I have a building I'd like to put a couple of smoke units in. Does anyone have a cheap source of them? Used would be find. I would like something like the MTH units, they have minimal electronics, and since I won't need anything but the fan motor power, it's pointless to pay for it.
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You might try Brassuer's who have the K-Line parts. The Plymouth Switcher has a pretty impressive smoke unit and should be small enough to fit in just about anything.
Pete
USA Trains sells them for like $25.00 each thru Charles Ro Supply. Just give them a call and tell them you want to speak with Mike @ USA Trains parts. Tell Mike you want a smoke unit for a USA Trains SD40-2 and see if he has the top funnel too. The SD40-2 smoker is a bit bigger than say a typical MTH O Gauge sized one.
If you want electronics to run the thing I have some smoke unit boards that came out of some USA Trains locomotives.
Here's a pic of a USA smoker compared to a MTH one.
In this case, size isn't really an issue, so the cheaper one is the way I'd like to go. The building has tons of space, no issue with the space.
Do I really need the electronics, I just want to have a switch to turn it on and get smoke. I'm figuring on really simple. I can slap a regulator and some diodes on a board for the fan if that's required, I'm assuming it's just a DC fan and a smoke element in the chamber, right?
That picture you have, what's the white thing, is that an intake? Do you fill this through the funnel or through that white funnel looking deal?
Never mind, I just realized you were holding up two smoke units! 
That got me a bit. I'll be running tubing up to near the top of the smokestack, I just have to figure out how to get the fluid in without it sticking in the tube.
I will be watching how this turns out for you John. I have been thinking of doing the same thing.
I used a MTH PS-1 smoke unit since it is already to run off track power to have smoke coming out of the Power Plant's stack. I used brass tubing and ran it straight up to the top of the stack and it is easy enough to fill with fluid.
John,
If you can wait a week or two, i'll be taking the smoke unit out of a RK PRR K4s. Assuming it still works (i'll check it out) you can have it for $12 shipped. I don't run smoke units as the smoke burns my eyes and nose - hence they are of no value to me. It will be a few weeks as i'm currently working on the special effects for a play that opens on 6/16 over in Chesterfield, NH and that is taking all my free time.
jack
Why not scratch make it, since it is for a building. Use brass and make the heater well, with a port for the fan. Since fan motors/impeller and heaters are cheap. This would be a simple deal since cosmetics and fit are not issues. G
I was wondering about running tubing all the way up. I'm glad to hear this worked out, that's probably what I'll do. I have plenty of space to mount them in the building. It has four stacks, I'm thinking of having a couple of them smoke.
Why not scratch make it, since it is for a building.
I thought of that, but I have a lot of other things to do in the time I have before this modular piece has to be ready, so I'm choosing to buy it.
If you can wait a week or two, i'll be taking the smoke unit out of a RK PRR K4s.
I sent you an email, I'm certainly interested when you have it, I'll take it. 
Thanks all, I think I probably have this in hand. I'm going to see about various sources for these, I have a few places where I'd like smoke, so I'd like to come up with a plan for them.
I got a couple of the USA Trains ones from Charles Ro coming, $25/ea sounds like a good price. I think they'll do the first building and I'll work from there.
What part number did you use?
What part number did you use?
I just asked for what was previously posted, Charles Ro, talk to Mike at USA Trains and ask for a USA Trains SD40-2 smoke unit.
OK thanks, got the number.
another question. did they say you can just hook the smoke unit up to power or do you need any other items? I can hook up wires to positive and negative but beyond that I am not too sure of myself.
I picked up a few MTH smoke units on E-bay a few years ago. One went in my lumber mill and one went in my roundhouse. For tubing on the engine house I used aquarium tubing split four ways but used brass tubing into the smoke unit because of the heat. I had a valve to direct the smoke in the engine house our through the smoke stacks on top. I used brass piping as a smoke stack for the lumber mill and placed it directly into the smoke unit. I just poured the smoke liquid directly into the smoke stack. On the engine house I simply pulled the brass piping out of the smoke unit to fill the reservoir. Don
I know I am alittle late. But boxcar bill has the best of all. For 35 dollars you get a high quality lionel smoke unit, a funnel, wire harness, and an on off swithc. Best of all it ships next day. Heres a video of it in my williams J class. Its as simple as connecting two wires another one for ground so three but still positive plus negative equals Great output
Liam, all I got when I googled Boxcar Bills was a place to eat. Do you have their web sit? Don
Modern Toy Train Parts is Boxcar Bill's website.
OK thanks, got the number.
another question. did they say you can just hook the smoke unit up to power or do you need any other items? I can hook up wires to positive and negative but beyond that I am not too sure of myself.
I can't say, I'm going to get them and then figure out the wiring. Pretty hard to believe it'll be beyond my skills. I'll report when I see them and figure out how I'm going to wire them.
The only "operating" pieces of a smoke unit is the smoke element and the fan, so at the worst, I'll connect directly to those two to get them running.
