Dry Ice

Anyone have any experience with using Dry Ice or the like on stage ?

Any idea if it affects people with Asthma or any other things to watch out for ?

cheers

Russell Chandler
Busselton rep.

Try asking this question on the ALIA (Australian Lighting Industry Association) forum page. Free to sign up to their forums, you can ask professional techies and get pretty in-depth responses.

You can find them at www.alia.com.au

Hello Russell

As Na says, go to the ALIA web site where you will find a link to the draft starndards for working with dry ice http://www.esta.org/tsp/documents/docs/E1-23_2002-3014r8_.pdf and other usefull info.

There are several articles around that cover handing (wear gloves, restrict access), useage (displacement of oxygen by carbon dioxide), signage etc. Look for USITT and PLASA as part of your search string.

It's been around a along time, we are just becoming more careful with its use.

There are 3 main areas, dry ice and liquid nitrogen, hazers and smoke machines. Sometimes people are not clear in what they are calling it and there are hybrid machines such as a heavy fogger which puts the output of a smoke machine through a CO2 cooled nozzle to create a fog.

Regards
Don

Hi Russel,

An alternative to dry ice and having to worry about the handling, cost and documentation that may be required is the Antari Low Fog machine.

This was teken from the antari website:
"This revolutionary machine is the first of its kind. it produces the ever popular, low lying "heavy" smoke of a dry ice machine, without the inconvenience of dry ice or the potential health hazards caused by dry ice's heavily CO2 laden smoke. Place up to 10 kg of ice into the ice chamber to cool the smoke produced by the 1000W smoke machine contained in this unit. Then watch the floor disappear in ankle deep smoke. Never before has one machine offered this unique, affordable function. 10 kg of ice placed in the ice chamber can last up to 12 hours or 80 minutes with constant use. Full DMX on board means 100% control along with an output for separate units, and the timer remote puts that control in the palm of your hands. Drainage pump can be activated manually or set to automatic for optimum convenience. Try it out for yourself and you'll never go back."
http://www.antari.com/ice.html

I have used this unit many times before. It's great. You can stop at the Bottle Shop and get some drinks for after the show, whilst getting some ice for your low fog at the same time.
Just be aware of the environment your using it, and the area you need to cover.

If you really need to go bigger there is always something like the Jem Glaciator.
http://www.jemsmoke.com/product/product.asp?product=glaciatorx-stream

I've used a Heavy Fogger for a show before, the low fog took a matter of seconds to fill a 10m x 12m floor. It was a great effect. I'm wanting to try and fit it into a show where i can rig it from some fly lines and create a waterfall, budget for the heavy fogger is my problem.

Hope this helps an alterante route.

MattC.

cheers and thanks to all for the responses
Russell

Contrary to the common perception the fog produced with a dry ice machine is simply water vapour.The dry ice is simply a very cold medium to cool the water vapour[steam] and cause it to lay on the floor.It is very inconsistent, as it depends on the humidity of the venue as well as the temperature.It can only be used in short bursts as the water cools down in the machine and it ceases to function.In short avoid it like the plague unless you have time to experiment with it and never ever use it over an orchestra as the water vapour will stuff up the instruments and the musos will kill you.

I will heartily endorse David's comments.

As an orchestra I have had to endure dry ice 'flooding' the orchestra pit in mid winter!

The temperature in the pit drops 5-10 deg in minutes and tuning of instruments just goes crazy. I never had a problem in breathing although others claim they did (I'm sceptical).

Dry ice (Frozen gas in water) is good for one scene at the most if you want mist on the floor of the stage.

For a longer lasting effect use a fogger which is a different animal.

For a bit of both (a general mist that hangs in the air) use a smoke machine which is a different animal again for an effect that will last a short while.

D.

David Ashton wrote:
>
> Contrary to the common perception the fog produced with a dry
> ice machine is simply water vapour.The dry ice is simply a
> very cold medium to cool the water vapour[steam] and cause it
> to lay on the floor.It is very inconsistent, as it depends on
> the humidity of the venue as well as the temperature.It can
> only be used in short bursts as the water cools down in the
> machine and it ceases to function.In short avoid it like the
> plague unless you have time to experiment with it and never
> ever use it over an orchestra as the water vapour will stuff
> up the instruments and the musos will kill you.