To Smoke, Or Not To Smoke, That Is The Question

[Burger_Patrol1]

I am working on a slow Tamiya Build and am on the fence about trying to convert it to be a smoker. I wanted to find out what tankers think about smoke units in general? I don't know much about them and electronics is my weak area, so I'm not sure if this would be worth the trouble. What do you think?
Pros?
Cons?

Thanks,
Dano

[Max-U52]

it's really all a matter of preference. Most tanks, especially the German tanks, didn't really produce smoke. We add the effect to get the wow factor, but it's not truly accurate. Now the Russian tanks, most of them being diesels, were a different animal and I've seen some videos of T34s that smoked like chimneys.

What kind of tank are you building? Smokers aren't that complicated and there are threads here for building more compact units, something you may need in a tammy tank.

[HERMAN BIX]

Ive found that smokers are a novel feature of a tank, depending on its context.
At a show or hobby expo, smokers are great, but for those that know the tank they are running, smokers are not so important for the exact reasons you mentioned.

Tell ya what

Put one in and make it work.
Then its up to you if or when you use it.
What else would you do with the space eh !!

[Burger_Patrol1]

it's really all a matter of preference. Most tanks, especially the German tanks, didn't really produce smoke. We add the effect to get the wow factor, but it's not truly accurate. Now the Russian tanks, most of them being diesels, were a different animal and I've seen some videos of T34s that smoked like chimneys.

What kind of tank are you building? Smokers aren't that complicated and there are threads here for building more compact units, something you may need in a tammy tank.

Hi Max-U52,
Thanks for your input...I am giving my old Tamiya Tiger 1 a face lift. I will look on some threads to see if anything jumps out at me. Thanks again, have a good one.
Regards,
Dano

[Burger_Patrol1]

Ive found that smokers are a novel feature of a tank, depending on its context.
At a show or hobby expo, smokers are great, but for those that know the tank they are running, smokers are not so important for the exact reasons you mentioned.

Tell ya what

Put one in and make it work.
Then its up to you if or when you use it.
What else would you do with the space eh !!

Thanks Mr. Bix....that sounds like real good advice!! At least I will be able to say I put a smoke unit in, even if I decide not to use it that much. I can run the smoke when my Nephews come to visit
Regards,
Dano

[RenoirLV]

I like smokers. Only the use is rather limited. I always switch it on when doing outdoor driving. I like that little smoke it produces.
But never indoors because of the smell.
I think this area is a bit problematic because a realistic effect is achieved by default pump action smokers that are cheap and ok but make a terrible noise.
And those that are silent do not really make the smoke effect realistic. As they are driven by a computer fan and do not make puffs.
I currently have one of the latter which is proportional and all that stuff but Im not entirely happy with it.
These fan units are small and efficient, but they do not produce much smoke and it comes out in a stream, which is not good.
Then there are some hard core units like Benedini that take up so much space that not all people can afford them. But they will give extreme smoke. Perhaps even too much for a Tiger tank.
My ideal solution would be to make the pump-action smoker less noisy (if possible at all) and make it proportional. I've been toying with this idea for a while.

As far as I know Tamiya has a huge speaker box at the end of the lower hull. It is just in the way for any smoker unit.

[RobW]

I don't use them, simply because the idea of a heat source & flammable liquid in an expensive plastic container (the tank) really doesn't appeal!

[RenoirLV]

Are there actually any reports of fire?

[Tiggr]

Smoke for me....

Would be better if the smoke kicked in on ignition, but hey ho, makes me smile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5GojDFqu4



Same tank with Beier sound card added:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT7ZmjDejSQ&t=89s

[Rad_Schuhart]

I don't use them, simply because the idea of a heat source & flammable liquid in an expensive plastic container (the tank) really doesn't appeal!

The heat is not very heat and it wont melt any plastic... And also I had never ever a problem of igniting the heng long parafin or baby oil. It does not burn not even if you try to do it on purpose...

So yeah, plenty of smoke for me.