How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for All"

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

Oh and this looks like a good place to get a bottle, if you can't find it in your local drugstore or whatever. They don't say what the quality/concentration is, though, and if you don't get the USP-certified stuff you don't really know for sure. (USP's certification for 'pure' is 99.5%, +/- a small bit based on the chemical. So in other words, UPS pure glycerine is actually going to be almost 100% glycerine, whereas non-USP could be 75%+ pure. You have no idea.)

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

Quick update: United Nuclear's chemicals are typically above 99.9% pure, and it's a great price for the glycerine ( Glycerin : United Nuclear , Scientific Equipment & Supplies ).

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

No offense taken there Stryker.
I'm all for educated people doing things properly.
I am also aware that there are a growing number of youngsters who visit this site and may not be as aware or prepared as you and I might be.
They can be easily confused and could find themselves with something other than the exact right liquid. (You know, 2 weeks after reading it they come across something they think is the same thing but it turns out to be the E-G stuff.)
My warning doesn't tell anyone NOT to do anything. I simply push the point of being educated and knowing for certain that you are doing it correctly. The information about the toxic chemicals and particulate sizes are there to make people look up those topics to find out more for their own safety.
I frequently include tips and points to create discussion and cause others to research things thay might not be inclined to do so originally. Most people will remember something a lot better if they had to look it up themselves and then debate/argue their findings.

But it is still a nice write up explaining it all.
So now people should know who to contact for the finer details in their builds. But they didn't have to work so hard for the info this time.

And I find that the glycerine fluids have a mild odour too. Doesn't bother me and it never sticks around after the "fog" has cleared.
But the wife claims it bothers her throat when she breathes it in.

See you around the boards.

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

ShortyInCanada said:

I find that the glycerine fluids have a mild odour too. Doesn't bother me and it never sticks around after the "fog" has cleared. But the wife claims it bothers her throat when she breathes it in.

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I wondered about that, it's very difficult for even an 'odorless' chemical to not have a smell when it's been turned into a vapor (higher energy state and all that).
And there's a purported sensitivity to glycerin but it hasn't been proven whether it's merely the placebo effect or not, but it's not toxic either way. Would be something interesting to study, and once I get some I will be doing a few of my own tests. (I wonder, for example, if you take a fluorescent pigment or dye and put it in the glycerin, will the beam be brighter with blue/purple sources?)

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

Then you open the door to what kind of dye that is food safe and hypo-allergenic that can't be broken down or combined with other particles when heated, etc. etc. etc.
Find some big organization that wants to know and get funded for many years of research as a scientist !
As glycerine is known to have a sweet taste and as your sense of smell is, more or less, a super-sensitive tasting system I find it hard to believe that more people don't notice the smell. I guess it has to do with how finely refined the source liquid is and how good or sensitive the person smelling it is.
I wonder how that perception of sweetness is created and if a person with blood sugar issues might be more suseptable to reacting or having their bodies fooled into reacting. (more along a Pavlovian response type of thing.)
Hmmmmm....
:thinking:

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

ShortyInCanada said:

Then you open the door to what kind of dye that is food safe and hypo-allergenic that can't be broken down or combined with other particles when heated, etc. etc. etc.
Find some big organization that wants to know and get funded for many years of research as a scientist !
As glycerine is known to have a sweet taste and as your sense of smell is, more or less, a super-sensitive tasting system I find it hard to believe that more people don't notice the smell. I guess it has to do with how finely refined the source liquid is and how good or sensitive the person smelling it is.
I wonder how that perception of sweetness is created and if a person with blood sugar issues might be more suseptable to reacting or having their bodies fooled into reacting. (more along a Pavlovian response type of thing.)
Hmmmmm....
:thinking:

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Interesting theory. My glycerin is on its way from United Nuclear, where it's super-pure. If I can find it of a lesser purity (at a drugstore, for example) then I can test smell/taste. I think it has something to do with the impurities.

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

quick update: I got it in the mail, and it says it is 'generally considered low toxicity' (lol), but "inhalation of mist may cause irritation of respiratory tract". Notice it says mist and not vapor.

It is literally odorless, the only slight smell I detect is the bottle, not the chemical. Now to test some fog....

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

Wow, cool. Definitely like this more than matches, lol.

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

The irritation they are talking about is because it's hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs moisture. If you spend large amounts of time in a foggy room you'll notice your eyes and throat drying out

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

I've stumbled upon this thread and I see none of you got the real info. This was discussed before on another part of LPF so I'll repeat it once again.

Glycerol vapors' toxicity is very low. Its main problem, as with all artificial fogs, is its tendency to dry out stuff like out throat and eyes, but that's about it.

But that's not all. It's really important how you prepare this fog. If you just let glycerol boil, the temperature is so high that is partially breaks down to acrolein, a nasty and toxic compound. The amounts are very low, but that's enough for damage to your body.

