Fog Chiller (water, bilge pump) - Halloween Props

07/01/2000

I've picked up on several discussions on how to chill fog. One example I found particularly interesting was the "Fog Chiller" by Chuck Rice.

The following diagram, pictures, and text demonstrate my version of the aforementioned "Fog Chiller" .

For the water pump, a marine bilge pump (Figure 2-2) was used. 12 VDC power is needed to power a marine bilge pump. A bilge pump is a submersible pump that is used to pump water out of the hall of a boat, similar to a sump pump. A bilge pump for a small boat and is about the size of a coffee cup and runs off 12 VDC. The water intake is within the encasing and the outtake fits a 3/4" flexible tube. The picture below demonstrates using a bilge pump for the fog chiller. I found this pump at Wal*Mart for $10.

Figure 2-2

A 5 gallon bucket was used to hold the water and ice. The water and ice is separated by a piece of plastic with holes drilled in it so the melting ice water can drain into the bottom reservoir. The piece of plastic is actually another bucket lid with the outside lip trimmed back so it would fit inside the diameter of the bucket. An electrical switch box was placed on top of the bucket lid to allow the pump to be turned on.

Some 1” clear tubing was used to connect to the bilge pump. A reducer was used to bridge the size between the ½” connection to the pump to the ¼” copper tubing. You can see the reduction from the 1” tubing to the ¼” tubing in several of the pictures. The reduction was done inside the bucket. The ¼” clean tubing is what ends up coming out of the bucket and connected to the copper tubing.

Figure 2-3

Figure 2-4

Figure 2-5

The copper tubing was housed in a 24” heating duct. The heating duct was mounted on two metal bread pans.

Figure 2-6

Figure 2-7