Stage Prop With Built-in Tiny Fogger and Fog Chiller (on the Cheap)

aka "Low Budget Small Ground Fogger - Part 2"

This is a stage prop for the play "Killerinstinkt" which will have it's premiere on stage in about two weeks. It will be the centre piece on a fancy modern dinner table which should resemble the so called "molecular kitchen" style. As the table is set on a revolving stage, plus the bowl has to be moved from one table to a second identical table very quickly during a set change, there was no possibility to use a standard fogger with chiller and everything had to be built in with no external power supply.

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Step 1: Facing the Task

As I layed out in the last step of my instructable "Low Budget Small Ground Fogger", the goal was to build a tiny fogger with a fog chiller into a lampshade (turned downside up) with almost no budget (this will never change in theatre)...
The shade was set as the bowl, the rough look of the socket was layed out as followed: not to high, white, with a clean and simple form.

Step 2: The Gathering of the Gear

As the lampshade obviously was round, I was looking for something round and small enough to fit into the shade but large enough to take in the four coolers and guess what I found - a bucket! It was just sitting there in a corner of the workshop, left after it's content (pyro supplies) was used up. It had the perfect diameter, just the hight was to much.
For the socket I found a low cooking pot in our storage (no picture of the original pot due to corrupted image files... sorry).
Finally I was looking for something to rise the socket from the table to allow airflow and found a kind of wireframe plant cart, of which one of the circles perfectly fitted into the pot. Lucky me!

Step 3: The Chiller in the Bucket

To start with I cut it in two parts so that the lower part was just high enough to take in the four coolers plus a second bottom.

The inner bucket:
Then I drilled a hole in the bottom center an hotglued a tube fitting in (scavenged from the chiller prototype in the first instructable).
after that came a "second bottom" with to slots in it. It should guide the hot fog to the coolers and spread it out a it to allow as mach contact with the ice as possible. On that I placed two sidewalls to fix the coolers in place (leave enough room for the coolers! They tend to extend when frozen!). When everything seemed to fit it was hotglued into place. Then I sanded down the top so that all parts of it where leveled. Then I made a top cover with another center hole in it to seal the lower bucket tight (mark the right position of the cover for easier handling later)

The outer bucket:
Its main purpose is to keep everything in the right place (centered in the shade) and to let the fog out evenly to all sides. The first thing was no problem at all, the second lead to many holes, drilled into the upper edge of the bucket.

Getting it together:
Four words: Lots of hot glue!

Step 4: The Fogger in the Socket

First I brougt the pot down to the guys from the metal workshop to get a large hole drilled into the center of the bottom and to get rid of the handles (they are much better and faster on that then I am, and they are nice)

While they were on it got rid of the excess parts of the plant cart (wheels and the two outer rings) and bent down the protruding tips of the cross to get some feet to the grid.

Then I layed out where to put everything. The bottle had to be in the middle to get enough clearance for the "snap lock nozzle" trough the center hole of the pot. With some scrap wood and perforated metal band I made bases for the fogger and the battery left and right of the bottle. A piece of bended and drilled sheet metal gave the base for the bottle.

I soon realized that I needed something to fix the grid into the pot and asked the "metal guys" to weld two nuts into the pot, but I had to get rid of the enamel coating first. I simply hammered it out (use safety glasses and ear protection on this step!) and sanded it a bit. Then the nuts could be welded in.

One problem solved, a new one created: The space between screw an pot was to small for the grid wire to go through... So I took some large washers cut and bended them into a kind of a hook and got rid of two opposite quarters of the outer ring.

Done! The fogger sits flush inside the socket!

Step 5: The Shade on the Pot

Now it's time to connect the shade to it's socket. I placed the downside up shade centered on the upside down pot, marked the spots for the four screws and drilled four holes (8mm).
As you may have guessed: throw in some screws, washers and nuts and voila, both parts are connected.
After that I took off the shade again and gave the socket/pot several coats of white paint.

No mayor problems in this step...

Step 6: The Kinks Get the Kicks

aka troubleshooting aka The Medusa Mystery: For one problem solved two new ones pop up... (as in all steps of this hack)

As the basic problems seem all to be solved it's time to give it a test run. Everything was set up and connected, I pushed the button, and nothing happens...! I could hear the fogger working, but no fog was coming out. At least not in the expected amount and not where it supposed to come out.

Long story short: Using a long tube to get the fog from the fogger to the chiller was no good idea. It got kinked an bended several times and the same happened to the tube for the fluid. No fluid plus no airflow equals no fog!

So I reworked the tubing for the fog, using various fittings I found in our "assorted-stuff-corner" (most people would call it a heap of trash, a tinkering propsmaster calls it his treasure), some short pieces of tube, cable ties and the tip of a funnel which connected perfectly to the fitting at the bottom of the cooler.
The fluid tube now lays mainly inside the shade instead of inside the socket. More space there and less corners to squeeze around.

With the next test run the fog came out of the chiller exactly where it should, but immediately sank down into the bowl an came out at the bottom end...
So I cut out a ring of some leftover PU-foam I had in the back, to place it between the inner rim of the shade and the edge of the bucket. This lead straight to the next problem, the fitting from the chiller couldn't reach into the funnel anymore, but a piece of tube helped me with that one.

With another piece of foam I made a second "airlock" around the funnel, just in case....

...then I put everything together again, and gave it another test run...

Step 7: The Flabbergasting Finale

It works! Dress rehearsal here we come....

(The food topping is not my piece of work. It has been made by a fellow co-worker of mine. He also signs responsible for decorating the rest of the table)