Hello,
I was wondering how could you put a smoke unit in a diesel engine, that would not puff like a steam engine? I’ve seen layout photos, where the diesel is smoking . Is there a certain smoke unit just for diesels? And also where would it fit, if you have a DCC loco with sound? Any input would be valuable.
Willjr
O gauge Lionel and MTH are the ones with diesels that unrealistically smoke. They have large reservoirs to hold the smoke fluid and fans that blow it out.
Bob Boudreau
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the input, but I saw HO scale layouts with diesels that smoke. Are there any special smoke units out there just for diesels?
Thanks, Willjr
LOL If your diesel smokes your decoder is frying!
I had a decoder fry one time in the hidden staging on the club layout so nobody saw it. The rest of the consist pushed the engine out into the outside world and I look to find a smoking crater in the top of my loco. not a good day…[tdn]
One word of caution is that you will have more layout cleaning to do.since any of the smoke units use an oil based smoke fluid that residue will settle on the rails buildings and just about everything else in your layout room.Having said that If you thumb through the walthers cat,I think you will find that there are separate smoke units available,likly from some of the european mnfr’s.I would think that if it’s a separate function on your loco you would need to wire it into your decoder.In most diesels you will want it under the exhaust stack so shoe horning the unit’s and a decoder in may be a challenge on the more modern locos.But an older deisel such as F or E units would maybe be a best choice for installation.As they have the most voluninous interiors. Good luck. Rob
You’re right about the diesels being older PA’s and F and E units. The pictures I saw were on Ted York’s Cajon Pass in MRR special issue Great Model RR’s. The smoke adds alot of realism to the scene. His layout is DCC equiped also. I looked in the 2005 Walthers cat. they have several smoke units, I’ll most likely have to order some and play doctor with one of my locos. Thanks for the input.
Here are some pics of prototypes with unrealistically smoke [8D]
and my unrealistically MTH with smoke [:)]
Well by “unrealistic smoke” I meant the models sitting or moving along with a really large plume of gray smoke coming out of them like they were on fire. On a steam engine, OK, but way overdone on the MTH diesels that I’ve seen.
As I also mentioned, these large scale engines have large tanks to hold the smoke fluid. Using a suitably sized smoke unit that will fit into an HO scale diesel would not leave much room if any to install a reservoir. And then there’s the access to the smoke unit to add fluid pretty regularly. Make a removable roof hatch?
I had a smoke chimney in a sawdust burner on my modular layout, and would insert some fluid into it using an eyedropper. It would only hold a few drops, smoking for 5-10 minutes or so. I would only load it up once in a while as I did not want it to smoke all the time. It ran on a fixed voltage from a power pack accessory terminal.
I wonder if such a unit would work with the lower voltages of an operating engine? I burned out the smoke units twice in my sawdust burner, don’t know if I let them run dry with the power still on or not . When the third one (at $20.00 each) failed, I forgot about it. So another thing to consider - can you keep smoke fluid in the unit, or would you be able to turn it off? If its connected to the engine’s power, then it would be on all the time and would probably be toast if let run dry.
Some things to think about.
Bob Boudreau
I am sorry Bob,
I couldn’t help but to reply to your posting. [:D]
I have to agree with you, the smoke unit in an MTH engine is about 15% of the total size of an HO engine. [B)] MTH does have three smoke setting, low, medium and high and of course off. All of which can be controlled by the remote with DCS. [^]
tom