Is it possible to add smoke to older HO steam engines (DC)?
Yes, but…
Without lecturing about the often unpleasant suprises associated with having smoke coming from toy trains, you can get after-market smoke units from companies like Seuthe. Whether or not any one of them can fit where you need it to be is another matter. You may have to do some milling of shell, the frame, any internal bulk weights, or all of them. Then, of course, comes the wiring, and you would want a switch probably to keep the thing from running hot when it wasn’t producing smoke…I’m guessing here.
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-Crandell
Playing devil’s advocate here - WHY???
No smoke unit that will fit into an HO locomotive will produce that tower of steam, soot and cinders that characterizes the first full-stroke CHUFF!!! as motion begins. Likewise, no smoke oil I’ve ever heard of can duplicate that black cloud thrown out by poor combustion of low grade coal.
Then there’s the minor (or not so minor) problem of air pollution in the layout space. Both my wife and I have breathing problems…
I consider small-scale smoke to be similar to small-scale sound. If all it is is a feeble shadow of the real thing, I’d rather leave it to my imagination.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with silent, smokeless steam)
I agree, Chuck!
Those Seuthe smoke units are far away from representing the real thing. That thin “thread” of smoke evaporating from the stack looks more like a cigarette than a working steam engine - a bit flimsy for my taste.
As a kid, I was given Marklin´s “smoking” 2-10-0 class 44 steamer. It was a killer then, but I de-installed the smoke unit after a few runs, because the smoke fluid “greased” up the entire loco with a thin, oily film and the “smoking” lasted only for a couple of minutes.
MTH´s smoke units are somewhat improved, but the real thing they are not. Realistic looking smoke can be had only in the larger scales, with big (not yet black) smoke coming out of the stack, synchronized to the turn of the wheels, smoke coming out of the cylinder valves and even the whistle and the safety valve. I hate to run that indoors, though.
In all, I don´t think that installing a Seuthe unit is worth the trouble.