Hey Guys…I was wondering if they made smokestakes that produced steam in HO scale LMk Joseph
If I was planning to have a cloud of vapor on my layout, I think I’d arrange to produce it by dropping small chunks of dry ice into water. Done in a closed container, the results could be piped wherever wanted by connecting up tubing.
Using real ‘steam’ (actually, heated water vapor) raises several issues on a model railroad. First, it takes a lot of energy to vaporize water, which could be a power draw problem - our AC circuits don’t have infinite capacity, and mine are already challenged by layout and lighting loads. Second, the bloomin’ thing would be HOT! Getting singed or scalded could ruin your whole day. Third, the condensate would have to go somewhere, and the somewhere would probably be pretty close to the point of discharge. Wet scenery and soggy trackwork are a bummer. If you use DCC, the combination of hot water vapor and electronic circuit boards is spelled T-R-O-U-B-L-E.
If I haven’t discouraged you, it would be possible to put a container (preferably transparent) on a hot plate, then connect by tubing as with dry ice. Insulate the tubing, or the steam will condense and run back before ever reaching the outlet. In operation, keep a sharp eye on the water level and top up as necessary.
All in all, a stationary steam generator would be almost as much of a PITA as a live steam loco, and not nearly as satisfying. I like to try all kinds of things, but I’ll pass on this one.
Chuck
Check out the Walthers site - there should be some there, smoke stacks. A German firm Seuthe (sp?) has some. Keep in mind these “smoke” and not steam by heating an oily liquid which tends to settle on everything - track, rolling stock, buildings, scenery. Probably not something you’d really want to use very much.
Bob Boudreau
Plus, I think steam would be like real water, in that, it probably doesn’t model well.
Keep in mind dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. Can’t imagine wanting a layout room filled with such vapor, could be deadly. It also evaporates fairly quickly, would need to be replenished often. Containers, piping, anything that it comes in contact with would need to be able to handle it’s extreme cold. It has to be handled with heavily insulated gloves or tools.
Bob Boudreau
You know in my mind I was thinking about the smoke products that we use for our locos, but my hands typed steam . I guess I am looking for a smokestack that can use the liquid smoke as for LOcos… Joseph
We’ve got one of those “electrostatic” humidifiers that puts out cool water vapor. I’m not sure how well you could route something like that through a smokestack, but it might be something to think about. They don’t take a lot of power, and all they do is put some water vapor into the air. That’s not something you want to do in a damp basement, but if you’ve got a dry upstairs room it might work.
As for the loco-smoke stuff - you probably want to stay away from it. The smoke produces an oily residue that you have to clean off everything, particularly your track if you want your trains to continue to run. With a “fixed base” smoke unit, the “pollution” would be concentrated in one area, but would still spread all over your layout.
Smoke is a gimmick. While it may look interesting, the current generation of smoke systems are dirty and smelly, and most serious modellers avoid them.
Obviously everyone giving their opinion about Seuthe smokers have never used one. I have 3 on my layout and they don’t smell, they don’t put a film of oil on everything, and they are not even close to the old smoker mechanisms in locomotives. They use a special super light oil product and run 10 to 15 min on a few drops. In fact, the fluid they use looks like Wahl clipper oil, which some tell you is a good thing for your track LOL, not that sticky old motor oil looking fluids that Lionel and Tyco uses. If you put locomotive ‘smoke’ fluid in them they are ruined in fact. They operate well and don’t use much power, a toy transformer will run several. They run so cool they can be put in plastic smoke stacks and chimneys without damage. The downsides are they don’t put out a belching column of smoke, it’s pretty weak actually. The fluid is pretty expensive. They quit working rather often, so make provision for swapping them out. I mount them in square plactic mounts to make changing them easy. They are great for openhouses and impressing your buddies, but you will soon tire of filling them and buying fluid and replacement smokers. Fred
another way you can similate steam is by using cotton balls…take a cotton ball and tear off pieces of the cotton and form it to look like a plume of smoke or steam…lightly hit it with a dark gray paint with an airbrush, and then glue it into the stacks…it’s not real smoke or steam but looks convincing enough…chuck
dry ice wouldn’t be any good for this type of smoke effect anyway , as CO2 gas is heavier than air and it sinks to the lowest level rather than rising into the air as steam or smoke does . just remember the last time you were at a concert where they used a dry ice ‘smoke’ machine , it drifts along the floor and falls off the edge of the stage . not the effect we’re looking for from a factory smoke stack
because CO2 gas falls to the floor it makes it unlikely that it would be fatal unless you were sleeping on the floor (everyone see that CSI episode?) , all you have to do is stand up to get clean air
I use Sueth’s Chimney smoke stack which looks like a house smokestack. I then cut a round piece of styrene to fit in the MIlwaukee Beer & Ale smoke stack. I cut a same size square hole that fits the house stack, next I installed thr house stack into the squar hole in the circle of styrene. I then glued the styrene into the Beer & Ale smokestack. Of course before I did that I soldered longer wire to the Sueths wire. and I used it a couple of times before I redid the layout. Now I got to get the layouts second layer to install the beer and ale. Remember If you install the smoke unit further down the stack the smoke wont travel so far. Mine doesnt travel that far and shouldnt settle on anything to important.
