The Water cooler dry-ice solution is the one tried and true way to chill gylcol based
fog. Here are a coule of things to keep in mind while building the chiller
unit. Grab an old metal rack, like from an oven, put legs on it so it that when you set it into the cooler it sits about 4 inches off the bottom of the cooler. Cut a 4 " hole in the upper half of one end
and in the lower half of the other end. Mount a 4" "muffin" < brushless> fan
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/itemDetailsRender.shtml?ItemId=1611724460 on the outside of the lower hole. Put Dryer hose duct
adapter over upper hole. Screw it into place over hole and seal it in place with silicone caulk. on he outside < discharge side> of the fan place another
adapter. Be sure to seal the fan against the cooler and place a good amount of caulk between the fan and the duct
adapter, this will insulate it from and vibrations and reduce noise. Run standard dryer duct hose from the
fog machineto the
inlet side of the chest. Be sure to use a "
Fog machine Duct Hose
adapter" < see picture below> the
fog must get exposure to air prior to entering the chest, if you don't use a hose
adapter similar to below you run the risk of damaging the
fog machine and not getting any output from the
fog machine.
Kick on the fan, turn on the
fog, Viola' low lying
fog. You can duct from the output side of the cooler with the use of a specialized
adapter. You'll want to use about 5-10 pounds of dry ice in the cooler, luckily it will last a while if you wrap it up in a blanket and leave it in the cooler, or remove it from the cooler and move it to another. The dry ice needs to be crushed, not pebbles but 1-3" chunks. The more surface area of ice the better the cooling capacity. This is the same reason you want a metal rack or grill in the bottom of the chest, it will allow for more air-flow around the ice, same as with the input being high and the output being low, this will cause the
fog to be drawn down across the ice then out through the duct.
When your done with this setup you'll have a heck of a tool ! very useful and a lot less expensive than the one availible from
Rosco. < I'm not knocking the one from
Rosco, if you can just buy it.>
Good luck hit me with any questions you might have on this project.