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

Thanks for that Peter - Nice looking model by the way...

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

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 :-)

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

The best way to get smoke like that is to burn good old coal, with a high sulfur content.
Regards,
Gerald

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

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.

Quote from: ijigI 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!

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:

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.

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...)

No need for special smoke generatorsâ€" 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!

Tell us more about mothballs?

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?