[Cyborg] wearable fog machines

[Sean Cusack]

We get ~100kg of dry ice delivered to our lab every day, so I can definitely
snag some for you Eric to give some ideas a try before we totally commit.
Just let me know when you want me to snag it.

An alternative idea may be to use finely atomized water vapor instead of
smoke. It should give the same effect...although it could leave you a bit
um....soaking wet. Also, mini fog machines have totally already been made in
the aerospace industry for wind tunnels. Perhaps we can try to adapt
something like that? (see
http://www.aerolab.com/Display_Pages/SMK_Gen.htmlfor ideas)

Sean

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:04 AM, Rachel McConnell <rachel at xtreme.com> wrote:

> I have actually seen a costume (last weekend even) that used some kind
> of smoke machine (it was a Steam Punk costume, a woman with a mohawk had
> made a headdress that produced a steam-like fog).  She said it was
> nontoxic and it was attached to her belt so it was definitely portable.
>  I will try to track her down and ask about it b/c it would be the
> perfect thing for this.
>
> Rachel
>
> Eric Boyd wrote:
> > So, we're probably going to need fog machines of some sort in order to
> > make the beams from the laser properly visible.
> >
> > There are basically three types of fog generators:
> >
> > 1) Chemical, using heat to vaporize "fog juice". This is what clubs use.
> > They typically require a ~kW of power for the heater, and 5 minutes to
> > warm up. Obviously that'll never be wearable.  But, maybe some small
> > wearable version could be built somehow?  I'm thinking of some kind of
> > tiny heater, and a way to "drip" the fog juice.  Not sure how much fog
> > you could get that way though, even if you pulled it off. Almost
> > certainly not the solution we need.  Interestingly, you can get these
> > fog machines surprisingly cheap, I found several at the $50 price point.
> >   Fog juice is about $20/gallon.  Does noisebridge need a fog machine?!?
> >
> > 2) Ultrasonic.  Basically, mechanically force vapor out of water.  Makes
> > a heavy (sinking) fog.  Still has fairly large power requirements,
> > typically 24V @>1 amp, i.e. 25W or more - possible for batteries, it'd
> > be heavy, but doable.  This usually only yields a small amount of fog,
> > suitable for e.g. a small fountain.  Maybe that's sufficient.  Can't be
> > used with fog juice, it gums up the ultrasonic emitter (darn!).  Overall
> > I don't think it could be made to work.
> >
> > 3) The winner: dry ice.  Simply add water to dry ice and presto, fog.
> > Primary concern is safety, dry ice is dangerous.  Still, I think this is
> > the clear choice.  You could have a little hand-pump to meter out the
> > water into a chamber in e.g. a backpack, and tubes to guide the fog
> > where you want it. Bonus points if you can engineer the dry-ice chamber
> > into your laser costume somehow :-).  Anyone know where I could buy some
> > dry ice in the Mission?
> >
> > One final thing: you could just actually use smoke, i.e. burn something.
> >   It might be harder to control that though.  Perhaps the use of
> > something like Smoke Candles?
> >
> > http://www.qasupplies.com/2001000.html
> >
> > Eric
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