Smoke Advice/ Help

[Samj56]

Hello and thanks for your interest this is my first topic discussion here on Blue Room so id be grateful for the help I can get.

So I work in a night club in Derby namely - Syn, we two smoke machines currently a Martin Club Smoke & a ZR33, ive come up with an idea recently where I would like to connect the the two club smoke heads to a circular piece of laundry type piping and have it in a circle roughly 2m in diameter with several pin sized holes for the smoke to come out of and thus falling on the dance floor, my question / query is how do I keep the pressure high enough to do so and is there a cheap / easy way of doing this?

 

Any help would be very grateful and if what I have described isn't very good ask me some questions back.

 

Thanks for your time

 

Samj56 :D

[Jivemaster]

Firstly smoke usually rises because it is hot! Chilled smoke may decend, but not if it is near the lights, which are hot again.

Secondly smoke and pressure don't usually mix. The smoke machine makes smoke and it flows with the velocity of the airflow, once you try to make prseeure in a smoke line things usually go wrong.

 

What exactly do you mean by "laundry" pipe Smoke starts out at the machins very hot and it will melt plastic pipe and the flexi sort will die quickly.

 

Smoke movement needs bold but soft airflow. "pinholes" are really not suitable According to your trial and error findings holes 1" - 3" diameter may be better suited.

 

You lose a lot when you duct smoke to places.

[Samj56]

well I was just suggesting that sought of piping that kind of size wasn't spec'ing just what came to mind. I really havent done anything like this before so excuse my lack of knowledge I understand all of what you have said about the temp of smoke n stuff.

so basically as its in the roof it probably wont work effectively? I just wanted to create some different uses for the little smoke machines. even if I cud do this on the DJ box with piping around the edge would that be easier?

 

ta

[Jivemaster]

The smoke is going to rise, so wherever you start it, the smoke will go UP. Keeping the machines at floor level means that the smoke has a long useful rise before it gets to the extractors.

 

Keep it simple unless you have budget for revising the smoke effects.

[csg]

ill add that all you would get, once a little time has passed, and the ducting has filled up with condensed smoke fluid, is a steady drip of condensed fluid, and hence oily patches onto the crowd below!

 

I would say that a ring of smaller machines designed to work point ( nozzle) down would give a better effect - and for best effect use a very quick dispersing fluid so the area does not get too smoke logged.

 

some systems of this type use Co2 vapour, but I must stress that this carries some risks, and only properly designed kit must be used for this!

[GridGirl]

I've managed to make ordinary smoke machine smoke roll along the ground by chilling it (as Jivemaster said) by running it through a container of ice. However, this only works a) until the smoke warms up and rises and b) on the ground - I very much suspect that if you tried it at height, the smoke wouldn't fall, it would either hover for a bit or rise straight away.

 

You could look at a proper smoke chiller - LeMaitre make one called the FreezeFog, but for that to work properly it requires a specific smoke machine (a LeMaitre G300 if memory serves me correctly) with special heavy fog fluid, and cylinders of liquid CO2 - which is not cheap. That or a properly set up and safe dry ice system (which is going to again not be cheap, and is also not easy to deal with at all) is really the only way you're going to get the effect you want.

[law99]

We've tried similar things, as stated you will end up with large patches of smoke machine fluid which is extremely slippery! (and hurts if you slip over on it!)

 

Your best bet is to relocate the smoke machine/s to where you want them, which is fairly easy on the club smoke system as you just move the data cable and fluid tubes.

 

Just remember, the club smoke heads do drip out hot fluid so placing over a crowd is not the best idea unless you have the drip trays supplied and the output from the smoke head (the actual smoke) is hot when it first comes out, so don't place the head where someone can touch it or be very close to the smoke first coming out!