Does anyone else have problems with their fog machines?

It seems like we have purchased expensive ones and cheep ones, big ones and small ones and every year at least one burns out or stops working.
I thought it might be because we are using them with fog chillers, but my DH doesn't think that that is it.

I have not had any problems to report w/ the 3 1000 watt fitco foggers that I have bought at party city over the past few years. I do make sure that I run them for a little while every other month or so but other than that I dont do anything special. I use all of them w/ trash can chillers, I do use the fog juice that is sol at guitar center
and it seems to work better than the stuff from spirit and the fitco stuff. I have not tried the froggy stuff but hope to this year. It sounds like foggers are just luck of the draw.

Yep, I've had the same two cheapies from Wally World for many years now, and we run both through ice-chest chillers, and they have never rebelled.

Oh, crap.

Now I've done it.

I'd better buy one this year to replace the one that is SURELY gonna break after I just made the above statement!

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I've had three of them go out. Probably my fault because I or someone else let them run dry. The one that has never given me problems is the $25 gemmy that I bought at Wal-mart. There is a thread around here somewhere on reviving a non-working machine. I am going to try it with a 1000 watter that stopped working for me last year.

I will also be the first in line to get a couple more Gemmies when Wal-mart gets them in for the season.

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Maybe it is luck. Or maybe bigger isn't better.
My brother has had three 400 watt ones for 4 years with no problems, and I think he paid like $20-$25 at Target for them.

Any other hints as to what you do to keep them working?

have not had any problems so far ( knock on wood ) using a kroger fogger and 2 eliminator dj foggers but i am thinking about getting a v-950 this year and bumping my other foggers to fill and prop use

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Our old faithful wally-world fogger died last year, and we picked up a Fitco one, and it worked fine. Fingers crossed that it will work for several more years.

There are lots of little tubes and seals in there that rot eventually. I figure that this is what happened to the one we had, so one of these days I'm going to take it apart and check it over to see if I can get it working again.

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Last year I boasted how my foggers had lasted for years without issue. Then they all died.

I think it's the nature of the beast. Cheap Chinese crap, tricky thermostats, hot elements, thicky gooey fluid... vaporizing thru a tiny nozzle. Something is bound to give.

I was able to salvage my 5+-yr-old tiny Chauvet last year by replacing the tubing that had dry-rotted. The generic crap ones I gave away on this site last year to people needing parts. I only have 3 units now, two identical Chauvet big daddies and my tiny one for my MIB.

I think the fog juice that you use also has an impact. When I was researching foggers it seemed that the quality of the juice had as much to do with longevity as the quality of the machine.

Tim

using quality fog juice is a big deal ! I use chauvet platinum fog juice in all my forgers some I have had for almost 9 years with out issue. I have one of just about every brand out there.one thing I did notice is that some manufactures put a metal weight with a screen at the end of the input tube this will corrode over just six month if fog fluid is left in the machine and the corroded chips will get sucked up in to the forger.
1. never leave fluid in the tank.
2. only run quality fluid through it
3. if you notice any change in the output flush the machine with distilled water and vintager.then flush that with fog fluid this will clean out any deposits in forger ( i do this every year!) not tap water only distiled!
4. never run the machine dry !

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