# On Demand Fog Question?



## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

My first prop I'm working on is a new cannon with a controller that involves the 4 banger controller Mike put together. I managed to build and it works.






I took a cheap little 400watt fogger and hacked the manual remote switch to fire with a relay. Everything in the setup works but I noticed that after about 3 cycles, the fogger has to reheat before it can produce fog. I don't want to try and hack the fog machine itself.

I don't have the fogger run very long and I've set the "wait" time on the controller to 75 seconds between triggers. Is it just a function of the little fogger that even when not in use it will cycle on and off? Would buying a bigger fogger help reduce the cycles on & off?


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

No answer about the fogger, but I like what you've done so far


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## tarpleyg (Nov 4, 2014)

A bigger fogger would reduce the time between cycles for sure. You'll probably have a hard time finding one that will continuously produce fog...at least at a reasonable cost.


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## BillyVanpire (Apr 22, 2015)

the 400 watt foggers do that...unfortunately

i'm trying to think of a way to have a holding tank of smoke, of sorts, in the cannon.
fog machine fills the tank, something else pushes some out.

maybe a fan hooked to the relay but i dont think it will give the same effect.
an air busrt through a gasket of some kind possibly..hrm.

gotta be a way..


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## BillyVanpire (Apr 22, 2015)

im going down this road..






i've seen a similar collapsing tube like that for small dogs, 
might be too big for your cannon i think.

maybe this approach...?


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

BillyVanpire said:


> maybe a fan hooked to the relay but i dont think it will give the same effect.
> an air busrt through a gasket of some kind possibly..hrm.
> 
> gotta be a way..


Actually, that is the way I have it now and it works (video shows it). Even with minimal fog bursts, it still shuts off to reheat after a few minutes.

I think I'll have to get a bigger fog machine.


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## mikkojay (Sep 15, 2014)

That looks like a great project! Could you maybe use 2 small foggers to split the duty cycle in half? I also have a vortex canon on my to do list, those things rock! I always wondered if you could place a laser vortex inside in order to produce an illuminated flying donut...


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

Thanks Mike. I've wanted to build one for awhile but had no way to make it work until your controller. 

I think I'll just set the fogger up without triggering it and see how long the cycle is before it shuts off to reheat.

As for that vortex laser cannon idea ... that would be cool but not sure you'd get just the fog ring lit?


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## JeffHaas (Sep 7, 2010)

Those cheap foggers can be finicky, especially if they're a few years old. I would try a bigger one, just to get a bigger blast of fog from the cannon!


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## BillyVanpire (Apr 22, 2015)

mikkojay said:


> I also have a vortex canon on my to do list, those things rock! I always wondered if you could place a laser vortex inside in order to produce an illuminated flying donut...


in the above video that uses a speaker, i think if you made your housing from clear material or at least the bottom of it, you could add a laser vortex inside.


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

So, I plugged in my little 400 watt fogger last night and after about a 5 min warm up I let it sit. Didn't activate it, just let it sit ... after about 7 minutes is clicked "off" and reheated. After the reheat and it was ready ... I did a short burst of fog about every 1 min. About 4 minutes later, it clicked "off". Looks like I'll buy a bigger fogger and go from there.


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## Otaku (Dec 3, 2004)

After much thought, the only way I could come up with to get a non-continuous fogger to fire when ready was to use a controller with some logic in it. Monitor the state of the fogger trigger so that the controller knows when the fogger is able to fire, then run a timed sequence of blasts until the "Ready" state goes low. Not difficult to do.
An alternative would be to use a simple oscillating timer on the fogger trigger. It wouldn't give you fog on demand, but would attempt to trigger the fogger in an on-off sequence. The fogger would fire when ready and the short blasts would continue until it shuts down for reheating.


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

I figured you'd have an idea Otaku. 

I have my 1000 watt fogger coming in Thursday so I'm going to see how that one does.


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