RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

RenoirLV wrote:Are there actually any reports of fire?

none I have ever seen or heard of....

I use and sell TARR smokers. (Have 8 tanks with them and have had them in probably 10 others) You can get proportional ones and when you use them with megasteam look and run great. You have your choice plastic or thick aluminum box which is what I use. they get warm but you can still hold them in your hand no problem. The resistor would never get hot enough for open flame, only pumping 5V and low amps through it...

Thanks all for the great Information on the smokers. Good discussion and points well taken.
Regards,
Dano

Max-U52 wrote: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.

I agree,

Tanks that produced a lot of smoke while in hiding would be giving away their position to easily to the enemy.. Might as well set off a flair and say "shoot here."

We do it because it looks cool and the wow factor as Max said.. But the reality is, real tanks very rarely produced any real smoke unless they were in serious need of maintenance, or had a bad tune job done on the motor..

As to the T34, well, it was Russian made.. What do you expect?

I like smokers in my tanks as they bring them to life - especially the plume when I start mt KT with a Tarr smoker and MegaSteam oil. I also boost the voltage a little on this but it's not really needed the regulator works mostly to maintain voltage as the battery dips with use and less smaoke would otherwise result. The main problem with Tarr smokers is that they produce a steady stream of smoke rather than pulsing it. One option is conversion to an acoustic smoker but this can get a little tricky too.
In truth I typically turn the smoker off if I'm running my tank for any length of time, it is mainly a show thing and, as already said, a matter of personal choice.

Diesel sooting is different than petrol smoke.
Diesels back then would have been real sooty..................petrols really shouldnt 'smoke' as such unless they were in bad need of valve guides or rings etc, but the rate of destruction would have meant that most would have been fairly early in their wear lives.
I assume Soviet Diesels would have been also newish in service life, but prone to heavy soot and poor injection ratio due to manufacturing inconsistency and filter restrictions.
Assumption, but looking at period film, the only explanation I can think of.

Well, cop a peek at this Sherman,then...
and then this Rolls-Royce powered Cromwell:

Yeah, granted they're now pensioners, but presumably the piston rings,valves and valve stem oil seals, have been replaced since the War

I reckon that Sherman is cold start with loads of choke. Then it settles. Its white smoke- im leaning to over fueling.
The Cromwell seems to be a bit of oil smoke. Blue and worse when revved after idle.
Im not familiar with either engine, but thats my guess.
Soviet AFV's being Diesel had no smoke as such, but worsening clouds of 'coalburning' soot due to progressively clogged air & fuel filters would have been normal. If their oil became carbon saturated, the sooting would have been horrendous !!

White smoke from a petrol engine exhaust pipe is either a cold engine or a blown head gasket,
White smoke from a diesel engine exhaust pipe is usually a failed injector and /or a failed injector pump allowing unmetred fuel into the engine.

Over filling with engine oil can also cause horrendous clouds of white smoke, don't ask how I found that out