miniature smoke machine

[ElCal]

I'm trying to build a miniature smoke machine as a part of my halloween costume, a steampunk imagining of The Joker. The end result I'm looking for is to emulate the acid spraying flower as seen in the 1989 Batman movie, where it is a brief puff of nefarious looking vapours*.

 

some parameters:

must be non toxic

must not be a blatant fire hazard

dc powered

wearable

 

I have been experimenting with heating a 20/80 glycol/H2O mixture. My first trials used a small copper tube wrapped with the heating element from a toaster, wired directly to a 12v lantern battery, which seemed to ALMOST work, it would sputter a small amount of fog while at rest, but if I forced any amount of fog juice through the tube it just came out as a liquid.

 

For my second trial I bought a glow plug for a diesel engine, and also wired it directly to the same battery, with the intention of submerging the tip in a small resevoir of fog juice, but it does not get hot enough to boil the liquid.

 

I'm wondering if the wire I'm using might be bottlenecking my amperage, because neither type of heating element I used seemed to get sufficiently hot, or perhaps is my power source just too wimpy?

 

I'm also very open to any suggestions for any sort of alternative, as halloween is closing in fast and I'm afraid I might not have enough time for much more trial and error!

 

tomorrow afternoon will see trial #3, i'll be wrapping the glow plug with the copper tubing, hoping that the increased surface area of the copper tube in contact with a superior heating element might do the trick.... heres hoping with fingers crossed!

 

Thank you very VERY much in advance to anyone who with any advice!

-RevElCal

 

*rewatched the scene.. it was more like a stream of liquid that vaporized when it hit the wall behind kim basinger... which is different than what I was envisioning. I'm trying to get quick, short bursts of dense fog.

Edited October 15, 2009 by ElCal
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[Mr Skeptic]

Can you get dry ice?

[ElCal]

yes, its readily available at almost every grocery store in my town right now.

what do you have in mind?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Dry ice will make fog just sitting there, but if you pour water on it plumes of fog come out. You just have to be careful about the whole thing about dry ice being incredibly cold. Make sure the container is insulated and you can remove it if it starts freezing you.

 

So some way of selectively pouring water onto the dry ice would work, as long as you have a good supply of dry ice and you don't injure yourself with the dry ice.

[JillSwift]

Hack-A-Day just did an article on this:

 

http://hackaday.com/2009/10/15/halloween-prop-diy-fog-machine/

[ElCal]

the problem I'm having isn't how to build a fog machine, I've built them before. My problem is getting high enough temperature from a heating element powered by a dc power source thats small enough to wear on a belt. Sorry if i wasn't clear enough in my original post, i was also trying to give some insight to the project. The key thing is that it has to be small enough to wear... large components can be on a belt, with wires and hoses running to a 'flower' on my lapel or a small armature coming out of my collar.