[SML] DMX silk flame units

[James Alderson]

Jon Ares responded:

> If you need a flame effect where one can/must see the silk flame, then
> my experience won't help... but last year I did build a wireless,
> DMX-controlled 3-lamp (and a fan) fire-in-a-garbage-can.... but
> purposely not seeing the "flames."  The silks did a great job of
> creating the realistic flicker, but I have to tell ya, there was a lot
> of trial-and-error, getting fans to blow enough to make the silk stand
> up, but not twist vortex-style, or fall over, or get out of the way of
> the wind.... finding a balance between strength of fan, height of fan
> to the silk, height of the silk, closeness of the silks to each
> other... weight of the silks... position of the flames in the garbage
> can for proper draw (can't be too close to any sides).... etc, etc...
> building it was a lot of work, so if you are able to find a successful
> pre-built thing, please share it with the list.

If you end up building one (not hard), I’ve made a couple and I have pretty good luck using squirrel-cage fans for the silks. Squirrel-cage fans blow air in a straight line, so there is no vortex to tangle the strands. I built one for a fireplace using a “surplused” fan from an old Xerox machine, and another for a 12” planter pot using a new fan unit from Granger. The larger the throat of the fan, the bigger the fire can be and the quieter the effect will be. Forcing air through a small outlet makes for more wind noise. Silk strips worked, but the last one I made by sewing a tube of pure china silk, (no synthetics, they don’t float well). The tube was whip-stitch in an oval to a grating of hardware-cloth mounted above the fan, with flame shapes cut into the top edge the tube. The result was a sort of ragged wind-sock. Air blew up the center of the silk tube. Looked great, and it inflated ever time with absolutely no tangling. No trial-and-error was required.

It wasn’t DMX. I just ran mine on a switch for the fan and a standard dimmer for the lamp.

Mick Alderson
TD, Fredric March Theatre
Univ. of Wis. Oshkosh