Condensing Smoke Fluid

[KevinE]

Hello, Ive just been to service some moving heads in a nightclub, and a few of the lights have been damaged by the smoke fluid.

 

The venue uses a floor-mounted Acme smoke machine, has constant air extraction to the outside and a fire door open so smokers can come and go as they please.

 

The lighting truss was dripping in smoke fluid, so much so that, at the top of a ladder, I turned one of the heads so the lens was pointing at me and got a mouthful of smoke fluid that poured out of the fixture, it tastes vile btw.

 

After getting a few of the faulty lights down, I saw a few of the lights were full of fluid as well, the lenses on certain robes were actually sloshing with the fluid (it could be poured) and the head casings were coated in teardrops of it. There are foam seals around the fans and a teaspoon of the fluid could be squeezed out of it.

 

Inside the fixtures, most of the paint on the chassis was bubbling off, the paint bubbles conatining more of the fluid underneath. Plastic parts had gone 'cheesy' wherever the fluid has gathered; in fact on three of the heads, the top covers had fallen off in use and fallen onto customers below because the fixing holes had 'punched through'. A couple of the fixtures would not enter test mode via the front panel, although the switches were ok, I found the fron panel PLCC microcontroller sitting in a puddle of the stuff. When it was dried off and cleaned with solvent, the buttons came back to life.

The front panels are held on by steel nuts which were bathed in fluid and were corroding badly.

 

So: I just wondered if anyone had come across this type of pernicious smoke fluid before? Ive been in this game 20 years and obviously had to contend with smoke fluid, cigarette residue, condensation etc as we're all used to, but as a regular service guy in this venue for nearly as long, I've never seen anything like it. Ive actually been servicing these same lights for the last 8 years or so and only in the last 18 months have they started getting full of fluid. Any ideas? Is it having the fire door open letting cold air condense the fluid? Is the machine faulty, not heating the fluid fully? Is it weird or cheap smoke fluid..this seems very corrosive?

 

I asked the venue owner what fluid they used and they said it was just 'stuff from the Dj shop down the road..they supply alsorts but its usually something called Optifog'

 

(which Ive never heard of).

[Jivemaster]

'Fraid it's pretty normal and pretty yukky at the same time. The DJ console is probably ready to fail catastrophically too that gunge gets on everything inc the CDplayer lasers and their slide rails. There is a post here about someone in the same situation servicing the sound system in a club the amps die as the fans pull the gunge in and the players and mixers die as the fluid eats the board and tracks. -Its only slightly slower than coca cola for stripping copper!

 

Sadly the answer is a weekly service, chargeable! OR a better haze machine and the proper professional fluid as specc'd and supplied by the machne supplier.

[KevinE]

My post is really trying to find out why it's suddenly changed after servicing the equipment in the venue for years. Something somewhere has changed!

[Jivemaster]

First choice would still be the smoker or the fluid, is the smoker spluttering, is it actually running on its optimum fluid, -has anything changed here.

 

OR has the open door policy meant that fluid consumption has gone up so much that it settles everywhere.

[KevinE]

Its quite possible, the problem may have come to my attention not long after the smoking ban, when the door will have been left open. However, in winter they have one of those plastic slatted curtain things over the door like you get ijn cold stores

[Sound In Gloucestershire]

hrmm have they started using heavy fluid? Which has a thicker density?

 

Personally id get the machine out and recommend they get a nice martin machine with the fluid that you supply, that way you know they are usuing decent equipment with the correct fluid, stops all the 2nd guessing IMO

[Jamtastic3]

I do maintenance in a few clubs and yes this is a thing I've come across alot and it comes down to various factors.

 

When the DJ's are allowed to rule the smoke machine, that's when fixtures can really get the brunt of it!

I personally hate DJ's controlling the smoke machine (and strobes) because they tend to just ramp the output to full every few minutes. A heavy volume of smoke means there will be a heavy volume entering the fixtures and this results in condensation overload.

 

Recently, I changed from a smoke machine in one club to a haze machine and the condensation results are amazing! The fan grilles and insides gather far less 'gunk' because the haze particles are smaller.

 

When I first did maintenance in one club, the fan grilles were dripping in oil residue. The main reason for this was that the smoke was getting trapped in an area with no air flow/extraction. I suggested for them to get two fans to push warm air from one end of the room to the extracted end. A month later the build up of oil residue in the fixture was almost non-existant with just a small fluffy mass on the fan grille. Mind you, I still had to clean the 2 new fans!

 

Another thing I've noticed is that it can also depend on how the air flow is designed within a fixture. I've noticed that some Clay Paky and High End gear only produce very fine dust and dirt on grilles and dichroics, but in the same environment, Robe scans and cheap moonflower type fixtures basically have fan grilles dripping in oil and gather huge gunky pieces of dirt!

[Young Johnstone]

Would this be 'The Club' in Hanley by any chance?! Sure I've been dripped on it there before!

 

Al

[KevinE]

Personally id get the machine out and recommend they get a nice martin machine with the fluid that you supply

 

Well, they used to have 3 synchronised technofogs, and never had any trouble with smoke, despite the heavy use they got. After 10 years or so they went over to a single Source Smokestream courtesy of the DJ shop, that didnt last very long, then an Antari, that died, and now they're on this little Acme effort.

 

I have told them to stop messing around and get another Martin/Jem and use their fluid as well.

 

This Optifog stuff I've found on the net and it retails at a tenner for 5L.

[Jivemaster]

That fluid may be cheap but it's turning moving heads into short life disposibles!