@Jim Harrington posted:What is the purpose of the regulator, if it can be so easily bypassed?
Seems like an unnecessary component.
OK, so remember how pleased you were to find different levels of smoke you could adjust? The smoke regulator was what you were adjusting.
@Jim Harrington posted:after I discovered that the smoke level is adjustable, when I set it to “high”. I was quite pleased with the increased smoke output - until it didn’t work a day is so later when I turned it on.
In conventional operation, where the track voltage varies- the use of a lower resistor value like 8 Ohms and then use of a regulator to adjust and regulate the smoke regardless of track voltage- yet another purpose of the smoke regulator and specifically chosen value of resistor.
Bypassing that- you lose that functionality. Replacing the resistor with a 27 Ohm unit so as to not overheat the smoke TRIAC output of the R4LC, you have a fixed ratio of smoke here- ON or OFF. It also will be track voltage dependent and likely not work as well in conventional operation at lower track voltages- simply because the fixed resistor value is designed for higher voltages because there is no regulator.
