Over a year and another Valentine's Day has passed by since my last post. What a different place the world is now. Sorry for the delay, it took me a long time to reverse engineer the wiring diagram for Steve's Smoke and Steam unit in the 8F and by then it was the sailing season so modelling got put on the back burner. Then it was flat out finishing Love Lane wiring for Telford, then it was doing more Love Lane wiring for Bristol, then I moved on to trying to develop a different smoke system. In the meantime Len Cattley asked for a SB Smoke System for his 9F to be ready for the Scale 7 Albury meeting and that was cancelled although I had started on it by getting a new decoder suitable for the 9F and ADAPLU50 board from YouChoos.
Primarily for Len and Kev T’s benefit here are the details of Steve’s system as I understand it. Firstly though there are 2 snags that need to be understood by anyone intending to use it:
1. As mentioned by Richard Carr the heater coils are prone to burn out when the smoke fluid level gets low, if this happens then the only solution is to strip the loco down to take out the offending unit and solder in new coils. With the 8F this is a pain because the backhead has to be removed and it is really tricky. Steve Baldock had been trying to come up with a solution but as far as I know he hadn’t found one that would fit in the space. An electronic fluid level monitor appears to be the simplest, I haven’t found anything accurate and reliable that will fit so any ideas are welcome. Otherwise the practical solution is to fill the tanks at each session and fairly accurately time the smoke output and stop before it runs out. It is very easy to overfill the tanks, then smoke fluid runs into the fan motors but luckily they don’t seem to mind, just leave it to dry out for 30 minutes before running.
2. Fumes. I haven’t seen any other system that approaches Steve’s for realism but it does create a smell that offends some people. Also when used in a normal house the fumes affect my chest and so I have stopped using it at home except for a few minutes testing. It seems some shows are now banning smoke units under the “Vaping” rules. Steve tried several different smoke fluids and found the ESU oil was the least offensive, I’ve tried a few more and haven’t found anything better. As a result of the fume problem I have been experimenting with an ultrasound system that uses water originally developed by David Viewing for his G1 Victorian locos. I have it working in a J50 tank with synchronised chuffing, blower etc. but its nothing like as impressive as Steve B’s steam effects.
Here are the components needed for the SB system:
Zimo MX645 decoder with PLUX22 connection and ADAPLU50 board and stay-alive capacitor. This combination is either shrink wrapped or covered in cling film to insulate it.
Loudspeaker. Steve used a massive TangBang double unit mounted in the tender of the 8F and was planning to do the same with the 9F I believe. It makes a great noise but when in close proximity it seems wrong to me because its obvious the noise is coming from the tender. I am quite happy with the sound made by the Zimo 40mm BoomBox as used by a number of Love Lane locos. Snag with the 8F is there is not enough room to fit it in the boiler because of the smoke units, and I don’t want to mess up Steve’s original creation.
Steve Baldock Control board. This consolidates the function outputs from the decoder and houses the AC relays for the heater coils, DC relays for the fans and fuses designed to prevent the decoder blowing up if the heater components fail. As designed this is shrunk wrapped to the decoder/ADAPLU board and fits on the integral tray of the safety valve heater within the firebox/boiler. I think it is possible to fit the combined Decoder/ADAPLU/Control board in the tender as desired by Len however that will need a lot of wires connecting the loco to the tender i.e:
2 pickup wires from loco to decoder.
2 motor wires from tender to loco.
2 speaker wires tender to loco unless the speaker is also in the tender.
4 heater wires from tender to loco capable of carrying up to 2 amps at 16v DCC. Steve used 1.4mm diameter silicon cable.
4 fan wires from tender to loco, low current.
Total 14 wires, plus if cylinder drain steam is desired then 2 more heavy gauge heater wires and 2 more fan wires will be needed. If a servo operating the valve gear as fitted by Steve on most of his locos is desired then another 3 thin wires will be needed, total now 21 wires.
Safety Valve smoke unit made of PTFE incorporating tank, fan, 2 heater coils and plate for valve outlets to mate. Doubt if this unit will slide in through the smokebox door of a 9F? The control board, decoder and ADAPLU50 board fit on the tray.
Safety valves made of brass, drops in holes in top of the firebox, locks the Safety Valve smoke unit in place. Can be lifted out for tank removal or to make filling easier.
Chimney smoke unit incorporating tank, fan & 2 heater coils. This unit can probably slide in through the smokebox door of a 9F?
Chimney liner, not shown because I don’t have any spares, this is an accurately tapered thin wall tube that fits exactly in the bored out loco chimney and tapered lower end goes into the ptfe smoke unit to lock it in place.
Parts available now. I have in stock:
8 Chimney PTFE tank units, one of which is already assembled for Len.
1 Safety Valve PTFE unit with no cylinder drain function, set aside for Len and not yet assembled.
1 Cylinder Drain PTFE tank unit, possibly a SB reject.
4 Fan motors, 2 set aside for Len. I don’t think they last very long when pulsed rapidly on and off.
9 DC relays Takamisawa A5W-K for fan motors, 2 set aside for Len.
5 AC relays Crydom SDV2415, 2 set aside for Len.
10 micro fuses ESKA Quick Blow SMD 2 amp, 2 set aside for Len. But no spare holders at the moment.
11 Fan blades MTH part number AI-0000019, 2 set aside for Len. Plus another 10 3D printed by SB that need shaft holes boring
16 Heater coils MTH part number AI-0000018-10, 4 set aside for Len
No working control boards but I have drawn the circuit diagram for the 8F version and will make a new one from vero board for Len if he still wants it after reading this lot!
I don’t have any spare safety valves or chimney liners.
We also have the Solidworks drawings for Steve’s PTFE tanks, although I can’t find the correct versions at the moment.
Any questions?
Robin
, look forward to seeing if I can fit smoke into a Y4 for Bow Creek 
.
