Snow Machines
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Snow machines are any device or solution that will drop snow from above. Several types are described below.
[edit] Snow Rollers
Snow rollers drop fake snow, confetti, leaves, etc. by housing the media in a perforated container and rolling the container (on a horizontal axis) to drop the media in a controlled manner. The design of many snow rollers allows them to mechanically link together, allowing a single drive to power them all. The modular roller design allows for greater flexibility when reusing the effect, since the effect can be resized by adding or removing rollers. To refill the effect, a trap door is typically built into the roller container.
The speed of the falling snow will increase as the speed of the roller increases. If the speed is increased past a certain point the snow will begin to fall slower, as the snow media will not have enough time to fall out of the perforations.
It is possible to fill a roller too full of media; clogging will result. The media will generally fall, but it will fall slower than expected until there is enough free space inside the roller.
Snow rollers are often shop built, but pre-fabbed versions exist.
[edit] Housing Materials
Typical roller housings include:
- chicken wire
- hardware cloth
- pvc
- sonotube
- pre-perforated metal sheets
- a wooden box
- plastic sheeting
- snow fence
- etc.
