Paddleducks
Paddler Modelling => Accessories, Lighting, Sounds etc => Topic started by: Eddy Matthews on February 07, 2005, 09:43:24 AM
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The last thing I need to sort for my model of the "Suter" is a smoke generator - Again, I've looked at some of the units available, and to be honest I could drop a cigarette into the funnel and get a better smoke output than a lot of the units available!
I really like the RAM unit, but it says it will only work with it's own smoke fluid, and the thought of constantly having to send to the USA for fluid puts me off!
Does anyone know of a GOOD unit available in the UK, something that will generate a lot of smoke and not just a few whisps - If you've ever looked at old photos of steamers working hard you'll know that they kicked out VAST amounts of smoke! That's the sort of output I'm after!
Regards
Eddy
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Hi Eddy, sorry I personally do not know of one which will do as you ask. :cry: The main reason for the post is to say . You always are the one looking for largesse. :D More Speed. More Steam. More Smoke. More of everything....... 8)
Cheers :wink:
Jim
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Hi Eddy, sorry I personally do not know of one which will do as you ask. :cry: The main reason for the post is to say . You always are the one looking for largesse. :D More Speed. More Steam. More Smoke. More of everything....... 8)
Cheers :wink:
Jim
Hehehehe thanks Jim - "largesse" must be a Scottish word, coz it's not in my English dictionary! :lol:
Actually I think I may have found something suitable, but I need to check into it a bit more - If it does what I want I'll post details on here....
Regards
Eddy
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G'day Eddy,
If it's large volumes of smoke output that you want then I've got just the thing for you - unfortunately it's a US-based company but I rather suspect that the smoke fluid these things use is likely to be a standard recipe - probably something like kerosine and baby oil would work as well.
Try www.mackproductsrc.com
On their accessories page there are some commercially made smoke generators that have a two speed fan-forced design that connects to the speed controller.
I've picked up one of these for Reliant - haven't installed it yet but have bench-tested it - filled the workshop with smoke within 10 minutes - and chewed through about 10ml of distillate in doing it - so you will appreciate the output if you think through that ratio! They're a substantial unit and need 12V to work effectively - but heck, more power is more power!!!
I've been tempted to be totally eco-unfriendly and add a few drops of waste oil to get that thick black look to the smoke - as per the picture of my avatar, Britannia - but commonsense has prevailed so far! (Most unusual for me!)
Alternatively you might want to try another approach completely - a few years ago one of your UK modellers (Geoff Dixon?) featured in Model Boats or Marine Modelling International with a homemade smoke generator for his HMS Lord Nelson, the predreadnought. He used a theatrical fog fluid that was heated by nichrome wire from a discarded hair drier. He wound the wire around a hurricane lamp wick which drew the fluid up from a reservoir. On heating, a small fan forced the resulting 'smoke' out of the two funnels. And the heat can be controlled by varying the length of nichrome wire.
Best of British on the hunt...
cheers
Tony
Auckland, NZ
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Eddy,
I've pulled a photo of my Mack products smoke generator from the old Paddleducks site and added it to my gallery here so that you can see for yourself what the unit is capable of.
http://www.paddleducks.co.uk/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=453&cat=500&page=1
by the way, largesse is definately Sassenach! My Scots gran had nooo knowledge of the term whatsaever, Lord bless her!
Now ... parsimony and frugality ... there's twa fair bonny wurds!
Tony
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Eddy have you or anyone else tried the Action Electronics "Super Smoke Generator" this is appently a 12v system and sounds very simmilar to the 12v Graupner units. I am interested in any answers as I need one for my PS Captain Sturt.
Peter Webster :D
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The only Action smoke generator I've seen working is their standard unit Peter - It wasn't very impressive!
I haven't seen the "Super" smoke generator, so I can't comment on that - Anyone else seen it working?
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I have developed one that I use. It probably could stand some mod's to produce all you would want. It uses a cigarette lighter out of a car.
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I have developed one that I use. It probably could stand some mod's to produce all you would want. It uses a cigarette lighter out of a car.
That sounds interesting.... Could you give us some more info please?
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wont the smoker made from a car cig lighter draw a lot of current?????
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wont the smoker made from a car cig lighter draw a lot of current?????
Yes probably Mark, but the commercial units I've looked at draw between 3 and 8 amps, so they aren't exactly light on current draw either....
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Hi Pd's - & here is a question for Tony [Khephre] - the BIG MACK web page does not mention current draw - from your original snap @ again as posted here the unit certainly produced a good volume of smoke in your workshop
1) have you managed to check the current draw?
2) go on - be brave & mix 50/50 kero & sump oil - would be just like Britannia - regards Derek
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G'Day Derek, according to the spec sheets that they sent me with the unit the MACK generator draws only 600mA - which wld make it very efficient.
