5 minute smoke pellet - for stage use?

[TomHoward]

I have a scene in a play with an oil drum on stage with a small 'fire' in it.

It's a prop set and at the moment it's got LEDs flickering emulating the fire colours. They're not particularly powerful and I'm not trying to light up all the faces around it, just give a little suggestion.

 

If we were to add smoke to the effect, hopefully for the LEDs to flicker onto and lift the colour a bit is there any smoke pellet etc which slow burns for about 5 mins and releases gentle smoke?

Or can you put a normal one in a tin or anything and it will wisp out?

 

The other route is looking at battery powered smoke machines but before I over-engineer it I wonder if anything simpler was doable.

 

Thanks in advance

[sunray]

I have a scene in a play with an oil drum on stage with a small 'fire' in it.

It's a prop set and at the moment it's got LEDs flickering emulating the fire colours. They're not particularly powerful and I'm not trying to light up all the faces around it, just give a little suggestion.

 

If we were to add smoke to the effect, hopefully for the LEDs to flicker onto and lift the colour a bit is there any smoke pellet etc which slow burns for about 5 mins and releases gentle smoke?

Or can you put a normal one in a tin or anything and it will wisp out?

 

The other route is looking at battery powered smoke machines but before I over-engineer it I wonder if anything simpler was doable.

 

Thanks in advance

E-cigarette?

[ImagineerTom]

If there’s even the slightest chance a human might inhale the smoke then smoke pellets are not an option.

 

You either need a mains powered smoke machine with a suitable timer / hacked timer or you need a battery powered smoke machine so that the smoke you produce is safe for humans and equipment.

[Jivemaster]

Smoke pellets used to be available years ago. The most recent cold incarnation of fire was the silk flame in the draught of a fan lit by orange/yellow/red and blue lights from below -needs a lot of darkness or the white silks show white

[themadhippy]

Smoke pellets used to be available years ago

they still are,however between then and now its been discovered its maybe not a good idea to breath in the fumes.

What about an ultrasonic water hazer,they aint gonna make clouds of smoke,but it maybe enough to get the effect your after

Edited October 14, 2021 by themadhippy

[TomHoward]

If there’s even the slightest chance a human might inhale the smoke then smoke pellets are not an option.

 

You either need a mains powered smoke machine with a suitable timer / hacked timer or you need a battery powered smoke machine so that the smoke you produce is safe for humans and equipment.

Thanks for that, I'd read 'non-toxic' on the pellets but reading back it's 'low-toxic' which is a bit different.

 

I had thought of modifying an e-cigarette but to be honest with the risk of the thing catching fire / exploding I might leave it alone as there seems a lot of power and lithium batteries in those to be hacking about.

 

There look to be battery powered micro fog machines available for photography that should be capable hopefully. I could also cut the bottom out the oil drum, set it in the right place on stage and duct smoke from underneath but it'd mean cutting a hole in the stage, which I'd rather not if I can avoid it..

 

At the moment I've got 5v battery pack and ESP32 in the drum so I can run a relay to start/stop a smoke machine.

There might be something from model trains / RC market also but not sure what the output would be.

[Stuart91]

The most recent cold incarnation of fire was the silk flame in the draught of a fan lit by orange/yellow/red and blue lights from below -needs a lot of darkness or the white silks show white

 

The fans can also be quite noisy, especially on cheaper models

[dmxlights]

take a look at Chris Edison vidoes on you tube. he did mod some parts of e-cigarettes.

I have also used his Ideas for an effect of steam coming out of a basin of water( which had no water in it)

https://www.youtube....soundman/videos

I just remembered that Chirs is also on this forum as Cedd

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by dmxlights

[TomHoward]

Looks interesting but can you run a vape pen continuously or will it burn out or catch fire?

Does the coil generally have any protection against over-run or will it just burn out?

Interesting you can run it on standard fog fluid.

[Jivemaster]

Is it possible that a high cost item could be replaced by a rare skill -ACTING

 

All the machines we could (re)invent will break the budget even though they look perfect.

[dmxlights]

Looks interesting but can you run a vape pen continuously or will it burn out or catch fire?

Does the coil generally have any protection against over-run or will it just burn out?

Interesting you can run it on standard fog fluid.

 

I was running the one I modded every 30-40 seconds for 10-15 seconds and had no problems. I also was using vape oil which was just plane with no nicotine or flavors in it.

 

You may need one of the large ones or few cheap ones and rotate the cycle between them. I was using cheap ones and it worked well. I had powered mine from a 12v to 3.6v regulator from a 12v battery also had a artnet (DMX) relay from Smartshow for switching on and off via my lighting desk. I don't have mine here to take photos of it as this was put into storage as its part of a prop for a friends play. I may have some spares here which I could look out over the weekend and take photos of if needed.

 

[ImagineerTom]

There are off the shelf micro smoke machines to rent or buy for doing exactly this sort of thing but before you go spending that sort of money have you tried filling a box with smoke, leaving a hole in it and letting the smoke naturally leak out; I've never done it for 5 mins but a couple of mins of subtle smoke leaking is perfectly possible.

[TomHoward]

Thanks. I've also thought about whether steam might work for the effect (I'm not sure but it's mainly for something for the light to catch) so I'll try that too.

 

As I have a whole oil drum I've got quite a large volume so I could probably take the lid off and re-fix it a third of the way down and have quite a large volume to fill with smoke.

 

Is it possible that a high cost item could be replaced by a rare skill -ACTING

It's a kitsch 80s reworking of Joesph, all the over-engineered props are to detract from the lack of story and acting, it's through-sung and there are about 3 spoken lines in the whole 2 hours. If the smoking oil drum isn't up your street you're not going to like the life-sized Pac-man ghost or the giant Rubik's cube Joseph gets imprisoned in.

Edited October 15, 2021 by TomHoward

[Jivemaster]

I certainly don't mind panto and panto subtle props but rarely does money substitute for acting the part.