My thoughts on Halloween foggers. Many people ask about watts, and how come my machine doesn't stay on all the time. How can I keep it fully activated. How come I am blowing fuses, etc.
Halloween fog machines are not made to continuously make fog all the time. They work similar to a coffee pot or hot water heater at home. When you plug them in, some have on off switches too, some do not, but once plugged in and turned on if it has a on/off switch, the machine is simply heating the tank to near a boil at this point. Once the tank temp is reached, the machine is now ready to be activated and the ready light comes on. Here it will stay and sit, ready, but not producing fog, until the machine is activated. There are different swithces, timers, and prop relays that can activate a fog machine. There are manual push and hold, spring loaded temporary switches. With this kind of switch, you physically have to manually hold the switch down to make fog. However, once that tank goes below boiling, the machine goes from ready to not ready, and will not make fog again until it comes back up to temp. Doesn't matter if you have the strength of Hercules and are mashing on the switch with all your might. It won't cycle again until temp is up and ready light is on. Some people tape the switch down to keep the fog going on this type of switch. The 2nd type of switch is still manual, but it is not temporary. It is either on or off and you do not need to hold it, like a light switch at home. However, as above, it will still only work when the prop is heated and ready. If you have it On, the prop will blow fog as soon as its up to temp, and stop to heat when its not. The 3rd works the same as the temporary, but is remote controlled. The last is an activator controlled automatically by the prop itself. It is wired from the prop to a relay to the fog controller and the prop at the proper time sends the signal to the fogger to turn on the fog.
With Watts, it just means how much quicker the fog machine will heat back up before you can run it again. A small 200 watter may produce 5 sq ft worth fog, but will take 2 minutes to heat back up, so 5 sq ft every 2 minutes. A 400 watter may take one minute to heat back up so ten square ft every 2 minutes. A thousand watter will take around 20 seconds to heat back up so 30 square feet every 2 minutes. Hence, more wattage does produce more fog, but they do not make a steady fog stream continuously like many people think they do.
A Low lying fogger runs the fog thru a chiller. The chiller is simply just a normal ice or dry ice chamber that the fog is pushed thru. Basic science. Colder water is heavier than hot water and cold tends to stay low and hot likes to rise high. Also with a low lying one, the low-lying fog for them is a heavier composition than the normal fog juice. Heavy stays low, light stays high. No magic there. Yes you can run normal fog juice thru one, but of course the fog won't stay low well. Same with not putting ice in the chiller. It will work, but you will lose the low-lying effect. Low lyers work well with good low lying juice and the chiller filled with ice, or dry ice is even better. Many people make their own chillers. Lots of info already online on that.
Last, home bubble foggers are a joke. They don't work right. Its just too much to make fog, then send it thru a bubble machine. Heck, I am the Bubble Man here in Detroit as I put a big bubble machine on my bicycle. On my first Halloween trunk or treat, I brought out the bubble machine and it didn't work right. Someone finally told me bubbles won't work right when its cold. Every Halloween here in Detroit has been cold. Even if not cold, non commercial bubble foggers are not up to the task. Look at the reviews on amazon. Almost 50% of the reviewers gave it one star and so would I. People do say the better commercial ones work though, but you have to spend a few hundred for those.
Last, keep in mind that for every hundred watts a fog machine uses that is equal to about one amp. A 1000 watt fogger draws ten amps. Most homes have 10 or 15 amp circuits. If you try to run too many fog machines on one circuit you are overloading it and will blow fuses. Home non commercial Props on the other hand run on very little power, around ten watts which is approximately .1 amps. It will take a lot of ten-watt props to overload a 10 amp circuit.