No way will I add any sort of smoke generator to my layout room - It’s enought just to keep up with dust.
I have seen some of these waterfall displays and they are just belching steam, fake most likely, dunno unless theres some trickery to it.
You might want to try a theater/club fog machine. The smaller ones do not generate continuous fog, and have a bit of a warm up time but does the job. they will FILL a living room in a minute or two.
I use one as part of my halloween decorations. Fluid is 20 bucks a GALLON and a gallon lasts a very long time. You can hook the generator output to a tube or a manifold and smaller tubes to distribute the fog. Lots of FUN! [:D]
Fluid is nontoxic, supposedly leaves no residue, but it is water based and has a slight perfume odor.
Here is a link to one supplier:
http://www.mcminone.com/search.asp?keyword=fog+machine&restrict=3829808
Now wouldn’t that be fun! A layout room in which you cannot see anything! “If you could see over here is my national contest winning 50 stall roundhouse full of my scratchbuilt steam engines”…etc.!
Bob Boudreau
A great visual. Perfect for modeling parts of the west coast or a foggy morning in the east. You can still see loco and building lights as blurry orbs. Think of the money you can save on detailed scenery and structures. Even toy train stuff will look good.
Of course you can turn down the intensity and amount of fog or simply shunt some of it out a window so that the neighbors wonder what’s going on. Maybe they’ll even call the fire dept.
Just for future reference, Concert, Television and Motion Picture companys have not used “Dry Ice” for a very very long time. once someone came out with a electric fogger, everyone moved to that source due to the fact that while it might smell a bit (early versions of the juice really stunk) noone is going to have to deal with the hazards of Safely using Dry Ice.
I have used just what Iarak has mentioned a Fog Generator. I got mine up here in the Twin Cities at a store called Party City for about 10 bucks, and a pint of the “Fog Juice” for I think it was 3.99. I have seen them at Spenser Gifts, Wal Mart, Target. Im sure of course the best time to find one is going to be around the halloween season.
With a little inventive searching of your local Mom and Pop hardware store plumbing dept, Im sure you could come up with a manifold system to route as many lines to Stacks as you might need each with a valve to release as much fog as needed to make it look just right.
The German firm of Seuthe produces a range of smoke generators just for this purpose.
A couple of them work flawlessly fairly high up in my brewery smoke stack. No residue, no oily film etc. This is 2006 mind you.
Good luck
Bruno F. Graf
Munich
CO2 sinks to the floor, yes, but do you know what happens as it builds up. It becomes CO or carbon monoxide, something well worth avoiding. It doesn’t take a big buildup of CO2 to produce it and it is deadly. Take my advice and avoid the dry ice route like the plague.
Ok, all these fog machines and dry ice will send the “smoke” to the track bed, not the ceiling. If you have a well ventilated train room, you could go out and get some Army Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) and use the heater from there. They do get hot, and produce some sort of hydrogen gas though. But then you can have a cold meal to eat also (still tastey, usualy).
Or you could get super extravagent, and pipe in smoke from your fireplace, gut get an exaust fan…