# Homemade fogger



## Ubertenere (Mar 14, 2019)

I took the idea from the French guy on YouTube to build my own version of a ridiculously powerful fog machine. 1660 watt heating element with a several pound aluminum heat block. If you saw the French guys video the main thing I found out is to use stainless steel tubing instead of copper, the copper stuff is too thin and gets destroyed in the aluminum pouring process. This one was my 3rd attempt. I have it operating around 200-220C with 3/16 tubing, and the 40dcb pump. 









Homemade fog machine







youtube.com






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## MikeBru (Feb 19, 2010)

Bravo! I applaud your work!

Doing something like this, making my own fogger, has been on my list for years. Some day.

What are your impressions of the outcome? How is the volume and duration of fog, how is the recovery time, and so forth?


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Interesting, and thanks for sharing. I've noticed several designs of DIY foggers with 'copper tube' style heat exchangers. I suppose due to ease of building and ease of materials availability. My big worry would be cleaning if the old vinegar/water trick ever fails.

I don't know if it helps, but as a point of reference, the heat exchanger in my 'mass produced' fogger consists of an aluminum block (extrusion) with what appears to be an acme threaded rod down the center. Believe I recall reading a study many years ago saying that the idea was to swirl the fog around so the larger drops are constantly flung to the outside of the heat exchanger - which is the heated block. So overall, big drops of fog juice tend to get vaporized and the small drops flow through with minimal resistance. This design has the benefit of being completely disassembled. Though while an aluminum block with a hole is pretty easy to come by, I'm not sure I've ever seen acme threaded aluminum bar.



Carboned up:









Wire brushed clean:









Overall thread:









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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## Ubertenere (Mar 14, 2019)

MikeBru said:


> Bravo! I applaud your work!
> 
> Doing something like this, making my own fogger, has been on my list for years. Some day.
> 
> What are your impressions of the outcome? How is the volume and duration of fog, how is the recovery time, and so forth?


The outcome was better than expected, lower heat up times, better heat control, I used a Chinese stove top controller, I was going to use thermal switch’s but they are only rated for 10amps, the stove thermostat is rated for 16amps. This is the only real way to go since most hot water heating elements will pull 15 plus amps per leg, plus 1650watts is more than enough power. Plus I wanted to stay with 120v heater and pump. As far as cleaning goes, I’m not worried, the 3/16 pipe can handle a lot more buildup than the 1 or 2 mm pipe in store bought foggers. And being stainless steel I can just unscrew the pump and run solvent through it. 1/4” is probably getting on the big side since the pumps can only move so much volume of fluid, you can use a pump from a espresso machine but they aren’t much more powerful. Plus the fittings need drilling and brazing since they are metric. The “hardest” part of the build is melting enough aluminum and not melting the coil (stainless steel solved the latter) but I had to use my largest (home made) crucible which is 4” diameter and 8” tall which was filled most of the way with molten aluminum. I used home made fog juice that was about 60% VG 25% PG and 15% distilled water so the fog is thick and stays for a while, it’s been windy so I haven’t got to test it well, but I can fill my front yard (about 120’x60’) in less than a minute, and I’m pretty sure it can fire for minutes at a time. I’m currently building a 2 stage chiller for it with an ultrasonic humidifier chamber and a second ice chamber hooked up to 4” pipe to hopefully spread low laying fog over the whole yard. 


I’ve had problems with trick or treaters being too afraid of my home made pros and not participating so hopefully I can draw a bigger crowd and get more interest with huge amounts of fog! 


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