The leaves are turning brown, and the spookier season is upon us. If you’re currently working up plans for a top-notch Halloween party, you would do well to consider building a fog machine like this unit from [DIY Machines]!
This fog machine is based around dry ice, so you’ll need to source that from an external supplier. The machine consists of a closed container filled with hot water, inside which is a movable bucket filled with dry ice. By lowering the dry ice into the water, fog is produced.
An Arduino is used to control the bucket, allowing the amount of fog produced to be controlled with a smartphone app. There are also controllable LEDs built in to give the fog a suitably eerie glow. The build relies on a series of 3D printed parts for the mechanism, and features several different nozzle designs for achieving different effects, such as a rising geyser or a thick low-lying fog.
The basic concepts are simple and it’s a build anyone could knock out in a weekend with a 3D printer and an Amazon account. It’s a great way to add to the ambience of Halloween, but of course, that’s not all fog can do. Video after the break.
And with some luck and bad enough ventilation, you’ll get some spooky dead bodies for free!
That might require some college level ignorance.
Lack of oxygen in a room is not directly sensed by the brain. Excess CO2 is detected though.
Yeah, I know. But plenty of people have suffocated from excess CO2. Depending on the concentration, there just isn’t enough time with a clear min left. I did, however, recently witness such a machine at a wedding and nobody seemed to have any issue from the massive ammount of white smoke, so I guess it’s fine. Maybe don’t test it in your dorm room or worse – basement.
Most smoke machines use 10% to 50% glycol in distilled water (glycerine can be used as well). And 50% would be a dense white fog where as 10% would be closer to a mist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZGGgb3iFpg
For safety I can’t imagine that many use dry ice.
Uh, all the high schools here I’ve seen use dry ice if they need fog. It may not be the best decision but its usually the cheapest and lets face it, a school dance or play has zero budget. I have noticed we can no longer get dry ice from grocers here like we used to, maybe they dont need it anymore idk.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Dogs
Wow!
Thanks!
CO2 poisoning on the making…
That’s a lot fancier than the machine a mate an I built back
In the 80s for our high school discos. Hot water heater element in a container full with water and throw in handfuls of dry ice. Not even a 555 required – lol
My fog fluid smoke machine was a bit more involved.
Heh, I was thinking the exact same thing. I did very similar for many years, and you get an eerier effect if you use green glow sticks.
Eek just think about all that CO2 being released
Into the atmosphere Al Gore would have a conniption
Little known fact… shortly following his invention of the internet, Al Gore also invented the conniption. So, box checked. Moving on.
The CO2 is all from recovered sources, it would have been in the atmosphere anyway. We at least get utility from it this way.
Ah, just giving the atmosphere back what those pesky trees stole from it, a couple of million years ago!
Technically speaking, most of food-grade CO2 (dry ice feedstock included) comes as a waste byproduct of steam reforming methane into hydrogen.
However methane for that process comes from many different sources, anerobic (recent and/or prehistoric) decay AND geological processes (no living things involved whatsoever), so…debatable…
> The leaves are turning brown, and the spookier season is upon us.
Don’t remind us… did a walk along Enoggera Creek a few weeks ago and it was more dry creek bed then muddy waterhole and the usually green areas of my home suburb were looking very brown and dry indeed.
I hear the little border town of Texas will probably be trucking water in. Drought sucks.
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Interdimensional_20Door_20_5bfor_20Halloween_5d#1414850671
We get materials shipped in dry ice at work. I usually fill up the toilets and sink. Looks like a bunch of witches cauldrons.