Got my new toy for Halloween

[cgarwood]

I decided that I was going to do a small and simple Halloween display this year. I'll be making use of fog, scary music, and colored floodlights pulsing and flickering.

The big thing I'm going for is a fog filled yard. The cheapo WalMart fogger's simply aren't going to do it. So I ordered a professional grade fogger: The Chauvet Hurricane 1300.

It arrived today. The first thing one must do when getting a fog machine is unpack it and immediately play with it.

http://www.charlesgarwood.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/IMG_0033-225x300.jpg
Here's the new machine with a Lil' Foggy Toys R Us fogger sitting on top of it for size reference. It really makes the Lil Foggy look little.

I let it warm up for a while and hit the Manual fog button for a couple seconds.
http://www.charlesgarwood.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/IMG_0034-225x300.jpg

Then I set up the timer and activated it. After 3 bursts of fog for 9 seconds (spaced 30-45 seconds apart) my webcam nearly went blind.
http://www.charlesgarwood.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/FOGGER-WOO-300x225.jpg

I had to open all the windows and set up a fan blowing the fog outside. It took nearly 30 minutes to clear the fog out of my house.

Needless to say, I'm very pleased :)

Tonight I think I am going to set it up outside with a few lights and see what it looks like.

[budude]

Needless to say, I'm very pleased :)

I'm sure the rest of the household was happy too... :rolleyes:

[ppohlman]

Very impressive.
Good thing the fire department didn't show up at your door after a concerned neighbor reports smoke coming out your windows.

[cgarwood]

They thought it was funny :) Then we started wondering if the neighbors were going to call the fire department after I put a fan in the window to suck the fog out. I'm suprised no smoke detectors went off

[fkostyun]

I have a large American DJ fogger - last year at halloween the entire NEIGHBORHOOD had a blanket of fog after three hours!

[g2ktcf]

that reminds me...where the heck did I put my fogger....hmmmm

will have to start looking as soon as I get home! lol

[cgarwood]

I threw some lights up real quick outside to experiment/test things out and get a better idea what I'm going to do for the actual display.

http://www.charlesgarwood.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/IMG_0035-300x225.jpg

A friend of mine came by while I was playing around outside and said he noticed the fog a block away.

I'm more than pleased with it... although I'm not sure what my neighbors downwind will think when I get a full tank of juice in it and really start playing :D

[dirknerkle]

Sorry to throw a wrench into your plan, but I sure hope you don't create such a cloud that cars driving past your house can't see very well and hit one of the neighborhood kids :shock:

[cgarwood]

That's one thing I kind of wondered/worried about. I'll be outside with it most of the time. If it starts getting too thick I'll turn it down.

[pikoko]

you know what you might wanna check out and play with is a Fog chiller. we used to just use a old foam cooler, chicken wire and ice to make them.

it will make the fog kinda hug the ground. then instead of worrying about kid getting hit you have to worry about pot holes in your yard

[cgarwood]

Planning to chill it a bit. I'm also going to shoot the fog through an irrigation hose wrapped around my porch, similar to this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfkwBLILjLc

Supposedly they aren't chilling their fog in that video, so I'll see how it goes. I may have to fill the tube with ice each night

[pikoko]

That is a pretty neat effect. the comments say that it was done on a windless day(or like of much wind) and he says with wind it kills the effect.

[theatretch85]

I have the Chauvet Hurricane 1700 with the DMX controller for it as well. Works great, love the DMX controllable option! Looking at possibly getting a hazer, already have 2 american dj 800 watt strobe lights (also DMX controllable) that are blindingly bright.

[dirknerkle]

A cool smoke application is to build a thin box in the size of a casket, and make the top look like a casket cover. Prop it open just a couple inchs, put a flickering red light inside and pump the smoke into it through a tube.... put a speaker inside the box and play the sounds of groans, chains, screams, etc... and just set it up near the front door somewhere. Paint it a dark gray so it looks like the box is coming out of the ground.

Caution: we built one of these when I was in Cub Scouting for a pack party, and the thing was so creepy that many families who came to the party complained. We had a lot of frightened, crying children, so maybe we overdid it a little...

[budude]

Caution: we built one of these when I was in Cub Scouting for a pack party, and the thing was so creepy that many families who came to the party complained. We had a lot of frightened, crying children, so maybe we overdid it a little...

My wife tells me the same thing every year I try to add scarier stuff - I just tell her "More candy for US!" - - somehow the humor of it escapes her...

[dirknerkle]

My wife tells me the same thing every year I try to add scarier stuff - I just tell her "More candy for US!" - - somehow the humor of it escapes her...


