Gerula

I'm just about throwing the damn thing off the window.

Everything inside it works just fine: the heater element is heating, the motor is spinning, the cylinder is pumping, the two small plastic hoses are nor clogged, yet no smoke. I enlarged a bit the hole on the cylinder wall, still nothing.

If I remove the 4 screws and lift the cap just a little bit, I instantly get tons of smoke. So it's obvious that the combustion chamber isn't getting air. Itried it with the two plastic hoses removed: got some faint smoke, almost incolor.


Any ideas? (please don't say "mod it", I want to keep it stock atm)

YHR

I won't say Mod it. I'll say throw it away. They are the first thinks I take out of the tank to make room for other electronic stuff. I never had any luck with them, and I don't even bother with them anymore

yellowshaker

My Feedback: (1)

Perhaps there is too much fluid in there for the smoker to work right?

Gerula

Nope, I even removed all the fluid and let inside just the soaked cotton. Still no luck.

Since it smokes like hell with the cap lifted off a bit, it's obvious there's not enoughair coming inside the combustion chamber. The big question is why?

I made an old style unit smoke like a furnace (can only be used outdoors now). ut for some reason this new style unit beats me.

yellowshaker

My Feedback: (1)

How about replacing the piston unit with a small fan? That works well and draws less power. It is also dead quiet while running.

Gerula

Yes, but you lose the "puffing" effect. Unless you start doing some heavier modding.

swathdiver

Try reversing the wires. These new ones sounds like the old ones, good idea but unreliable. RC Train smokers are much better.

strmnd54

Your smoke unit is working in a vacuum !!!!
I tested those units with the piston for a while and found out that on the " back stroke " , the piston is sucking in air through the exhaust pipes and whatever smoke and air present in the heat chamber ....
On the forward stroke , it's pushing that volume of air and smoke out the exhausts ...
What happens when you add fluid and extend the tail pipes is that you reduce the air -smoke volume sucked in by the piston ; and since it cannot push out more than it sucked in ; your system is in a vacuum ....You should notice a change in the sound when you open the cover of the unit while running ....
One way to solve the problem would be to enlarge the exhausts ports ... Try 1/4 " O.D. ... It should restore a positive pressure in the system ...
In any case you'll find out after a month or so of running that the rubber head of the piston will start to wear out and you're gonna have smoke coming from inside your tank ....
That's what brought me to build my pulse re generator ......

Gerula

It's not working in a vacuum anymore. Among the spare parts that came with the Pantiger there was an old stylesmoke unit with a broken motor cap.I dismantled it and noticed that the piston hadan o-ring on the head, instead of the thick gasket used on the new style unit.I used the pyston in the new style unit and now,with the plastic tubes on, if watched in good light against a dark background, you cansee the two smoke lines being shot some 2 inches outside the tubes. The problem is that the smoke is practically incolor, and I really cannot figure out why. Again, if I remove the cap a bit,a lotof grey smoke is formed almost instantly.

The Rx18 is feeding the unit with 7.2V (at least it was when I measured it, maybe it decreases when the battery discharges).

I'm thinking that maybe the black L shaped adapters that connect the plastic tubes to the cap are glued too far down on the cap pipes, and so there's too little air coming in for the oilcombustion to happen?


Reversing the polarity of the wires inside the plug only makes the motor assembly more noisy (running backwards, probably some of the plastics don't like it). Reversing the heater element wires does absolutelly nothing, it still heats and that's it.

Gerula

OK, I just managed to remove the two black plastic L shaped connectors that link the cap pipes to the clear plastic tubes. It was exactly whatI thought, the connectorswereplugged too low on the cap pipes, so their exhaust pipe that plugs into the clear plastic tubes was half obstructed.

Now, with the clear plastic tubes connected directly to the cap pipes, I can see the smoke in mormal indoor lighting condtions, with the unit on the carpet, from maybe 1 meter. strmnd54 was partially right too, since removing the clear plastictubes results in more black smoke being generated.

Apparently the problem with these units has more components:

1. The airflow trough the tubes gets obstructed by low quality connectors (and on the Pz III there are two of them on each tube)

2. The size of the piston is too small to cover the volume of the combustion chamber and the volume of the clear plastic tubes. It still moves some air (not working on vacuum), on each cycle, but not enough to createblack smoke.

Now, for the second problem, I'm thinking of carefully filling most of the combustion chamber with cotton. This way I will reduce it's available volume, and hopefully allow the cylinder to fully refresh the air inside at each cycle

danlrc

Instead of cotton, try fiberglass insulation.

Gerula

Sounds like a good idea, since it won't catch fire that easy. Thanks for the tip.

Gerula

 OK, I figured it out.

  It's exactly the opposite to the combustion chamber being too large and the piston being unable to push out the air. After I put in some extra fiberglass insulation, I noticed that the smoke was gettin even more incolor. So I took everything out and replaced the rather large stock cotton wrapping with a small piece of fiberglass insulation, wrapped around the bottom of the U formed by the heating element. BUM, lots of smoke.

 So, what actually happened is that the cotton piece was too large and was cooling the heating element. Probably the guys at HL wanted to make sure that the heater element doesn't get burned immediatelly if the unit runs out of oil, but overdid it to the point where the unit wasn't  working properly anymore.

 I will make tomorrow some pics and maybe start a new topic about how to fix the stock HL smoke unit. Thanks to everyone who contributed with suggestions.