Superb value haze machine

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sjhartland's review of Stairville SH-150 Hazer

“Superb value haze machine”

★★★★★

written by sjhartland on 18/05/2012

Had one of these for about 18 months now and thought I'd write a quick review as I couldn't find any other information about it on the web.
I bought mine from Thomann (German supplier) but you can probably find it on other UK auction or shopping sites.
For those that don' know, a haze machine is different from a smoke machine. It's much more subtle, producing a gentle soft mist that will hang around for longer than smoke. Smoke tends to be 'all or nothing' which is fine if that's what you need. I use this in a band to enhance the beams of light from our other lighting fixtures. I've used smoke in the past and as soon as you operate it the band hate it, the audience generally hate it and start coughing and flapping their arms about. Granted the smoke will make the lights look amazing for 30 seconds before drifting away and you have to do it all over again.
So, haze will be much less obvious and still make the lights look good.

The main feature about the SH-150 has to be cost.

Most haze machines start at about £100 upwards, yet this is available from about £45. I was very sceptical due to the cheap asking price but am happy to say that it's been brilliant. 100% reliable so far.
Simple to use, once filled with the correct fluid just plug in the mains cable and wired controller, turn on and wait a few minutes for it to warm up. The supplied controller allows 3 types of use 1-constantly on 2-timed and 3-manual.
The manual button activates the unit all the time the button is pressed so you can have a tiny squirt whenever you want. The timed button has 2 additional controllers, 'output' (quantity of output) and time (delay between activation). The controller has a good long cable and has a magnetic back. I find a minute on constant to get the room gently covered then a 2 second manual squirt every minute or 2 to keep it topped up works brilliantly.
Though it's quite small, it easily has the capacity to gently fill a large room - you may need to start filling the room for a minute or two before you want the full effect but remember the whole point of haze is that its subtle, it won't swap a room in 5 seconds like a smoke machine will. (plus much much less likely to trigger a smoke alarm which is very handy in hotels!)
If you are interested in the differences between smoke and haze machines YouTube has loads of videos to see the difference.
The only negative I can see is that the socket on the back where the controller is plugged into appears quite weak and makes plugging in and especially removing the plug quite hard. Its a multi pin plug so care is needed not to bend or snap any pins. This is the only weakness but if it does fail, the connectors are pretty standard and I doubt hard to change so its certainly not a serious problem and shouldn't stop anyone buying this unit.
For the money, any band or DJ serious about their light show should have one of these! They make halogen or LED lights look soooooooooooooo much better, again if you check out YouTube for a lighting DJ lighting fixture the video will almost certainly use smoke or more likely haze to show the light better and enhance the beams.
Get one and enjoy - just use it subtly!

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