Best Hazer for Dance

OK, I'm in the market for a new hazer for use with dance concerts. This means a lot of haze in a short time that dissipates quickly, I may need haze for a piece that is 6-12 minutes long and want it gone for the next piece. I presently have an old Radiance. It produces a good amount of haze in a short time and will dissipate in a reasonable amount of time but it is difficult to get it on cue. I presently warm the unit up at hour and after it produces some haze (say 18-20 minutes) I turn it . Then I have to turn it back on about 6-7 minutes before i need it, having a tech standing by it to shut it down if it starts early. The newer advertised units say 1-6 minute warm up. Do any of you have experience with the newer DMX units ? Can you warm them up at half hour so that you can give the unit pump and fan a GO and get haze instantly? Some of the units say they have an automatic cleaner which must be allowed to run. Does this produce another large burst of haze after the unit is turned off? Clearly that could bee bad news- hazing when it isn't wanted. I am looking most at 3 units, Ultratec´s Radiance Haze Machine, the UNIQUE 2.1 by Look solutions and the AquaMax MP. The unit must be water based, safe for dancers to breathe. Do any of you have experience with these units? Thanks, Mark
 
Not saying they're the 'Best' hazer out there, but we have a few inexpensive ($200) Marq Haze 800 DMX hazers. They're water based, heat up in under 5 minutes, have on board, wired remote and DMX control. We've used them in a couple different venues and they've done a good job using Froggy's Beam Splitter juice. On a 40' wide High School stage we put them 6' off the ground against the proscenium, set them to automatic at about 25% output once a minute and get a nice haze for catching beams. That facility tends to suck haze up into the house and by intermission the whole house is a little hazy. Don't have any issues with the floor getting slick.

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One of our designers took two of them on a gig with a professional ballet company where they needed haze for one piece in the show. She says she hit them at 100% haze and fan and had the stage filled in the blackout between pieces, then pulsed them on a sub as needed through the piece. Due to the nature of the facility's ventilation she had them put that piece right before intermission so that the stage had time to clear out. As you probably know different juices have different hang times and you may want to experiment to get something that clears quickly and play with your ventilation system.

One thing I really like with these is that when controlling them via DMX or the on board control you can set haze % and fan % separately, so you can crank the fan up and spread a light haze all over, or cut the fan back and get a cloud near the machine. The wired remote doesn't have that capability, all you get is 'volume', 'duration', and 'interval' between bursts. It has a pulse button and a continuous button too. During warm up they might emit one tiny puff of haze and after use they will emit a small puff or two of haze, but since the fan isn't on it stays around the machine. They almost never emit haze once warmed up and waiting to go. We've had these for 3 years, using them maybe twice a year and have had no problems. Just make sure they idle for a few minutes before shutting them down so they vaporize any stray juice to keep it from sitting around in them.
 
I've also added consumer fans plugged into dimmers to help move the haze across the stage when needed, and help clear the stage after it's no longer needed.
We also usually do some air flow tests, as theatres commonly have very predictable natural airflows based on AC and commonly opened doors, including some you don't think about like the orchestra pit.
 

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