You forgot misbehaving foggers, frozen solenoids, and unpredictable
Dewar tanks in your list. They're awesome when they work, but a full time headache to maintain and keep consistent.
Your mention of
Dewar tanks sparked memories.
In the late seventies / early eighties the Stratford Festival built our own liquid nitro' foggers.
At the time we had three theatres spread out across the city and built six units, two per
venue.
The heart of each fogger was a double walled, 3/4" Russian Birch, glued, screwed and fiber glassed, castered box approximately 30" square in
plan view by two feet tall plus its 4" casters. Each box was heated by two 2 KW 240 volt immersion heaters each powered by a dual pole, fused,
disconnect switch via dual poled adjustable thermostats and commonly referred to as the "rumble pots" due to the noise generated each time the liquid nitro' hit the steaming water. For handling convenience during changeovers, (All three venues operate in a rotating rep'.) a large
Dewar sat atop each rumble pot with incoming and outgoing DeWars stored closer to our loading docks.
Each of the three theatres had four
Dewar tanks, two in use and two standing by.
Stratford was in the heart of pig farming country thus adding our tanks to the regular weekly route of the liquid nitro' delivery truck was no trouble.
One of my better memories was when a local hog breeder found his liquid nitro tank empty when he, and his main male, were most in need.
Our
production manager received a desperate
call asking if we could loan the breeder any partial tanks of liquid nitro to carry him over 'til next week's delivery.
We agreed to give him a partial tank from each
theatre if he drove to all three venues to fetch the three Dewars.
Imagine everyone's surprise and delight when the hog breeder returned our empty tanks accompanied by a large quantity of his butchered, wrapped, and frozen pork ready for grilling.
I wonder what ever happened to the young high school student who posted here a few years ago and was planning on operating his own liquid nitro' production and delivery company? Any one remember him??
EDIT #1: Varietyler, that was his name; a search found him fairly quickly.
EDIT #2: Here he is:
varietyler
Member · 16 · From
Utah
Joined Apr 29, 2019
Last seen May 3, 2019
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard