Question about Bulldog Smoke module

[Dutchy93]

Greetings people!

As of yesterday I am the proud owner of my first tank, a 1;16 M41 Bulldog from Heng long.
So far I am quite happy with this thing crawling around on the ground. Quite the change from flying little helo's around.

Though I have a question. It is advertised that this tank has a smoke system in place, though I don't know if I have a faulty one.
Before I start calling my supplier I'd like to know how this smoke system works.
While testing I switched the module on for a minute or two to see if anything came out.
I do hear the module pumping away, but I can't see any visible coming out of the exhaust so I shut it down to prevent possible damage (it is a heated unit after all I heard).
It definitely isn't smoking like the ones seen in the review video's found on this forum (the Pz 4 for example).

As far as I can tell the unit is filled with enough fluid if the manual is correct. Curious I opened the tank hull to see the unit in action.
The two silicon tubes connecting the unit to the exhaust are 'white' from condensation so something is working in there.

Is it possible there isn't enough fluid in the system, or is it overfilled?
Is there another possible error I might have to look for?

I hope someone can shed a little light on this. I'd hate to call the seller and end up returning a good product.

[Rubicon99]

Greetings people!

As of yesterday I am the proud owner of my first tank, a 1;16 M41 Bulldog from Heng long.
So far I am quite happy with this thing crawling around on the ground. Quite the change from flying little helo's around.

Though I have a question. It is advertised that this tank has a smoke system in place, though I don't know if I have a faulty one.
Before I start calling my supplier I'd like to know how this smoke system works.
While testing I switched the module on for a minute or two to see if anything came out.
I do hear the module pumping away, but I can't see any visible coming out of the exhaust so I shut it down to prevent possible damage (it is a heated unit after all I heard).
It definitely isn't smoking like the ones seen in the review video's found on this forum (the Pz 4 for example).

As far as I can tell the unit is filled with enough fluid if the manual is correct. Curious I opened the tank hull to see the unit in action.
The two silicon tubes connecting the unit to the exhaust are 'white' from condensation so something is working in there.

Is it possible there isn't enough fluid in the system, or is it overfilled?
Is there another possible error I might have to look for?

I hope someone can shed a little light on this. I'd hate to call the seller and end up returning a good product.

Is your M41 a 5.2/3 or a 6.0 system? They use different smoke units in both. The 5.2/3 do not put out much smoke.

Is any smoke at all coming out?

Did you add oil to the smoke unit and if so how much? They usually come full from the factory and it is common for people to overfill them.

[Dutchy93]

Is your M41 a 5.2/3 or a 6.0 system? They use different smoke units in both. The 5.2/3 do not put out much smoke.

Is any smoke at all coming out?

Did you add oil to the smoke unit and if so how much? They usually come full from the factory and it is common for people to overfill them.

I have the 6.0S system according to the sticker on the bottom.
If any smoke is getting out then it is so little I can't see it. How long does it usually take before smoke comes out?
I didn't add any oil into the system. Any oil in there is 'out of the box' in the tank.

[Rubicon99]

Ok.

Then it is possible your smoke system needs oil. Go ahead and fill it and see what happens.

[Dutchy93]

I added a good drop of oil (the top bit of the included plastic hose) but that didn't seem to do anything. Maybe tomorrow I'll screw the unit out of the hull and take a closer look on how it works.

Maybe you're right and it needs a bit of oil.

How long does it usually take for this unit to make smoke from cold start? I'm afraid the manual doesn't say

[Rubicon99]

I added a good drop of oil (the top bit of the included plastic hose) but that didn't seem to do anything. Maybe tomorrow I'll screw the unit out of the hull and take a closer look on how it works.

Maybe you're right and it needs a bit of oil.

How long does it usually take for this unit to make smoke from cold start? I'm afraid the manual doesn't say

It should take under 10 seconds on a full charged battery. Which leads to to ask what battery you are using. If the voltage is too low then the MFU might not be turning on the heating element.

[Dutchy93]

I am using the battery that came with it.
Shida Ni-mh 18L25 sc2000mAh P 7.2V.
ofcourse charged on first use

[Dutchy93]

It should take under 10 seconds on a full charged battery. Which leads to to ask what battery you are using. If the voltage is too low then the MFU might not be turning on the heating element.

When I got home from work I opened her up and pulled the smoke engine out so I could properly see it work.
gradually I gave it a little fluid (read a drop or 2/3 as advised on the forum) and let it run for a bit.
there is some smoke coming out there but it is very thin and hard to see. Every now and then a decent puff comes out, but that's it.
Note this is with the unit fully detatched from the hull and its silicon tubes.

When I close off one end the smoke unit, what comes out the other end is nicely visable, but not nearly as much as is visible in for example the review video's of the Tiger 1 or Panzer iv.

When I reconnect the unit to its silicon tubes, barely anything comes out of the exhaust and I need a light shining from underneath to see it.

So my guess is the smoke unit has some kind of error inside.

[Alpha]

Inside the smoker (accessible by removing the four screws on the top of that caramel colored cover) is a cotton wick. If the wick is too dry, the heating element burns up. If the wick is too wet, the heating element struggle to vaporize the oil to create the exhaust effect.

It's a fine line, which is why maintaining smokers in any RC model is finicky work. At the HL factory they standardize the wick size and oil amount, but environmental changes during shipping and storage can invariably influence the state when it arrives. Humidity will also influence the apparent intensity of the exhaust effect.

[Dutchy93]

Won't opening that cover up void any warrenty?

[Dutchy93]

Well I ended up opening up the smoke module after all, but even after playing with that I didn't get any decent results. The little white 'roll' wrapped around the heater coil started showing signs of burn marks.
So instead of risking further damage I decided to contact my seller and have him send me a new smoke module. The one he sent me is almost the same one, only as far as I can tell wired for just 1 plug while the one found in my tank is for 2 channels.
Anyway I tested it in the tank and the new unit did give plenty of smoke. Problem solved right?

No. This one wasn't working proportionally like the origional found in my tank. Though assured by the seller that these are in fact the same units, just fitted with different wiring, I decided to resolder the new unit so it would have two leads, one for channel 11, the other for 12.
A baby simple job. Though when I try to switch my tank on, all it does is flash the lights.
It won't connect to the remote anymore while this new smoke module is plugged into the TK6 system. When I remove the smoke unit plugs from the TK6 unit the tank operates as usual without problems, aside from the smoke ofcourse.
Is there any reason why it would act like this?
Honestly this simple thing is becoming a little frustrating while it should be an easy fix. Half an hour of tinkering tops.
Can anyone here shed a little light on it?

[Dutchy93]

After a bit of playing with the leads I got the origional smoke unit working, the one that came with my bulldog.
When I opened both smoke units up I noticed that with the replacement one, the wick was wrapped around the heating coil, while in the one that came with my tank this wasn't the case.
There they just stuffed a small yellow spunge and a little wick down the box and bolted down the lid.
My guess is that the heating coil of the V6 version doesn't always connect well with the wick (as was true for my unit), and thus giving barely any smoke.

So I wrapped the cotton wick around the heating coil and tied it down with some thin copper wire, making sure it doesn't touch the poles of the heating coil itself.
This solved the problem for me.

So I'll leave this here for any other people who might come across the same problem.