I haven't hooked a multimeter up to it yet so can only go by the spec sheet.
Frankly, a working drain of only 600mA seems conservative to me. The unit has a two speed fan underneath to force the smoke out - coupled to the speed controller - but the drain from those little computer fans is nothing much
The big drain on power wld come from the heater - after all the unit chews through 10ml of distillate in about as many minutes and that surely would need a decent heating element to do so!
But on the positive side, the smoke generator does exactly that - it powers out large quantities in a short time.
Derek, I can't believe that you'd be so un-PC as to suggest used sump oil!!! You sure we're not related?!
Cheers
Tony
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Hi Guy's,
Just to let everyone know, I manufacture a Smoke generator with blower,and a range of sound generators. Engine sounds,horns,whistles,plus all the other sounds, gun sounds from machine gun through to large battle ship guns,and also the modern missile and phalanx gun systems, sirens,bells,asdic etc: web-site. www.Paddlewheels.co.uk should be up and running soon so take a look or contact me. Ken@paddlewheels.co.uk for more info.
many thanks to eddy for letting me post this information.
Ken.
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Thanks for the details Ken, much appreciated....
Your smoke generator looks like just the thing I've been looking for! No doubt I'll be in touch soon to see about ordering one for my sternwheeler.
I was also interested in your sound units, but I'd prefer to hear what they sound like first - I clicked on the option to listen to them, but it generates a 404 file not found error :-( Maybe you could take a look at that and let us know when it's fixed?
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Eddy,
I have just uploaded a small video of my PS Pevensy operating a 6v Graupner Smoke Unit which to is OK considering the windy conditions. Note the side slipping of the model due to windage.
Peter Webster
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Thanks for that Peter - Nice looking model by the way...
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Not only a nice looking model but a neat use of new technology - great to see our efforts in motion!
I put one of those 6V Graupner smokers into a 1:32 Clyde Puffer last year. Nice up close but I felt it lost impact beyond a few feet away.
Perhaps if I put a teaspoon or two of used sump oil into the distillate... :twisted:
cheers
Tony
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Tony,
Do the Kiwis have a surplus of sump oil? I have tried using a glycol and water mix which seemed to work ok. It is sold in Oz under the name of Fog Juice by Dick Smith Electronics Stores at about A$25-00 a litre.
Peter W :-)
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If you could see the floor of my garage under my car then you'd know all about a surplus of sump oil!!!
I really love the smoke generators, sound cards and such like that we modellers get to play with, but the smoke's too clean!!! If you look at my Britannia avatar at left you'll see the effect I'd love to achieve - great swags of billowing grey/black smoke...
... yeah well, might be a tad wee bit environmentally unfriendly so I promise faithfully to use sparingly!!
cheers
Tony
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The best way to get smoke like that is to burn good old coal, with a high sulfur content.
Regards,
Gerald
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Now there's an cool proposition...
One for the UK steam enthusiasts - didn't John Hemmens (www.steamengines.co.uk) have a coal-fired model boiler in his range back in the mid-80s?
Any-one else offering coal-fired boilers for model steam applications these days?
We've got massive coal reserves here in NZ and a lot of it is high grade with low impurities - but what with the anal-retentiveness of the social-engineers we call our government, our resource management act and the kyoto protocol we so rashly signed up to, we can't use more than a small fraction of it.
Mind you - a single 25kg bag wld do us modellers proud for a few years worth of steaming!
Cheers
Tony
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I am still working on the MODS to the Cigarette lighter smoke unit. 12v is a little to high. Mine operates best on 6-10v. Have installed a fan which seems to work well! Matter of fact have figured out how to make it puff! Draws in the neighborhood of 3 amps. At present am working on a 110v model. I think it will do well also.
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I am still working on the MODS to the Cigarette lighter smoke unit. 12v is a little to high. Mine operates best on 6-10v. Have installed a fan which seems to work well! Matter of fact have figured out how to make it puff! Draws in the neighborhood of 3 amps. At present am working on a 110v model. I think it will do well also.
When you have it all sorted can you let us have full details of the cigarette lighter unit? Especially the mechanism to make it "puff", that definately sounds interesting!
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The puffs are made by oil dripping off a Hypodermic Needle. If I can figure out how to post images I will put on pics!
Message edited by Eddy Matthews to add pics:
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Eddie,
I have ordered today 2 of these units sight unseen but I thinh they would be similar to the 12V Graupner units. There for the PS Captain Sturt so I decided to put in 2 units instead of 1 unit and a "Y" tube I will let you know how they go.
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Saw this one in a thread on the modelboats website, looks like it works like the Tomy 'steam along thomas' (the tank engine) train set - http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/Common/JJC_Smoke.htm
my only criticism is that the 'smoke' seems to fall like a fountain as if heavier than air (which it probably is...)