What you want to do is to blow into the heated glycerol so you create vapors before it starts boiling. It's much safer and it produces a lot more fog. It's incredible. Thick, white, very dense fog that keeps building because it attracts water.

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

I'm the lighting technician for several large venues, and can confirm professionally that glycerine mixes not only work, they work better than commercial fog mixes. Haze mixes are a different discussion, but simply denser. After my own research and experimentation I now use glycerine with distilled water at a ratio of 1:15, and it surpasses any commercial fog juice I've used in three different brands of foggers with different operation temps. Glycerine smells less, disperses more evenly, and is simply cheaper to use than the mystery glycol concoctions shipped over from china. I buy it commercially in 1gal jugs, but you can find it at CVS in pint containers for ~$5.

As a cheap and safe alternative to the methods above I highly suggest using a room humidifier with untrasonic discs as an alternative to boiling anything. These are inexpensive, and adding just a bit of glycerine increases the hang time considerably.

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

blasterman said:

I'm the lighting technician for several large venues, and can confirm professionally that glycerine mixes not only work, they work better than commercial fog mixes. Haze mixes are a different discussion, but simply denser. After my own research and experimentation I now use glycerine with distilled water at a ratio of 1:15, and it surpasses any commercial fog juice I've used in three different brands of foggers with different operation temps. Glycerine smells less, disperses more evenly, and is simply cheaper to use than the mystery glycol concoctions shipped over from china. I buy it commercially in 1gal jugs, but you can find it at CVS in pint containers for ~$5.

As a cheap and safe alternative to the methods above I highly suggest using a room humidifier with untrasonic discs as an alternative to boiling anything. These are inexpensive, and adding just a bit of glycerine increases the hang time considerably.

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1 volume part glycerol, 15 parts water? Isn't that too much? That's basically saturating the room with water vapor.
Very high humidity + glycerol = nice environment and food for mold. :thinking:

5 drops of pure glycerol heated on a spoon and blown at with a straw give very nice and dispersive fog which lingers around for more than one hour, and there's no heavy water vapor in the room.
Of course, one can vaporize few mililitres and make a battlefield which is also somewhat hard to breathe, but few drops is all it takes to make green lasers shine like crazy.

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

Glycerine and commercial fog mixes *ARE* mostly water out of the jug. The 1:15 ratio was also something I confirmed using a hydrometer and an initial measurement of commercial fog mixes. However, the later are all over the place. Premium fog fluids tend to be 2-3x denser than cheaper ones.

For a hazer you would likely use a 1:8 mix of glycerine, but since I don't use water based hazers (they don't produce a dense enough cloud for our preference) I can't exactly confirm this. Oil based hazers produce a denser cloud and have a longer hang time than water based which is why they are preferred by large concert lighting techs over water based. I still get better results using combustion foggers and glycerine based mixes.

When you cook a pan of mac -n- cheese you don't get mold growing on yoru walls. When you use a room humidifier, and it goes through a few liters of water over night you don't grow mold on your walls.

IMHO, a cheap ultrasonic room humidifier (plus a bit of glycerine) can be had for pretty cheap, and is a million times safer than low end fog machines that are out-right dangerous and fire hazards. Plus, the humidifier can still be used as a humidifier.

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

That's a good idea! I'm going to use that on my C6!

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

blasterman said:

Glycerine and commercial fog mixes *ARE* mostly water out of the jug. The 1:15 ratio was also something I confirmed using a hydrometer and an initial measurement of commercial fog mixes. However, the later are all over the place. Premium fog fluids tend to be 2-3x denser than cheaper ones.

For a hazer you would likely use a 1:8 mix of glycerine, but since I don't use water based hazers (they don't produce a dense enough cloud for our preference) I can't exactly confirm this. Oil based hazers produce a denser cloud and have a longer hang time than water based which is why they are preferred by large concert lighting techs over water based. I still get better results using combustion foggers and glycerine based mixes.

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So they sell basically a weak aqueous solution and charge it a lot. Pure pharmaceutical grade glycerol is orders of magnitude cheaper, lol.

When you cook a pan of mac -n- cheese you don't get mold growing on yoru walls. When you use a room humidifier, and it goes through a few liters of water over night you don't grow mold on your walls.

IMHO, a cheap ultrasonic room humidifier (plus a bit of glycerine) can be had for pretty cheap, and is a million times safer than low end fog machines that are out-right dangerous and fire hazards. Plus, the humidifier can still be used as a humidifier.

Click to expand...

But water can't be used as a nutrient. Glycerol can. I think fungi could feast on glycerol and I've read about concerns over its usage. I've never had such problems, though.

Re: How to Make Fog Without a Fog Machine For better beam viewing. "Cheap & Easy for

Hey man I´m glad I found this thread. Gonna try it out within the next days :beer: