RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

You can buy the mineral oil at any drug store ; but I personally prefer baby oil ( which is mineral oil with added perfume ) that is available at any grocery store and cheaper ...I drove my tank inside my 1 bedroom apartment this winter and appreciated the "baby powder' smell of the baby oil ....

Saxondog wrote:Ok guys here is the information,Dan has agreed to allow me to post it,and it is the list of parts and the correct resistors. I will be making these units soon,the smaller version,as this occurs I will update the parts as we purchase them so you guys can build your own.Also Phil@rctankwars will be selling these again,and we are working together to bring this product back to the market. He also offer a EL-MOD comparable version.

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Hi Saxondog,

You can put me down for two when you have them, Had contacted Phil last year about them but i think he was having problems with supply.
Really glad to see there making a comeback,

Best, Mark

I've just made a partial oil smoker just to test the smoke output and its 20 times more then the current fogging fluid I have It has very good density and hang time in the air and thats with out a fan driving the smoke!
There is one nasty side affect, my god the smoke STINKS it smells like burnt chip fat its terrible. I have had to open all the windows in the flat and spray air freshener around like it was free Definitely will not be able to use this smoker indoors.

I've checked the length of my Nichrome and found that 25cm of hairdryer gauge wire gives a 2 to 3 second output heat time. I'm using Johnson baby oil as the fluid. Very very good smoke output, I need to get a new project box. Prototype 3 version 2 is in the pipeline

-x se7en x-

I bought some black food colouring to add to the standard HL fluid, hoping it give a darker smoke. It didn’t but leaves a nice sweet smell so I keep using it.

At a guess if your baby oil is smelling burnt, I think the element is getting too hot. Maybe run the fan to get airflow over it to help keep temp down a bit. Or diluting the baby oil with something.

Guys we tried everything to get Black smoke,Motor oil burning will give you black smoke,and after a while RED FLAME so beware . I've looked into the fogger type smoker for coloured smoke,but it seems to be available only in a light and leave type of product?

Or diluting the baby oil with something

With what though mate? The only thing that is soluble in oil is another oil. What about those aromatherapy oils would they work?

God that baby oil stinks and it gives me a headache There must be a way of having the best of both worlds, thick dense smoke, that don't stink up the place. I have also noticed that my original smoke fluid causes droplets of (water/un-vaporized) fog fluid in my exhaust tubes is there anyway to counter this?

-x se7en x-

It all depends of what you judge to be a " reasonable " level of smoke coming out of the exhaust of your tanks ...Personally , I settled for the smoke to be there ; but not to be the first thing that someone would notice when viewing a video of my tanks ...
Baby oil , when heated past a certain temperature will produce a thick smelly white smoke ; which is probably toxic ; given the fact that liquid paraffin is a by-product of oil refining ...
For that same reason , you cannot mix baby oil with oil used in aromotherapy because those are water based ....

Baby oil , when heated past a certain temperature will produce a thick smelly white smoke

I think this is what is happening. Would increasing the length of my nichrome wire counter this problem? For my disco fog fluid smoker I was using 16cm piece of Nichrome, in this oil smoker I'm using 25cm.

What type of heating element are you using by the way

-x se7en x-

I found the baby oil I tried to be a bit thick so on its own was not peculating up the wick to my resistor so found some thin paraffin based lamp oil to thin it with - only problem the lamp oil is for indoor use so is sold as non smoking and has cut down my smoke output so just trying to get the proportions right at the moment.

I've done a few modifications to my oil smoker, I've increased the length of Nichrome wire to 35cm or there about. Here is a short video of the smoker and my new proportional fan control system in operation. SMMMMOKING!!


After I did that video, I had a spare 500ohm pot going begging, So I have put it in-line with the heater element to control the voltage given to the heater.
Video of that coming soon, I'm now recovering from smoke inhalation

-x se7en x-