i want to build my own smoke generator for a scale truck. i looked on ebay and found a HL tank smoke generator, but have no idea of how they work or could be wired upto my truck.
what kinda voltage do they need to run?

also, i saw several smoke generators for trains. anyone think that would be easier to use?

i noticed that they use a special oil? do they just heat up the oil?

They burn the oil/smoke fluid, it's either a heating element or now guys are using ceramic resistors with much better reliabilty

How do smoke generators work? POORLY!!

Ok, joking aside.... The Heng Long smoke generator is notoriously unreliable. How it works is a resiastive wire wrapped in a cotton wick sits in an enclosed box with some smoke oil. Outside this box is a simple pump to push air into the box, and out thru the exhaust. Current is run thru the restive wire, causing it to heat the cotton soaked with the smoke oil, causing it to smoke. The weak link is the resistive wire in the HL units. I'd look at HL to use as a prototype (check out www.matomart.com for an idea on price- they sell two for around $15). Get everything roughed out, then replace the HL unit with a good one meant for RC Airplanes. Either that or research on how to replace the resistive wire in the HL unit for some (hard to find) fuse wire (a UK system).

I've seen an aircraft smoker set up on a tricked out E-Maxx, looked pretty kewl. Myself, I run nitro on my trucks (except my crawler), so there is already smoke. <koff, koff>