Your wife must know my wife... (sigh...)

[ripbme]

I did the same thing! Set up the fog machine and fogged out the entire house! I went to Home Depot and got a piece of PFC drainage pipe to use with mine. The black stuff with holes all over it. I plug one end and fill it with a bunch of ice to make the fog lay low to the ground. One advantage with this that I can put the machine one place and twist the pipe around corners.

[GodSpeed]

Awesome. I'm not going to have a Halloween display this year, but with all these ideas 2010 should be a fun year.

[theatretch85]

I did the same thing! Set up the fog machine and fogged out the entire house! I went to Home Depot and got a piece of PFC drainage pipe to use with mine. The black stuff with holes all over it. I plug one end and fill it with a bunch of ice to make the fog lay low to the ground. One advantage with this that I can put the machine one place and twist the pipe around corners.

I am so using that idea for Halloween this year, though I'll have the use of two Chauvet Hurricane 1700 fog machines! I can put one on either end of the black drainage pipe!

[dj merritt]

Fog machine looks to be working great But I must tell you that you will need to be sure and run fog cleaner through it once in a while or your fog will be over and do not store the machine with fog fluid in it .if you do it gets slimmy thick like and clogs pump and or filter

[Tuckie]

I am so using that idea for Halloween this year, though I'll have the use of two Chauvet Hurricane 1700 fog machines! I can put one on either end of the black drainage pipe!

I did this later year and it worked great, but to make cleanup a bit easier, I collected old water bottles, froze them with water, and just dropped them into the pipe. There was still a bit of condensation, but it wasn't bad at all. I tried a fog forced through cheap cooler method the year before that, and the results were not nearly as good, and this was 10x easier.

[fathead45]

wow i love the pipe idea. im going to have to try. only thing that sucks is im going to be the only 1 to enjoy it. living in the country has it down falls:(

[SeaHoCaptain]

I just got the Chauvet 1300 too. Replaced my old cheap 700 watt unit that finally died last year. Only issue I have with new higher output is that my old 32gallon chiller can no longer keep up. Now I have to go back to and figure out how to get the fog colder. I'm thinkning maybe a double chill?

David

[dirknerkle]

Only issue I have with new higher output is that my old 32gallon chiller can no longer keep up. Now I have to go back to and figure out how to get the fog colder. I'm thinkning maybe a double chill?


Nah. Just move to Minnesota. No problem keeping things cold up here! :lol:

[LabRat]

Nah. Just move to Minnesota. No problem keeping things cold up here! :lol:

Keep driving North... ;)

[budude]

Keep driving North... ;)

"driving" as in the dog sleds? :rolleyes: mush! mush!

[LabRat]

"driving" as in the dog sleds? :rolleyes: mush! mush!

We swapped the dogs in for flying reindeer. Didn't you know?

[cgarwood]

Well the "show" is done for the year. Trick or treaters stopped coming around 9:00. I shut down everything at about 10:00. By midnight, all the decorations are down and inside and all that's left outside if my security motion lights and some extension cords still zip-tied to my porch beams.

Probably wouldn't have took everything down in such a hurry, but there is a planned city-wide power outage tonight (wonderful timing!) and I have a neighbor a few houses down with some kids that could easily be referred to as troublemakers. Wrote all over my car windows last night and tonight I have some still images from my camera outside of one of them coming up on the porch after everything was off, noticing the camera, and leaving.

Things learned for next year:
-More lights & brighter lights for my lightning. 2 150 watt halogens in the tree just didn't quite cut it for the quick flashes.
-Buy a second identical fog machine. The one did good, but I spent a lot of time repositioning it as the wind changed. By 9:00 the wind was getting to be jsut enough it blew everything away.
-Rig up a car horn and headlights to a relay/vixen trigger. I have an old car in my yard that gets decorated for Christmas. Would have been fun to press a button and have the horn go off and the headlights kick on as people walked by.
-More security lights/cameras. Car windows getting painted and the kids being on my porch after everything was off just doesn't set well with me. Maybe some kind of motion sensor hooked up to a beeper so if the lights on the porch get set off it beeps inside.
-DMX or wireless controllers for my fogger. A few times it would have been nice to remotely trigger some fog instead of relying on the timer. Pushing the manual button on the machine just isn't as scary when it's outside.

All in all, it was a fun year for my first halloween display. Funnest part was walking around my yard with a wireless microphone hooked up to a voice changer. Made me sound like a gremlin. Lots of kids enjoyed it, and lots of parents thought it was great. Only had about 5 kids over two nights that were too scared to come on the porch.

Time for the Christmas Lights to start going up!