[brokenlaser]

Afternoon all, had a brain storm the other day, currently drawing it up in SolidWorks. I going to make pillars for the end of my driveway that are essentially vortex style fog chillers. They are going to be in the neighborhood of 8' tall. The tops will be some sort of clear globe. The globes will be the upper expansion chamber for the fog, I have some UV LED's, which I would like to use as a way to light the globes. The light from these LED's should be enough to give it an eerie glow. The fog will fall then through the ice, and exit the pillar through slots hidden between the base and the second level, about 8 or 10 inches above ground level.

I'll post some pictures of the concept, when I get it worked out a bit more. Question I have is does anybody have an idea where I could get clear plastic globes about 14” to 18” in diameter?

Eric

 

[The_Caretaker]

They use to make terrariums like that

 

[Darkside]

Great idea.

 

[brokenlaser]

I did find these, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=300142215453&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=020 on ebay, which puts me to thinking that I should run out to the pets supply store. They can't be that much.

 

[Sickie Ickie]

I wonder if condensation may be a problem?

 

[Otaku]

I like this! How close will the fog outlet be to the globes? You mentioned that the globes will be the expansion chambers for the fog. Be sure that the globes can take the heat.

 

[brokenlaser]

Current design in preliminary stage is putting the fog machine about 3 ft. from the expansion chamber. Should be ok on the heat. If not plan B is to go onto an industrial globe that is designed to handle 200w bulbs. I can get them at about $20.00 each. For now though the fish bowls will be good for trying it out.

 

[brokenlaser]

render of basic design

Ok, here is a render of the basic shaping of the pillar, definately not a final for the pillar. Now I'm off to figuring out how I'm going to fit all the do-dads inside to do what I want.

 

[Frighteners Entertainment]

I'll be watching your progress, very interesting.

 

[RookieSpooker]

I found these...

http://www.aquariumguys.com/roundbowl.html

But they have a bit of a flat bottom....or top, in your case. Great idea, though.

 

[brokenlaser]

I saw those too RookieSpooker, but they are only approximately 7" diameter, the ones I found on ebay are 11" diameter. The pillars are currently 114+" tall, depending on how the 11" dia. bowls look, I may have to go into the commercial lighting bowls. I can get those for a lot more money, but can get up to 16" dia., might have to for visual appearence.

We will see....

 

[brokenlaser]

I got a small window of machine time this weekend. I use the lasers at work to do most of what I want especially on prototyping, it's just too fast, and dead accurate. What I am going to do is cut a pillar that is only about 5' tall, none of the extras, just to see if what I have envisioned will work on a small scale. Then continue on with the big pillars. This way I can play with the chambers for cooling and lighting to get what I want to happen. Eventually will turn this all into a how to, but for now I'm playing with the idea.`Hopefully before Halloween this will turn into a set of pillars with an arch above with the TERROR ON CARDINAL DR logo I started last year with the 9' tall pillars I have envisioned, but we will see what happens soon.

Eric

 

[Sickie Ickie]

Eric, is that you in your avatar?

 

[brokenlaser]

It is now... other wise what I have used was just the closest to my personality.... Now who do I shoot......

 

[Sickie Ickie]

LOL Nice avatar now, my friend.

 

[brokenlaser]

Went to Petsmart

Went to Petsmart, and found a globe to play with to see if the top will work like I think it should. I'm going to put in holes in it for the LEDs then use a series of aligator clips and mount the globe. Also since I have red, blue green , white, and the UV's I may as well play with all of them and combinations of them to see what works best. I want to do a night test, but it will have to be tomorrow night as I need a couple things so I can hook it up to an existing chiller. If I'm gonna play I may as well fog the street and freak the neighbors out.

I'll get video...

Eric

 

[brokenlaser]

video to come

We are testing a real crude set up now, the UV's are too weak, but green looks good. Will post a video before the evening is up.

 

[brokenlaser]

LoL

Ok, this was crude, and I found out a few things. But I think with a bit of playing and just plain using a mock-up of the pillar it will work. The first error was I pumped the fog into the globe directly. 85% humidity doesn't help. The other that is not shown is the UV LEDs are too weak in just using 4. I think they would work if using 8, I just didn't feel like looking for the right resistor knowing that I had green. Those worked great, but the condensation was already there. The UV would work, but I need ones with more initial omph. But what I did get was something workable, just needs tweeking. Also ditch the postal box and just d it right....

http://media.putfile.com/Just-a-test-and-only-the-first

The link should be active in a couple hours.

Also I wish I would have waited for true darkness with the UVs.

 

[brokenlaser]

work is progressing

Learning while designing a prop is so cool. The first thing I learned was that the fog machine definitely has to breath, not direct connection to the orifice. The other is that the globe has to be a lot bigger, the ones that I ordered off of ebay are 5 times the size of what I did that dumb little video on. One of the worries I had was the fogger heating up too much in the confined space. We ran a test the other night with the fogger, no ice, just to see if it would get too hot. After three hours it was ok, and then pulled the fogger out to let it run in open air and found that it runs only 20 deg cooler out of the pillar.

Question I have as there is three cooling chambers in the pillar, the bottom will be dry ice with the two uppers being regular ice. Concept being that the melt will create water dripping on the dry ice to help in fog production, has anyone played with this concept before? My idea is that with the cooling chambers above melt off and dripping onto the dry ice it should produce a bit more fog than the cheap foggers I will use in the pillars. I have a company that will give me the dry ice, so i want to incorporate it into the pillars.