Diff' between Hazer and Smoker

Red_Carpet

Member
Hi all,

I am wanting to 'haze' the insides of a small Church as I have some new lights coming soon and need mist for the effect.
I have a medium 'smoke' machine, and, although it works well for what it was built for, it doesn't do what I want (as it fills the Church up with Fog!!) .
This effect is not what I want and all the congregation are affected.

My questions are these...
  • Can I just put hazer liquid in the reservoir tank instead of fog liquid and will this work for me and haze the church?
  • Or, do I have to buy a whole new machine?
  • Aren't the basically the same machine as they are heating up liquid and squirting the fumes out!?

Thanx everyone

Red
 
They're (usually) different, even if the fluids are, basically, very similar.

A fogger/smoke machine is designed to produce thick gouts of "smoke" on demand which are almost opaque initially, whereas a hazer is designed to create a very fine mist that hangs in the air and isn't visible until caught by a beam. You can sort of create smoke by turning the hazer up to full, but the reverse is seldom true unless you have a machine specifically designed to do both jobs.

Is hiring a hazer a possibility? Or is this something you want to do on a regular basis?
 
Hi @almorton and thank you for replying.
I understand what you said and it sounds very interesting thank you.
It is not something that we would do regularly throughout the year - this is an annual Christmas performance and I am looking for something special for 2022 (already <sigh> :¬) ).
OK so it will be a trip down to our local stage-light hire company come Christmas as I have just looked at the price of new hazers and they are not cheap-cheap.
Thanks for all this info, so now, I battle on to see what I can come up with for a background light show for "Carol of the Bells" for our 2022 production.
Cheers and kind regards, (and happy Christmas for 2022 ha ha ha ha or rather ho ho ho ho )
:¬)

Red
 
I worked at a place that used an HES F100 fogger through a box fan in the spot booth to make haze. It did tend to be heavier than what you'd get from a haze machine, and it took at bit more finesse to keep a nice level, but it's definitely doable if you can experiment and have someone to periodically adjust throughout the performance get the right look.
 
I worked at a place that used an HES F100 fogger through a box fan in the spot booth to make haze. It did tend to be heavier than what you'd get from a haze machine, and it took at bit more finesse to keep a nice level, but it's definitely doable if you can experiment and have someone to periodically adjust throughout the performance get the right look.
@Red_Carpet And a lot would depend upon the placement of HVAC vents, doors, and the air flow paths in your venue.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
What the heck, go old school
incense.jpg
 
If it's only for a specific event or short period of time, why not just rent something?
DF50 is the go to hazer. Easy to implement without much prior knowledge because it outputs a steady amount of haze with a single on/off switch.

In spaces I used it, we'd just write a Stage manager cue to be called for someone to switch the hazer on and off at a certain point in the show - during rehearsal.
After a rehearsal or two, we'd decide if there was too much or too little and alter when the hazer got turned on and off.
The addition of a box fan was useful for when you needed haze for one scene but you didn't want it starting to come in the scene prior, or if you wanted it to clear faster.
 
Something to consider prior to purchasing a unit: What sort of smoke / fire detection sensors do you have in your space? Hazers / foggers/ smoke machines all can easily set off particulate detectors. The last thing you would want is to have to evacuate in the middle of Christmas service or performance.

~Dave
+1 for reasons I won't go into. Worth testing and highly suggest contacting the local fire department, perhaps even have someone come to the venue during testing (I live in a small jurisdiction and they were happy to have something to do) to prevent an unnecessary response should an alarm be triggered.
 

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