Hello guys, before the above posts were placed I went and ordered a 12v V1 Supersmoker from the land down under. It's a well built unit and smokes like a trooper. It is also able to produce varying amounts of smoke depending on where the throttle is in both forward and reverse. HOWEVER due to the fact that I am using a brushless motor and after quick water trials realised that I won't be using anywhere near full throttle for other than a quick burst I have decided to just use a switch on my transmitter to switch on the smoke as and when.
Alan Bond Sound Unit.
I bought the Steam version of this unit and a speaker from Technobots. I will be running the unit from an independent 12v battery. This is my opinion......
Make sure you have the space to fit the speaker as it's relatively big. Not a problem for me but just something to think about. The speaker is splash proof but NOT waterproof
.
The unit itself is a good looking unit (if you like that sort of thing) with a removable white sticky back plastic film to stop the transparent top cover from being scratched. Once removed some of this plastic remains in the etched letters (a good thing) these letters say 'Alan Bond Sound Unit' and also a symbol of a speaker as well as the plus and minus signs. (Useful)
The unit is well made and looks quality. Dimensions are 92x 34x 17mm and it comes with a male male 150mm lead. It has a push button which changes the number of cylinders (easy) and it also has a space to plug in a remote switch so that you can change the number of cylinders via the transmitter without opening the model (although I can't think of a reason to change the number of cylinders as your boat is floating merrily along but I'm sure there is a good reason for this that doesn't affect me)
Once connected the system was automatically set to the forward neutral and reverse points as my motor
(a godsend for me as I hate fiddling and setting)
Everything switched on and a push of the throttle produced a loud steam hiss that made me me jump. I did wonder for a few seconds if it was too loud but decided to wait and see when it was fully installed into the model. A further push of the throttle and the unit started to pump out the sound of a fine tuned steam engine. It sounds great. Once installed in the model the sound level is just right although it drops off as the battery looses power but that's obvious really as all things reduce with less power.
PROS AND CONS
Cons....
... There are four tiny grub screws in the top of the unit, you untighten these screws so that you can push the battery and speaker wires into the unit. Once in the unit you tighten the screws and they remain in place. HOWEVER, due to size of the holes if your wire is bigger than about 0.8mm it won't go in. Even with the screw fully unwound. I found that due to the position in my model I tried to push the wire into the hole and it just folded. Very frustrating. It took a very long time to get the first one in (I won't say how long)
but the other 3 all went in a lot easier. I think it should come with plugable leads but maybe that's not possible what do I know I don't make them.
Another lesser frustrating note is that the above wires plug into the end of the unit and the ESC and throttle plug into the top. Why is that a problem I hear you ask, well it's not really its just that when trying to make everything neat and tidy inside my models I would like to box the unit in and plug everything into the top or sandwich it in and place everything into the ends. As it is it's a bit of both and that's why I had the above problem...... Photos to follow.
Pros......
... Saved til last as I want to finish on the good note that this unit deserves.
It's a good looking, well built easy to set up (it just worked
) and it sounds fantastic in my model. For about 26 pounds at the time of writing I think it's a good option to fit in my boats. I look forward to reviewing other Alan Bond units in the future. U2