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No need for special smoke generators— just fire up with moth balls, not the ones on boy moths, the kind your grandmother used to keep moths from eating holes in her corsets. They make loads of nasty black smoke that settles on the furniture, carpet and whatever. The stuff is probably carcinogenic, but what the hey, nobody lives forever!
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Tell us more about mothballs?
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Just looking through some (free) plans from model magazines I've collected and I found one for a clyde puffer...(it's called 'Boxer' - because it's made using card from a box, like I did for Alumchine - and was from 'Radio Control Boat Modeller', nov/dec 1985) Interestingly, the plan includes a simple smoke generator made from a small screw-top can, some wire, some asbestos :? bandage (I remember that in halfords for silencer repair...) and a charcoal stick from a fishermans hand warmer!!!! It uses (so it says) turpentine as the smoke fluid.......anyone ever make one of those??????????
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I came across a guy at my model boat club who has taken the working parts of an asthma nebuliser and put it in his tug boat works a treat with glycerine, baby oil mix but i dont know the mix ratio.
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Can you get some photos and a sketch of the set up please
Peter Webster
I came across a guy at my model boat club who has taken the working parts of an asthma
nebuliser and put it in his tug boat works a treat with glycerine, baby oil mix but i dont know the
mix ratio.
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Here's a picture of the RCBM article, as I don't have a scanner....
*it wasn't asbestos tape he used but a strip of fibreglass mat....
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I remember :thinking something from the old yahoo form :hmmm about glass tube and nicrome wire, I had printed it out :terrific but can't find the printout :oops :rant :sorry and did not find it when I did a search on the old messages? :hmmm
Regards,
Gerald :sunglasses
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Hi Eddy,
I found the printout! :terrific It was on Mon, 23 Jun 2003
Dave Powell was looking for a good cheap(to produce) smoke generator.
You :music replied describing one made from a boiling tube, glass rod and nichrome wire which you said worked very well. :hmph
Regards,
Gerald :towel
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The JJC smoke genie is easy to figure out...... It's a cold mist humidifier!
Lake water fed to a ultra-sonic piezo cell and the resulting mist blown out by a fan. There will be no residue except moisture, and you can get one at most any druggist. They run on houshold current so modifications will need to be made.(Gave $20 US Dollars for the one I use at home).
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The article on the smoke generator from the old messages, is that still on the forum? If so how do you find it?
Thanks Barry.
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I did a search for Mon, 23 Jun 2003 and found it posted by Eddy copied bellow:
I made one that worked very well about 2 years ago.... It's not easy
to describe purely in text, so bear with me...
Take a boiling tube (that's a heat proof test tube) of a size that is
suitable to fit your funnel. You then need a glass rod and a glass
tube - The glass rod should fit into the glass tube and be a sliding
fit.
Lets imagine the glass rod and tube are about 6" long..... Wind some
nichrome wire around the top 3" of the tube (nichrome wire is used
for foam cutters that the aircraft guys use to cut foam wings, and
should be easily obtainable from most model shops, if not you can use
the wire from an old electric fire element).... The length of wire
you wrap around the tube needs to be experimented with as I'll
explain later, but start with about 12" wound onto the tube - Leave
long ends on the wire as you'll use those later to connect to a power
supply.
Now to assemble the components, put about 1"-1.5" of oil into the
bottom of the boiling tube (I used Johnson's baby oil which worked
quite well). Put the glass rod inside the glass tube with the
nichrome wire at the top, place the end of the rod and tube into the
boiling tube so that the none wired end is immersed into the oil -
The glass tube and rod will allow the oil to rise up to the heating
element by capillary action, Put a bung into the boiling tube so that
the galss tube/rod sticks through the centre, and route the two ends
of the nichrome wire through the bung ready to connect to a power
supply - BEWARE - The nichrome wire gets VERY HOT!!! So use a bung
that won't burn!
Connect the unit to a 12 volt power supply and within a few seconds
you should see the smoke start to flow - Keep experimenting with the
length of the nichrome wire to get the best results.
I hope that little lot makes sense? If you have any questions just
ask and I'll try to explain...
Regards
Eddy
PS I picked a toy train up at the secondhand store with the original bottle of smoke fluid still unopened, for under $10.00 CAN. Remember you can substitute baby oil and varsol 50/50% for the commercial smoke oil.
Regards,
Gerald
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the information posted re smoke generators, stirred some memories :-\ of long ago, and having spent the weekend cleaning out my Mum's house and garage, looked for and found a Christmas gift for my first teenage birthday. - TUGGY - . Now whilst this may not be a paddler, it is a 'steam' ;D tug, albeit electric powered. Anyway, this tug has a smoke generator which puffs smoke up and out of the funnel. The propulsion motor is contained within the gearbox unit which also drives a slide. this slide presses on the end of the bellows, which in turn forces air through the smoke unit and up the funnel. At the base of the funnel is a cotton 'reservoir' which you soak with light oil, ie baby oil, or 3 in 1 oil, etc. sits above a miniature wound nichrome wire heating element ( miniature toaster element) and wa-la we have our tug steaming the pond issuing smoke aka the real thing. All this on 2 'D' size batteries.
