# Fog Machine Fluid works in smoke generators?



## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Has anyone tried fog machine fluid in a smoke generator? Costs a lot less per oz., and will be really cheap come Tuesday.

Thanks,
Jim


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## up9018 (Jan 4, 2008)

That would be an interesting thought. The only reason I could think of that it wouldn't is the heat a smoke unit would generate vs. a 110v fog unit wouldn't be sufficient to make it work.

Chris


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## riderdan (Jan 2, 2014)

I did some research about this a while back, and even tested a few different things, but didn't keep my notes 

What I recall is that fog machine fluid is mostly glycerin with a little distilled water or alcohol to increase viscosity. So the same stuff that's in a lot of liquid soaps. You can buy pure glycerin at Michaels or other craft stores (even cheaper than fog machine fluid). The problem with glycerin in model train smoke units is that it tends to build up. It will smoke, but eventually the smoke unit will have to be cleaned out. So you can use fog machine fluid, but you'll be putting pipe cleaners down the stack regularly.

Smoke fluid for model trains is mostly paraffin oil (mineral oil). You can put pure mineral oil into some smoke units and it will work fine. One caveat is that some smoke units may run at temperatures high enough to ignite mineral oil. And some wick-type units can get clogged up on pure paraffin.

I think the important question is: do you really go through smoke fluid enough that saving a dollar or two on a quantity of it is worthwhile? I buy "real" smoke fluid (that has an added "coal" smell) and rarely run through a large bottle in a year.


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## dbodnar (Jan 2, 2008)

jimtyp said:


> Has anyone tried fog machine fluid in a smoke generator? Costs a lot less per oz., and will be really cheap come Tuesday.
> 
> Thanks,
> Jim


Jim -- I just posted an article on Instructables that describes a smoke generator using the guts from an e-cigarette -it might be worth perusing.

dave

See: http://www.instructables.com/id/An-Inexpensive-Smoke-Fog-Generator/


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## Naptowneng (Jun 14, 2010)

Interesting discussion
While I agree with the low consumption thought, Dave's photo reminded me I still would like to build a sawdust burner for my sawmill, and the amount of smoke and time I would desire it to work will most likely exceed that of the normal loco smoke unit. 

Jerry


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)




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## lotsasteam (Jan 3, 2008)

*different smoking tests*

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2366024


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## crashbig (Aug 29, 2008)

I use the fog machine solution all the time, even tried the e-cig juice, had strawberry scented smoke for a bit.
Main ingredient in both is glycerin, but it does start to gum up the works and I clean it out with a q-tip and a bit of alcohol.


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