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This page gives some advice in using smoke units.

http://www.trainweb.org/girr/tips/tips3/smoke_tips.html

From what I can see you should be able to use it with a battery and not worry about the ground earth. Don't take that as gospel though. I would have clipped the yellow wire to the positive terminal and the brown to the negative.

Have you got a multimeter to test the battery voltage?

If the yellow was the power, positive lead from the battery should have gone there.

It depends on the motor but if you reversed the polarity you could have burned the motor out. It would have worked for a bit and then it would have died.

Some motors will work fine reversed, while others won't work at all. Some will work for a bit and then burn out

Some of these smoke generators don't use a motor.

Very true, regardless of motor or not reversing the polarity usually doesn't have positive effects

skycapt44 wrote:
So I have had a chance to build the smoke connections. unfortunately it didn't go so well. The smoke machine has 2 wires. A yellow wire which goes to the power and a brown wire which is supposed to go to the ground (when used on a model train) I have a A23 battery and box and using connectors I clipped the positive terminal to the brown wire and the negative to the yellow terminal. I added the smoke liquid, put the battery in and the machine let of a light smoke for about 30 seconds and stopped.

Looking at the smoke liquid it looks like it has expired back in 2011 but I am not sure if that is a big deal or not. Needless to say I can't seem to make it work anymore.

The battery got relatively hot but nothing to severe.

Any help or insight would be helpful
Thanks

I used these about 8 years ago in some models. The smoker is a simple resistor coil that gets hot and basically burns off the smoke drops which are actually an oil of sorts. I am 99% sure that these are not polarity sensitive and would work either way. The battery got hot because it was discharging at a rate probably higher than it should be due to the higher resistance in the coil of the smoker. That said I would recommend not going in this direction. It was always cool to have on the table but pretty much pissed off your opponent as well as opponents on other tables due to the smoke and smell hehe. Also something to remember is the smoker gets hot and will melt plastic that is close to it. More smoke and toxic fumes for you hehe.

Thanks Fishboy. I understand I likely won't use it all the time at tournaments it was merely to showcase for fun and at home for hobby and model sake. The unit says it is designed for 10-14volts. I used a 12v A23 battery. The fact the first time I set it up and it smoked a little makes me think it could work but now that i've tried several times it hasn't done a thing. What would you suggest I try?

Put a meter on the battery and see if it is okay and see what the voltage reads. I don't know much about your battery but some batteries are labeled at 12 volts or 3 volts but an actual measurement shows the fresh battery is a higher voltage. You may have burnt out the heating element on the smoker or the battery drained very fast. Your oil could be bad too but my guess is it's your source. Did your smoking element get orange hot like a cars cigarette lighter? As a test you could try putting it on your car battery (probably around 13 volts when the car is not running so should be in the tolerance of the unit. Don't put it in there if the car is running as that would bump it up to 14.4 volts typically. Also as a test you could put your Ohm meter on each lead of the smoker element and see if you have a resistance value. If it's open you probably burnt out the element.

Most of these smoke units are designed to take the model train's power. If you find out the typical current (Amperes) a 12V model train needs that should be about what the smoke unit wants. (I presume the smoke machine doesn't need the user to add more electronics at any rate -- I mean it comes as a complete unit just needing to be wired for power.)

Different types of batteries have different abilities to generate current.

Here is the data sheet for the Energizer A23.
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/A23.pdf

It doesn't seem to state the maximum possible current it will supply, but I doubt it is very much.

Wikipedia article on A23 batteries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A23_battery

I am beginning to suspect the battery itself cannot supply the required current to keep the smoke generator going once it is up to temperature. In other words the smoke machine is probably OK, the battery needs to be replaced, and you really want to find a bigger battery.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Most of these smoke units are designed to take the model train's power. If you find out the typical current (Amperes) a 12V model train needs that should be about what the smoke unit wants. (I presume the smoke machine doesn't need the user to add more electronics at any rate -- I mean it comes as a complete unit just needing to be wired for power.)

Different types of batteries have different abilities to generate current.

Here is the data sheet for the Energizer A23.
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/A23.pdf

It doesn't seem to state the maximum possible current it will supply, but I doubt it is very much.

Wikipedia article on A23 batteries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A23_battery

I am beginning to suspect the battery itself cannot supply the required current to keep the smoke generator going once it is up to temperature. In other words the smoke machine is probably OK, the battery needs to be replaced, and you really want to find a bigger battery.

Loving the initial idea; something I plan on doing at a later stage (currently working on a multi LED fading circuit for a Morkanaught)

I'd be inclined to think along the same lines as above.
The A23 battery, while providing the right voltage is most likely unable to handle the current draw of that smoker (which will be quite high), as its the current which is used to heat up the coil and burn your 'smoke' oils.

I would consider thinking of a way of providing more space for a larger battery. Perhaps in the base? although if you haven't got room in a stompa then what else is gona have room?? Those boys are huge!

You could also run 2 A23s in parallel to keep the voltage but up the amps.

The thing is the A23 is a stack of button cells that individually supply a weak current at low voltage and stack up to 12V through being in series.

Two of them will help but maybe not enough.

I would have thought there is quite a lot of room in a Stompa.

Can Science not help here? If you find the internal dimensions of the Stompa you will be able to determing the size of battery that can go into it. It might be possible to wire up say 8 AA batteries to get the required voltage and amperage.

The stompa does have plenty of room. I am investigating the 8 block of AA batteries it's just not a stock item so I have to buy online.

The A23 must be far to weak as I did get a tad of smoke at the start but it fizzled so I assume just not enough juice.

I'm going to try the 8 AA once I get my hands on a box and I am certain it will fit comfortably in the stomps belly.

My only other concern is the fact that the heating element could get hot enough to melt the plastic of the stompa's exhaust port.

The 8AA battery block works like a charm! The smoke is thick and even pops a few rings here and there. Very pleased with the results. Guess it just needed more juice.

Glad to hear it wasn't burned out.

Now: or it didn't happen!

It sounds great. We want not just picture but video!!

I've never added video before, any tips on the best way to add the file. I have one I took with my phone.

Perhaps video can't be attached into DakkaDakka.

Animated GIFs should work, though. Can you convert a short bit of video into an animated gif?

Hang on, I am being stupid again. You can upload the video into YouTube and attach the YouTube code into DakkaDakka.