RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Blake,
Family is overarching all. Good Fortune and Wishes for your Wife's solid recovery.
regards,
Painless

jarndice wrote:Priority's Blake, You know where you have to be and it is not here. My prayers and good wishes for your Lady's speedy recovery. shaun

As Shaun says your priority is your good lady all the best for a speedy recovery.
Eddie

Toy tanks can wait my friend your wife comes first. We can all wait take care of her.

Thanks for your consideration of my situation,

Kindest regards to you and your family hope for a speedy recovery.

Take all the time you need.

Just want to let everyone know that I am back 1005
The Super Smoker is back in production, all back orders have been shipped. The problems with the fans have hopefully been resolved and the Super Smoker II now comes with copper tubing at the exhaust outlets to solve the problem of the PVC tubing melting shut on the inside of the smoker.
I can be reached at cjs9@cornell.edu or through my web site www.radiocontrolcustomtanks.com
Thanks for all of the understanding during my health issues, thank God I am back to normal.
Carl

I am glad that you are better.. Health is a very important thing that we tent to take for granted when we are well.
.
Hopefully you can sort out the issues that have rather unfortunately tarnished the reputation of what is a really excellent Smoker .
I have had the pleasure of discussing the design with Blake, and of seeing the early drawings by Dan

Glad to hear you are feeling better, best of luck with your smoker.

OK, let’s get this problem fixed. First let me say I am the one making the Super Smoker II now. While most of the modifications I have made to the smoker didn't have to do with the smokers performance, but rather making it easier to build and to hook up to the tank. The one modification I did make was to change from a five ohm heating element to a three ohm heating element. This increased the the current required by about 1 Amp, well within the specifications of the RX-18 and Clark TK series.
The circuitry of the smoker is relatively simple and has been posted before. The heating element is a five ohm five watt wire wound resistor surrounded by a Kevlar wick. The fan speed control is a five volt regulator (LM 7805) and a 27 ohm resistor in series with the fan to give it an idle speed. The proportional speed is controlled by the motor voltage through a one way diode matrix. So the fan speed at idle produces a whiff of smoke and when the motor voltage increases the fan speed increases producing more smoke.
The fluid used in the smoker is water based “Fog Fluid” like that used in fog machines and is available in party supply stores or online. So now you know that there is no big secret to the Super Smoker II.

If those who have the smokers will note that it states the Super Smoker II was designed for the HL RX-18 and sub sequentially the Clark TK series boards and may not work with other boards / systems without modifications.

Let's address the Tiagen problem. When I first noticed this problem I contacted Eric at Taigen / IMEX to get some electronic specifications in their new 2.4 Gig board. What I was told did not correspond to measurements I was taking on the three Taigen 2.4 Gig units I had. I found the voltages varied from 4.7 VDC to 7.2 VDC. The units with the lower voltage did not operate the smoker at all and the one with the higher voltage caused intermittent problems. This is when I decided to add a notice in my instructions that other than RX-18 and Clark TK series some wiring modifications were required. I showed how to wire with a Tamiya system, which should work with all other systems.
To date I have not found a good explanation of why the Taigen/IMEX 2.4 Gig boards cause the problems with the Super Smoker II. When I test the smokers I sell I test every one running at 7.2 VDC on a regulated power supply. I have run the smoker at 12 VDC for 15 minutes without any melt down problems. So if anyone knows why this is a problem with the Taigen units I would really like to know. In the mean time I stand behind every smoker I sell and will fix or replace any smoker that fails. I should also point out here that the vast majority of failures have occurred from running the unit without sufficient fluid. That is a problem I can’t solve without some major modifications to the control circuitry such as thermal shut down which would require an increase in price, which I would rather not do. As always I am happy to respond to any questions you may have.
thanks for listening.
Carl

I doubt very much that the smoke unit switching transistor of the Taigen board can handle the load of a 3 Ohms resistor; witch is 2.5 Amps. at 7.5 Volts ( The power is : 7.5V X 2.5A.= 18.75 Watts )

I tested that transistor with a lighter load of 14 Ohms witch is 0.53 Amps at 7.5 Volts ( power of 3.9 Watts ); and the voltage at the smoke unit terminal was dropping below the input voltage necessary for the 7805 to supply 5 Volts to the fan.

Furthermore, the fan was connected directly to the 7805 output...
With a 27 Ohms resistor in line, it reduces even more the speed of the fan ...

Here are the readings that I got...
TEST 2 Heater ground connected to smoke unit ground
- Voltage to board: 7.5 V.
- Voltage to smoke unit terminal: 6.35 V.
- LM 7805 output: 4.79 V.

18.75 Watts is a lot of power for a plastic ( ABS ) enclosure ( I use a low power 15 Watts soldering iron for my delicate electronic weldings )

As I suggested before:
Connecting the heater element directly to the battery power switch should lighten the load on the Taigen board, thus allowing the fan to turn at the right speed on idle...

Yes you are correct that 18.73 watts is a lot for the small PVC housing, but with proper fluid and the fan running it should never get to the point of a meltdown. I have tested the Super Smoker II as high as 12VDC for 15 min. Lots of fluid, lots of smoke, but no meltdown. The Kevlar wick does suffer at these higher voltages, but that is the only problem I have found. By inserting a short piece of copper tubing I have solved the problem of the plastic tubing melting shut inside of the housing.

Treated properly the Super Smoker II should last a long time, I have one that is over 2 years old that I test on a regular basis. I am also experimenting with a different fan to see if I can get one to run reliably at lower voltages but not burn out at higher voltages.

The real problem is that the fluid used requires a higher temp than the oil based fluid used in the Taigen, Heng Long smoke unit. That is simply a chemistry issue and there is not much I can do about that, not that I haven't tried.

As I have said before I am always looking for a way to make the Super Smoker II better (as long as it doesn't increase the cost) and will welcome any thoughts on the matter. You can PM me at cjs9@cornell.edu
Carl