This would be quite expensive if it worked... The tesco stuff costs £3.99/10ml equivalent to £99.75/250ml, compared to £15/250ml for smoke fluid... I'd rather buy a vintage loco :)

It is all the same stuff, but what you are referring to is probably the LGB 5001 or the SR24.

The ESU oil is different to the Seuthe/Marklin/LGB oil, and must be used in ESU locos that have smoke units.

As to alternative fluids to try in a Seuthe smoke unit, musical instrument valve oil has already been mentioned, another option I would like to try is the smoke fluid used for musical venues. I beleive this is non-oily, and I have seen a version available in the UK from Maplins. I haven't managed to give it a try yet, but it is on my 'things to do' list.

Blue Juice Valve Oil is barred from being on sale on the UK by trading standards as the cap does not meet standards for a flammable product and the labelling does not adequately describe the product and its risks. Sounds like it may be good stuff- especially when you consider it is not to clean and lubricate the valves on your trombone but you intend to electrically ignite it!

I think I have some interesting information on this subject.

I talked to an engineer today, who told me that he mixes his own liquids for his e-cigarette.

( He has one of those BIG e-cigarettes that produces a lot of smoke, that's why I started asking him questions. )

The main ingredient in this liquid is glycerin. I didn't know that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerol

He mixes 70% organic glycerin with 30% technical glycerin, and then adds the flavor and nicotine.

Google-ing the matter, I learnt that some also uses a mix of propylene glycol and glycerin:

https://www.gosmokefree....le-glycerin-vg-e-liquid/

I'm not at home now, so I can't make any tests; but I think this is worth a bit of investigation.

If it works, it's cheap and without any smell.

Now the next challenge is to make black smoke................

Per.

Disclaimer: If you somehow manage to make nitroglycerine during your tests and then blow yourself up; please don't blame me.

To some extent these debates sound and feel a lot like the automotive motor oil debates. Visit a car special interest group and look for a thread about "which motor oil is best" and you get a religious war of words going in seconds..

In the end the fluid needs to be matched to the generator so that it will vaporize at the temperature/condition that the smoke unit generates. That may well be why ESU has its own solution with its generators.

The stuff that ends up in the air, the vaporized fluid, then all to be oil based because water based will not travel very far out of the generator before dissipating into the air as humidity and being non-visible. So for the diesel engine exhaust those water piezo electric vaporizers may work well, but to get the bigger and larger output clouds of a steam engine, that technology will not work well (at least not without some scientific breakthrough).

For the color of the generated smoke, the oils produce a white smoke as its the light refracting/reflecting off of the vaporized hydrocarbons (oil) that you see. To get black smoke, you would be required to have combustion (actual burning) , which is not possible with the technology. If the vaporized product could become completely non-reflective so it absorbed light, then black would be possible, but that would then deposit (soot) on the layout. Try generating a water droplet that absorbs all light and doesn't let light pass through or reflect it. DO that and you have a massive break through that can be patented and may win some scientific prizes.