Fog machine for Halloween - no button necessary

[BtrSound]

I have been telling my now 9yo for 3 years now that I will decorate the exterior of my house for Halloween and I am putting the plans into place now. As always I am going overboard.

I am am looking for an inexpensive fog machine that I can use outside. The problem is most of them require someone to manually push a button to make it smoke.

I doubt that there is currently AZ wave one but Does anyone hsppen to know of one that I can just turn on via controlled switch and will fog maybe every 10 minutes or so? Maybe some other workaround. I would ideally like a strobe light to kick on when it fogs.

Any help would be appreciated

[jmaddox]

I assume the button is a momentary contact switch. you should be able to bypass that type of button using a zwave isolated or dry contact switch.

[simplextech]

There are RF remotes you can get for most consumer fog machines. Like the ones you get from Party City. They have a "receiver" that is just a momentary switch that plugs into the fog machine. If so inclined you could use a momentary contact switch as jmaddox said and wire that in for z-wave control. Cut the pigtail off the RF receiver and wire that to the contact switch for a nice easy "plug-in" to the fog machine. If you have RFXcom or a way to send RF signals you could do it that way. There are also "button pushers" that you could probably use on the existing wired controller.

[rmasonjr]

Paging user outbackrob
He does some Halloween stuff and I love reading about what you guys are doing!

[simplextech]

It is time for decorating. I pulled stuff from storage but I need MORE! I love the ideas that get presented. I think perhaps a Halloween Thread?

[randy]

I have a couple of fog machines and a couple of strobes I set up for halloween. I used a NodeMCU board and the Arduino with relays to control all 4. I also use Hue lights at the porch light and driveway sconces and Hue controlled RGBW lights in the driveway path lights. We set the driveway path lights and the driveway sconces to alternating blue and orange for the whole evening.

The motion sensor on the front porch starts a routine that turns the porch light blue, flashes the strobes and turns on fog for just long enough. At the end of the routine the smoke and strobes are turned off and 15 seconds later the porch light is returned to white,

I am in the process of putting smart LED strips around the entire front of the house just under the gutters. These will be controlled by a Pi running Hyperion software and controlled with Spud's plug-in. It is quite a large project and I have some painting to do before I can mount them.

[srodgers]

I hacked mine for continuous fog when ever it is heated. 115vac relay wired to the ready light circuit and the contacts of relay are connected to the fog button. Whenever it heats and is ready it fogs. Then it goes back to heating until reading light comes on and repeats. Hands free almost continuous fog. Run the fog with some fan assistance through a chill box loaded with some dry ice and regular ice and it hugs the ground good and thick.


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[outbackrob]

I doubt that there is currently AZ wave one but Does anyone hsppen to know of one that I can just turn on via controlled switch and will fog maybe every 10 minutes or so? Maybe some other workaround. I would ideally like a strobe light to kick on when it fogs.

Any help would be appreciated

For the last 8 years or so, I have been using 2-4 X-10 Universal modules to control Fog. They are wired into the standard dongle (of any fog machine) basically bypassing the switch. It makes it really easy to create an event to control fog. I use them because I have them and they work. If you do not have a CM11A or other X-10 interface, I suspect there is a Z-Wave equivalent. I have several fog machines and alternate them so that there is almost always enough fog.

As in past years, we have the house set up for SCARY and not so scary. There is a sign explaining this at the curb with two X-10 Red Buttons on it. One for scary and one for not. There is a 3' stoplight that is on Red and if you press Scary it changes to a Yellow arrow pointing towards the house. Not scary is a Green Arrow. For not scary, all the lights change to orange and white, the music changes to The Peanuts' Lucy and Linus, a minion pops up and a fan comes on to blow away any fog. (Also, the bedroom lights come on 100% in the upper windows to wash out the AtmosFX displays. See below.) We get notified that it is non-scary and I change my Wolf's head mask for Snoopy or whatever else is non-scary. Little kids usually don't dry and parents thank us for catering to kiddos! (My wife then serves jello shots to them!!)

Normally the house is awash in dark red floodlights. There is a 20' blow up Reaper and multiple yard decorations lit up with strobes or red lights. Last year we had skeletons climbing up to a 2nd floor window and AtmosFX displays in the other 2 windows. Full size animated dog skeletons at the door. Ghosts flying between the pillars. When the SCARY button is pushed The stoplight goes to a red arrow, all the LIFX bulbs dim by 30%, scary music starts to play and the foggers go off. The music and sounds gradually increase. When (if..) the doorbell is pressed, a loud doorbell sound it played and the door sensor kicks off a scary squeaky door sound as it is opened. With all the strobes and the fog and the music and the sound, it is pretty intimidating for some. All of it is automated except opening the door.

This year we are adding an 80lb blast of air as they leave. I haven't figured out how to automate this yet. Maybe a pressure switch under a carpet on the sidewalk.

Also hope to have a return of cameras set up this year.

https://days.to/31-october/2018

Rob

[ksum]

Note that you may need to take into account the Temperature in your area if you are looking for ground hugging fog. I am in the Mid-Atlantic US and need to pass my fog over ice to get it to lay low otherwise it pretty much floats up and away. I have a large tub that I put woodworking dust collector connections on each side with flexible dust collector hose for input and output and baffles inside using hanging ceiling "egg crate" light covers to make a wall of ice that the incoming fog hits and must go over. I found dry ice to be better to get low lying fog as the contact time wasn't enough with water ice to cool the fog. I also have a plastic bag on the output side of the ice chamber making a flap to slow the fog. I have a Chauvet fog machine with a near continuous flow of people making the need for motion sensing on the fog unecessary. The tub is large enough to store the fog machine and 2 gallons of fluid plus the hose. Since it gets cold out on Halloween night, the continuous feed ends up being intermittent as the heating element cools down and takes a minute or two to heat back up and generate fog. That said, if you do automate the output, be sure to automate the "feed switch" and not the power to the fog machine.

[randy]

I hacked mine for continuous fog when ever it is heated. 115vac relay wired to the ready light circuit and the contacts of relay are connected to the fog button. Whenever it heats and is ready it fogs. Then it goes back to heating until reading light comes on and repeats. Hands free almost continuous fog. Run the fog with some fan assistance through a chill box loaded with some dry ice and regular ice and it hugs the ground good and thick.


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Revisiting this, because I am not happy with intermittent fog. Mine holds about 2 liters of fluid? Do you know how long it will build fog on 2 liters of fluid. I haven't had time to test it. This one has a cavity for ice to make it ground hugging.