W LeMaitre constant fogger in a protective box. Note the tarp fence. The fogger is NOT set-up in position at the time that photo was taken. In-use it would have been pointed at the back of the tarp.
How do I know this works? Well Cedar Point is a peninsula on Lake Erie. They lease over a hundred 1400W and 4400W foggers for their Sep-Oct Halloween events. The fog machines used to be set up just shooting straight out. The wind off the Lake would push it wherever it wanted right out of the fogger even from high wattage expensive pro foggers. So they used the black border tarp fence idea last year and it worked. They also have the advantage os repositioning them based on weather and have them hooked up to a DMX control board but the basic practice worked anyhow. They sometimes cut a hole in the bottom of the tarp and shoot the fog thru that when it's not as windy.
Just try it with a large board or tombstone. Lightning FX Fog Tests pictures by bpesti - Photobucket in July with a light wind. The fogger is 6" away from the back of the tombstone pointed right at it. In comparison, when it was 12" away the light wind didn't even allow the 400W Gemmy to shoot the fog to the back of the tombstone. So the fog didn't build up like you see it in the screengrabs. You can see how the fog is going a little to the left. But if it were straight out of the fog machine, it would be a lot farther off the the left and not more than a foot off the ground. So I considered it a success. I backlit the fog with a 1000W halogen work lamp hooked to a Lightning FX unit for that test. Yes a real test would be higher winds. But like I said it definitely worked for an amusement park on Lake Erie. They do use high wattage powerful stage quality foggers. But the concept works better than trying to shoot fog right out of the fogger.
Try it for yourself. See what you get.