Te site is modern toy train parts the forum member is boxcar bill. Sorry guys
OK thanks, got the number.
another question. did they say you can just hook the smoke unit up to power or do you need any other items? I can hook up wires to positive and negative but beyond that I am not too sure of myself.
From a look at the picture I don't see any electronics on the smoke unit so you need to run the fan off DC or use a rectifier. The MTH PS-1 units have that built in, so the unit can just connect to track or AC power. G
There is a control board that they offer that has a regulator and some logic on it, I may have one of those to look at soon and I'll see how the whole thing fits together.
My sense is that I'll have to supply DC for the fan and AC for the smoke resistor, pretty simple stuff. I'm thinking of a variable speed fan tied to the resistor voltage so I can vary the smoke level with a single control.
L&N, I say that thing, I'm thinking this part being for a G-scale might put out almost as much smoke. I'll know in a couple of days, Charles Ro usually ships pretty quickly.
Hi L&N, I checked-out the smoker you posted and Good grief man, the thing looks like it has a 1/2 inch stack on it. If I ever put that little beast on my basement layout the Philadelphia fire department will be kicking my door down.
The beauty of it is that you can connect a veriable 12v supply to it to control the output.
It would be really cool on an outdoor layout though. Let's say if you wonted to model the Chicago fire, or a scale volcano.
gg1man, what part of Phila are you in? I'm up in Montgomery County.
I know I am alittle late. But boxcar bill has the best of all. For 35 dollars you get a high quality lionel smoke unit, a funnel, wire harness, and an on off swithc. Best of all it ships next day. Heres a video of it in my williams J class. Its as simple as connecting two wires another one for ground so three but still positive plus negative equals Great output
ok. I want to know did you order it strait threw lional? I want to get smoke units in my 3rd rail S1 Duplex and my S2 turbine.. The ones threw MTH are 45-50.00.. wanted to find out how much does MTH charges for there dubble smoke unit on there challenger..it on unit with two holes for the stacks,thought that would be good for my S1.. sorry gunnerjohn about jummping in..Im on a tight budget since I got layed off of my job 2 weeks ago.CRH is the first smoke unit pic came from USA Trains? that could be a possible unit I could use in my S1..
The smoke units I got are for G-scale, so I don't know if they'd fit into a Lionel O-scale. As you can see from the pictures, they're a bit larger and a different form-factor than the MTH ones, I haven't compared them to a Lionel model. You may actually need a Lionel-specific smoke unit. For only $10 more, the genuine Lionel ones from Boxcar Bill seem to be the best bet.
Hi "GRJohn", I live in South Philla in the stadium district. I'm one block south of Oregon Ave, off of Broad Street. If you are familiar with the area I'm on Bigler Street accross from Marconi Plaza.
Yep, I know that area reasonably well, I spent a lot of time down there when I was in the Navy yard. I don't know the individual streets, and they've moved things around down near the stadiums, but I still can find things there.
I'm in the middle of Montgomery County, in Worcester Tw'pt. There really aren't any towns of note real close, the nearest is Skippack.
man after looking at that video again,man that smoke unit glows bright! WOW!!..three wires? Ok 1 got to be pos+ neg- what the other for???
Don't muck around with a smoke unit, get a fog machine!
Don't muck around with a smoke unit, get a fog machine!
OK Dave tell us more about a smoke machine!
Don't muck around with a smoke unit, get a fog machine!
OK Dave tell us more about a smoke machine!
How about fitting one of these?
Do you want to simulate smoke or a raging fire? 
Dave has a great idea on the smoke machine..instead of running multable smoke units in building=more wires and electric being used.. run one smoke machine with one tube that going into ,say fish tank airtubes with multable air shut off valves..run each tubles under your layout of each building..by doing that you can control each valve on each building.. its an idea...If I had a big place to run a layout I would do that..
I'm building a module for a modular club, so the building will be self-contained.
I got a couple of the USA Trains ones from Charles Ro coming, $25/ea sounds like a good price. I think they'll do the first building and I'll work from there.
john did you ever get to work on this? what are the results?
Haven't gotten them yet, still waiting. Charles Ro is normally pretty quick, don't know what's going on here.
I got some regulator boards for them from a guy that I bought an MTH TIU from in the forum. It appears they have fairly low voltage resistors, the boards put out 7 volts on the resistor outputs and about 5.75 on the fan outputs. I put a load on the regulator board to see what that did, but it stayed the same. I don't see that these would be variable, at least with these boards controlling them.
Got the smoke units, they're pretty simple devices. Just a resistor and a fan. Of course, they're also only $25. The regulator boards that Chuck was nice enough to toss in when I bought his MTH TIU were a perfect match. I think G-scale must have considerably higher voltages, at 18 volts the fan was loafing. It puts out decent smoke, but not as much as I expected, given that it's for a much larger locomotive than O-gauge. It's sufficient to make a smoky building, that's all I needed.
so you can not hook it up directly to 18 volts?
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