Creation of a smoke machine.

[DeathBlade]

Well last year right after halloween a friend gave me this smoke machine that he bought for a party, and needless to say I couldn't find a use for it so I sat in the closet. That was till a couple of weeks ago there was a large paintball match coming up at our local field, and if I can provide some smoke bombs they usually give me some free paint. So I thought of the smoke machine again and thought why couldn't I power it off a inverter and car battery but at 700 watts if drains the battery rather quickly and it would be a pain to lug battery and inverter around. But then I could possible rewire the unit to use 12 volts instead of 120 so I wouldn't need a inverter, that was a failure; but it showed me how simple it was inside. It was just a heating element, with a coil of thin copper tube wrapped around it a pump to push the smoke fluid through and a temp switch to turn it on when it had heated enough.

So I decided why couldn't I just change the heat source? I pulled the coil off of the heater and rewound it onto a piece of 3/4" cast iron pipe and then pointed the flame from a blowtorch though it after a few minutes, I then turned on the pump and success it produced smoke. But then I started to think again the pump still needed electricity, so decided to power the unit off only propane.

http://img21.imagefiasco.com/images/AEg38254.gif

In this pic you can see the tank of smoke fluid at the top, and ion the left propane tank, and hose. And on the right the radiators, coil, pipe, and torch head. (and on the left a next gen coil heater)

The torch heats the pipe and coil causing the smoke fluid to turn into a aerosol fog, to not use electricity I added the end cap with the radiator fins that enter the fog tank, the radiators heat the smoke fluid to pressurize the tank serving forcing it out into the heated coil making smoke. So no need for a pump, (also I forgot on the pic there is a valve between the tank and the coil.)

The next gen unit is on the right and shaped like a "M" the flames from the torch enter in the center of the "m". And the two outer prongs are filled with lead, as the heat from the torch the lead melts and retains heat the heat better than just a piece of pipe would. Though with this design I woud have to use a windshield wiper pump(12 volt) so I would need a battery with this design, though with two pipe coils and a higher pressure feed from the windshield pump a guess I can atleast double my smoke output.

Any comment or suggestions?

[Alexires]

In the all knowing words of RTPB -

K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Stupid.

Why use a propane burner to heat up lead, to heat up copper, to heat up the smoke liquid?

You could possibly use some other kind of pipe, run a current through it and using the heat generated from the resistance, vaporise the smoke liquid.

Or, if you are making smoke bombs, use a mix of the old favorite KNO3/Sugar with a fair amount of Sodium Bicarbonate in it, and surround a container full of smoke liquid with it. I have had a KNO3/Sugar/NaHCO3 burn hot for 25 minutes, so I'm sure that would be enough time to have a smoke bomb go for.

If you simply had a fast burning version for a quarter of the mixture to get the heat up, then the slow burning version that lasted for about 3-5 minutes, you could have a fair amount of smoke happening IMHO.

[DeathBlade]

I don't think you understand, even with burn modifiers a kno3/sugar/bicarb is going to be slightly unpredictable. Well enough that I couldn't use it on the field, since most sheeple hear pyrotechnics and :eek:

You can shutdown the unit just be turning off the propane, can that be true for a pyro comp? Because if I see a formula that calls for 10% powdered ballvalve I'm going to run for the hills.

Also the first unit in the picture the only flame is from the pencil torch the flame is all of 3 inches long and a inch wide and all of the flame is contained in the pipe, keeping the unit in sheeple safe limits.

Also I don't have access to electricity on the field so running a current through the pipe to produce heat via resistance if kind of pointless.

Though I can see what your saying about keeping it simple, I would prefer to eliminate the lead and just use solid steel/iron rod stock that has been threaded on the end instead. But I must make with what I have.

[Hirudinea]

Just a couple quick questions, what is this smoke mixture made out of, does it produce an actual smoke or just a mist like suspension of small liquid particles? Why I want to know is I was wondering if it would be possible to put some more "interesting" substances into the smoke mixture, poisions, psycedelics, etc?

[Skean Dhu]

All you ever wanted to know about smoke machines, making your own fluids etc.
http://www.emanator.demon.co.uk/bigclive/smoke.htm

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to put augment the fog to have other affects aside from obfuscation. So long as the additives were stable within the normal operating temperatures that are associated with fog machines.

[DeathBlade]

Hirudinea, I'm sure that certain additives could be added as long as they are are water soluble(mayber glycerin/glycol soluble) and as long as they are stable when they are heated. But even then the unit gets very hot after awhile if you dont turn down the flame after the pipe is heated up to running temp. The temp is greater than 500*c after 3 minutes (thats where my multimeter maxes out) and at that temp I think that glycols breakdown into phosgen and other nasties.

[nbk2000]

A poison gas fogger...now that'd be a neat toy! :)

[sparkchaser]

If you are going to use propane, I would say just build some nice big pyro smoke bombs to really keep it simple.

If you wanted to use the smoke machine, I would go online and find out exactly what the electrical requirements are for it in DC (most household appliances run on DC after the AC wall voltage has been rectified inside of the device). If nothing else, you could measure the voltage just past the rectifier stage while the unit is plugged in.

After you figure that out, it should be easy to find schematics to build a varible power regulator that will run directly off a car battery.

If the machine requires AC internally for the heating element or whatever, there are schematics online for inverters that can be made from radio shack parts, and are a bit less than 700 watts! Or you could just pop for a cheapo 50 or 100 watt inverter from Auto Zone. they aren't that expensive.

[Hirudinea]

A poison gas fogger...now that'd be a neat toy!

I've seen trucks with foggers on the news spraying out CS into crowds and always thought "Gee, I'ed love one of those!"

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to put augment the fog to have other affects aside from obfuscation. So long as the additives were stable within the normal operating temperatures that are associated with fog machines.

I'm sure that certain additives could be added as long as they are are water soluble(mayber glycerin/glycol soluble) and as long as they are stable when they are heated.

But even then the unit gets very hot after awhile if you dont turn down the flame after the pipe is heated up to running temp. The temp is greater than 500*c after 3 minutes (thats where my multimeter maxes out) and at that temp I think that glycols breakdown into phosgen and other nasties.

That makes sense, and it seems a lot of additives would be suitable, I wonder if the active ingredient in poision ivy is water/glycerin soluble? :) As for the heating, wouldn't proper flame adjustment keep a constant tempture, it would just take longer for it to heat up.

[DeathBlade]

Hirudinea, I don't think Urushiol is water soluble.