# New Modz! Laminar Flow Discharge!



## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Many years ago, I hacked a quick slot in an old cooler to act as a discharge for chilled fog. For the past couple of years, I've been meaning to make a 'discharge chute'. The main idea was to be able to tuck the chiller away a bit more out of sight and help direct the fog a bit more.










The idea evolved from trying to add some quick cardboard or thin plywood box, adding several sections of PVC pipe side by side, or getting with the modern show and 3D printing something. I decided on 3D printing because I could take literally 5 minutes to sketch something, get it on the printer and come back a day later to a finished part. Actually less time to do that than start cutting plywood and hammering / gluing a box or some other 'hand built' piece.

So in the design phase, I knew I wanted a rectangle to maximize the area opening, but keep the fog low to the ground. I figured I should probably make a couple supports on the long sides to keep it somewhat rigid. Then an idea struck... why not use an 'egg crate' style grid in an attempt to get smooth, laminar flow which would discharge the fog across the ground in one smooth sheet!

This was actually much easier than I thought with just a couple settings in the 3D printer. Based on what I needed, I simply made a cube: 2-1/2" thick x 10-1/2" wide x 12" tall. Then in the 3D 'slicer' program, I told it to print that cube with no top and no bottom surfaces (keep both ends open) and make a square grid inner support structure at about 5% fill - which created the inner 'laminar flow' sections.










A couple minutes squaring up the old slot and a bit of hot glue and the new laminar flow discharge is attached.










As if smiling down on me for my additional work, the Fog Gods arranged for an essentially perfect Halloween evening. Temps hoving in the low to mid 60's and almost dead calm winds. Add in some traces of humidity and good ol Froggys Freezin' Fog Fluid and the results... well, the results were almost TOO good! The fog came out so thick and stuck to the ground it almost obscured the whole cemetery! lol. You could tell there were blinking and flickering lights in there, but sometimes hard to tell pumpkins from skulls from coffins! One boy asked, "...is that lava?"

Anyway, if you need a discharge chute for your fogger, give laminar flow a try! Is it super easy to make in almost any shape you need? YES! Does it help to any considerable way? Maybe!

I'll also throw a shout out to FOGduino here! I ran the Sen-Sim mode all night. This is where the fogger makes a bit of background fog all the time (I call it 'simmer') and throws out a big blast anytime the PIR sensor is triggered (when someone walks up). So all the visitors were greeted with thick blankets of fog like below, but ran all night long on barely 1/2 a tank of fog juice! My only change for next year is that I need to move the sensor a bit further up the path - to give the fog a bit more time to develop before the ToTs reach the graves!


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

I love how you’re always on a quest to make something better - or at least give you a different result


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## Niitmaremaid (Apr 14, 2021)

That’s a great idea! I have been thinking about using fog as a projection surface for next year (building a frame with blowers at the top). It seems like more laminar flow would be better for this. Anyone have experience doing this as a projection screen?


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Roxy - I think that is a great way to put it! I make things give a 'different' result. I wouldn't necessarily say 'better' - lol!

Niitmaremaid - I could see this working with fog, but I think one big issue would be getting it to go away fast enough. If you have very minimal wind (or indoors), then the 'screen' is going to look great, but the whole area would fog up in pretty short order. Maybe you could rig some sort of exhaust fan, but then again, possible issues with noise, catching all the fog and possibly looking like a building is on fire if you're venting a lot of 'smoke' outside! lol

If you have a fair amount of wind, that would help keep the area clear, but I think it would also be very hard to keep any sort of 'screen' in operation.

I have seen some water and water fog type projection screens. I think that clears up a lot of the issues... the water wants to fall straight down, so pretty easy to work with that and no worries with dissipation. Even water fog is going to be gone pretty quick. 

You might do some searching on 'water screen', 'water vapor screen' and 'water fog screen' and see what you think.


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## MikeBru (Feb 19, 2010)

I like your idea. How do you set the fogger to simmer all the time with a burst when commanded? (Or, is this a feature your fogger has?)


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Simmer and Sen-Sim are a couple of different modes available in my FOGduino set-up.









FOGduino!


EDIT - If you're here for demos and firmware, that is post #12: https://www.hauntforum.com/showpost.php?p=934640&postcount=12 If you want the full story: Well, if you followed the saga of my decades-old $29 fogger from Walmart, you know it ran into some troubles last year and ended up in a...




www.hauntforum.com


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## Zoolando (Feb 25, 2016)

Your design here is top notch. Always plastic or insulating material on the exterior. It's quite close to the interior design I believe would outperform most other designs but built from copper and in more of a continuous honeycomb/car radiator type controlled tube and or passage and a design that has a maximum amount of ice and ice water contact. I believe the number one problem with chiller use is the setting is not properly controlled. Wind always wins. Next thing always overlooked is the cold retention of the fog. The BEFC design forces fog to circulate the internals of 2 pipes lined up at opposite ends of the natural honeycomb that is the bin of ice. It created a resistance for the fog that required a fan to force the stubborn and very cold fog to exit. Again I believe your output piece looks very close to whats missing on the inside and of the chiller design. A radiator cools something very hot, but so does a fog chiller... The longer the fog is circulating the internal labyrinth and still exits the unit should lay lowest and coldest. Glad to see you had great results this year.


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## ncdodave (Sep 12, 2020)

MikeBru said:


> I like your idea. How do you set the fogger to simmer all the time with a burst when commanded? (Or, is this a feature your fogger has?)


Mike,
I have 3 commercial theatrical foggers. All 3 of them have a continuous mode that never stops producing fog until I change the setting or select a different mode. I also can adjust the output flow of the fog. producing just the right amount I need from 100% down to 1%. These foggers are 3k to 5k watts and can swallow over 1 gallon of fog juice an hour at the maximum output. I have 2 foggers for my front and back yards and 1 on top of the roof for the smoking effect of my house on fire. The ground foggers are both set at 20% output each and I fill the entire neighborhood with fog over a time of about 45 minutes with a blanket about 3 feet deep.The foggers cost about $800 each but, they have serviced me very well for the past 5 years.


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