Tad lighting Posted November 10, 2009 Posted November 10, 2009 hi all, I have recently bought a lovely old pea souper, used it at a recent event, great effect, but found the hold cage to be very small, not even big enough to hold 10kg dry ice. so been thinking about build my own, any ideas? basic idea, using some fiberglass, heating element and some work from my local metal worker.or does anyone know something like the pea souper but abit bigger? also why is it called a pea souper??? cheers
dbuckley Posted November 10, 2009 Posted November 10, 2009 also why is it called a pea souper???Named after the London fog of years gone by, see Wikipedia. Dry ice foggers are still something that can be home built in this age of the Chinese manufacturing revolution. At a venue that no longer exists we "converted" an rescued old cold water tank of dimensions about 6ft x 3ft x 3ft into a large fogger; one 3KW heating element, holes in one end for a couple of fans and in other a few bits of four inch tumble dryer hose. Took days to warm up. Bung a couple of buckets of dry ice in through the open top, bung on the lid, and watch the stage get a couple of feet of fog on it. Illuminate from underneath with parcans to taste. Our local lighting hire house has something thats a bit smaller and a lot prettier than the behemoth noted above, but its still a large home made dry ice fogger :)
scjb Posted November 10, 2009 Posted November 10, 2009 The other route, if you already have access to a smoke machine, is to build a chiller unit for that. Frequently made using ice cubes, dry ice works even better. Have a look in the BR archives, as I'm sure I remember them being talked about before. Have fun!
Jivemaster Posted November 10, 2009 Posted November 10, 2009 There is/was a comercial unit on the market using a wheelie bin and a multi kilowatt three phase heater. Just remember that you have 30+ litres of boiling water in there -scalding hazard and electrics and water in the same tank. Certainly DIY fabricatable if you plan it well.
paulears Posted November 10, 2009 Posted November 10, 2009 The pea souper cage holds the optimum amount of dry ice - if you increase the CO2 payload, the water cools to much. If you increase the water capacity, you can increase the amount of CO2 you can drop - BUT - a pea souper is already heavy, and a bit unstable as it is. The prospect of adding more boiling water is a touch worrying - the damn things get kicked, split and leak anyway - making a bigger one sounds like bad news, let alone the time it takes to get up to temp.
Tad lighting Posted November 10, 2009 Author Posted November 10, 2009 another idea I had it to use; a water boiler, the round metal tea one's.this already has a heater element with thermostat, and tap, which I can drill to make larger, all that really has to be added is cage for dry ice, and seal top with foam tape. so to make sure fog only goes out from one exit. ?? anyone???
paulears Posted November 10, 2009 Posted November 10, 2009 Burco boilers don't hold that much more than a pea souper, and have the release mechanism all sorted for you. Mounting a basket mechanism in one, even if you can bodge this, will take up lots of water space, so you'd probably get more from the proper thing, and there's no chance somebody would turn the tap on!
pyromonkey Posted November 10, 2009 Posted November 10, 2009 Sidenote: If your heavily interested in industrial size Dry Ice Machines, we may soon be selling 2x machines ex west-end jobbys I think from phantom. PM for details.they dont come up often!
slipstream Posted November 13, 2009 Posted November 13, 2009 18kw http://www.mayaeffects.com/enproducts_3.as...=285&px=px3 Claims to use dry ice or liquid nitrogen - never asked how Quality - probably about home made The pea souper - is about the optimum blend of water to dry ice - you would have to increase both in ratio if you were to do your own thing Sam
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