RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Mine is an original 2007 model year single speed one(my Tiger is an original S&S).
It works very well,but I gather that the later ones(still the piston pump type)are
fully proportional and blast it out at first as the tank starts to move and then ease off as the
vehicle gets underway.

Has anyone converted an original single speed type to the later proportional variety without
hacking it about and faffing with a fan?
Is there a bit of wiring trickery that enables the smoker motor to be hooked into the main drive motors wiring so that it increases and decreases revs with the power requirements of the motors??

Mark

You have answered your own question in a way,the new smoker does receive power from both motors.As motor RPM increases the smoker pump motor increases as well. If converting an older smoker you could use one motor to wire to the pump,but this might cause an imbalance between the motors,which I think is why H/L designed the new smoker with the board to channel motor power drain equally,or balanced.Understand I am just stating an opinion,the only smoker that has ever worked well for me is the new model. Cheers Blake

To cut down on heat at smoke pump unit and power drain at drive FETS, just hook up to one motor to both inputs. That little board gets VERY hot . This Does not really affect steering or tracking. No one will notice if your pump does not put out a tone of smoke when you turn left.

So,I'd need to run two wires back from either motor back to the smoker motor,it's that simple?

Would I need to remove the original wiring from the small board on top of the unit to the
smoker motor or can that be left in place??

I also presume I'd need to fit two inline switches,one to the smoker element and one to the motor so that I could turn them off when I don't want smoke.

Mark

The little smoker board has four solder square spots(the biggest ones with nothing hooked up to them in your pics). Basically + and - from each motor. I can't remember if + on outside or inside. This powers motor. The smoke element is powered by the rx18 board. With one motor hooked up, the smoker does not always run the motor at idle, but kicks right in when you throttle up.

xrad wrote:The little smoker board has four solder square spots(the biggest ones with nothing hooked up to them in your pics). Basically + and - from each motor. I can't remember if + on outside or inside. This powers motor. The smoke element is powered by the rx18 board. With one motor hooked up, the smoker does not always run the motor at idle, but kicks right in when you throttle up.

Thanks xrad.

Only trouble is that mine is an original single speed smoke unit that's powered by the original
RX-13 board that was fitted at the factory(as I said,it's an early S&S Tiger).

The RX-13 board has an extra heatsink fitted to the original small heatsink and the vehicle
has 3 to 1 gearboxes fitted.

I've heard all the tales about the RX-13 frying it's power FETs when it's overworked,so that's
why I asked if all I need to do is run wires from a drivemotor to the smoker motor to make it rev in tandem with the drive motor and do I need to remove the wires from the smoker unit's
board to the motor.

Mark

No, you need to do much more than that. Smoker motors run on different voltage and current requirements. I would not waste time trying to convert an old smoker. There is an actual circuit on the little green board on the new proportional smokers that reduces and regulates current (hence the excess heat with two motor hook-up). Or you could build the circuit board which requires one D882 (probably used as a cheap voltage regulator), 6 diodes, and one resistor. This thing gets hot with full motor power (so hot you can't touch it....probably in need of a good sink)

New proportional smokers are pretty cheap and available.

Cheers for that mate.

Bugger!!,I've just set up a new switch and pipes for the smoke unit to turn off the smoke and power to the motor.
Oh well,I was trying to do it on the cheapo,I'll just have to save my pennies.

Mark

You might try the wanted section,most guy's remove the smokers as they are problematic and seldom operate as designed.I have replaced the smoker with the newer model and it fried the element within four hours of run time.My replacement unit is on hold waiting for a new element before install,I like the effect some don't. Sax

I agree w/ Sax. These smoker are the cheapest part of the tank. I have been through at least 5 or six smokers and have upgraded a few. I have a box of broken bits but no extra speed boards...

Careful if you mess with the element...must be made of old mosquito pubes because it falls right apart! Cheers for Chuality!