The photos are of the vessel "as-found" so excuse the cob-webbs, dust etc. A full restoration is planned.
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Not sure if it's OK to link to another forum ??? but thought some of you might be interested in this
http://modeltugforum.com/index.php?topic=921.0 (http://modeltugforum.com/index.php?topic=921.0)
I have no connection with the product whatsoever and I personally haven't seen the thing in the flesh but it looks very promising from the video. I believe the guy who makes them has just started up his own business after being made redundant. Hope it helps somebody
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Thanks Andy,
Just so your clear, there's absolutely no problem in posting a link to another website as long as it's relevant, which obviously it is!
Other forums and websites are out there, and can often be helpful, so to ignore them would just be silly...
Regards
Eddy
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Not sure if it's OK to link to another forum ??? but thought some of you might be interested in this
http://modeltugforum.com/index.php?topic=921.0 (http://modeltugforum.com/index.php?topic=921.0)
I have no connection with the product whatsoever and I personally haven't seen the thing in the flesh but it looks very promising from the video. I believe the guy who makes them has just started up his own business after being made redundant. Hope it helps somebody
This is what I have fitted into my Waverley. It's so good, it actually runs two chimney stacks.
It is the water vapour type system and , as such, creates no mess on the decks. I can thoroughly recommend the product.
ken
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Ok, friends,
all ok these smoke generators.
But they are driven by electric energy. What, if I have a model with live steam? Exhaust is not good in the funnel. Do you have some solutions for that problem?
Andreas
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On most full size boats the exhaust was not put up the funnel, but piped outboard if a non condenser. there was usually a pipe leading from the safety valve up the outside of the funnel. There may have been a blast-pipe in the funnel to assist with the draft. I have run the engine exhaust up inside my stack, but unless conditions are right I don't get that much visible steam vapour. If we switched over to burning coal or oil we would probably have lots of smoke, but would have to spend too much time cleaning.
Regards,
Gerald
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Eddy,
one of the members of my club has built a model of the old coal fired Shields ferry and has put his own smoke unit in it.
(Unfortunately it is screw propelled!)
He uses carbon from hand warmers with a few drops of 3 in 1 oil squirted in and a little 3volt fan beneath it to produce billows of realistic smoke which lasts about 10 minutes, so he has gone back to the drawing board to devise an oil dripfeed.
3 in 1 oil is a lot cheaper than Graupner distillate! Sandy
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Hi PD's.....many years ago Sandy [prior to my steam engine] I purchased a small 12 V gear pump [automotive windscreen washer] ... :hammer...up a copper imitation boiler with BBQ heat beads....then with the aide of a 555 timer via RC squited pulses of used diesel engine lube oil onto the hot BBQ beads
:great clouds of black smoke but certain people didn't like it :gathering...... :ranting :shhh....Derek
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"3 in 1 oil is a lot cheaper than Graupner distillate"
We discovered that Varsol and Baby Oil 50/50% works like the comercial distillate.
Regards,
Gerald
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Hi Derek, I didnt understand how you heat the barbeque beads or am I missing the point somewhere?. Could you do a sketch as most of the time a simple drawing saves a lot of words!. Regards, walter.
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Hi PD's...Walter...in OZ.... the land of BBQ's...we have fire starter blocks..which are a white smokeless & odourless & burn with great propensity for say 10 minutes...these were supported in a S/S mesh basket & in turn ignite the BBQ heat beads which then glow for approx 30 minutes
I should have added the whole process was aided with a few modifications to my wifes hair dryer fan motor to provide a forced draft to the burner....... :sorry
Just thinking ....the fire started blocks were called 'Little Lucifiers'......& the BBQ heat beads are a compressed carbon composition about 1/3 the size of a cake of soap.....the just glow red & are also them selves smokeless & odourless .....Derek
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Hi Guys.
This system sounds like a similar one that we used to use in our club a few years ago. A metal tube just with a diameter just smaller than your funnel with the lower end covered with mesh. Put a smouldering piece of the carbon hand warmer stick, the type used by anglers and out door types. Cut a small piece of barbecue fire lighter block, the white waxy plastic type. Drop it in the tube and voilà instant smoke. But do not do it indoors, no really, DO NOT DO IT INDOORS. It stinks! This method went out of favour with our club for that reason. We now use incense sticks. Not so productive but far more pleasant to use.
If any one tries this method let us know how you get on.
Cheers Chipmonk.