3 Blinking Lights on my New Lionel CSX Family Lines Heritage AC6000

Team,

Some mentioned that I can use an MTH Fan Motor as a replacement as Lionel had had issues with this. 

Any one else seen this problem.

Bad smoke unit fan motor, the 3 blinks is Lionels dignostics confirming this. There are a list of diagnostic codes in the back of the owners manual.

Lionel had an epidemic of defective fan motors in recent years.

Replacing the fan motor with a "good" Lionel motor or an MTH will resove the problem. If your comfortable "opening the hood" its a tedious but not impossible repair. The fan motor itself is only a few bucks, far cheaper than return shipping.

If not, email Lionel at their "contact us" "service and repair question" link and they will send you an RA# so you can send it to them for repair.

Heres a Link: LIONEL Contact Us

 If you do a forum search. There are NUMEROUS old threads on the defective Lionel smoke unit fan motors if you need more info.

I had one myself in a Legacy k4, ordered a replacement and changed it, and never had a problem since.

If this were mine, being that I am not good at repairs to Lionel Engines, I would call and get an RETURN AURTHARIZATION RA,and return this to Lionel's Service Department. They are really good and reasonably quick to return it. If You open the Engine, this Might void the Warranty. I may not be correct about the warranty, but it's a thought. Good Luck.

Team,

Appreciate the information. I guess I will need to contact them on Monday, an RMA and send it in. I wish they would find a better production partner and do a better QA on their suppliers. I did so research and your comments confirm the issue. Frankly, I am tired of spending $20.00 plus each time something goes wrong with engines I pay good money for, pay shipping from the dealer then ship it back to them before i get to enjoy it.

They should have recalled them if they new they had a problem, made the supplier pay for the change out before selling them to the public. Bad move on their part. They are quick with warranty work but that is not the point on this one. Seems they knew the issue.

I am hoping that they will just send me the parts and I will do the work myself. Cheaper and more efficient.

Hoping they get the Big Boy's right.

Thanks all. Great information and very helpful.

Thanks Rick - Do you have an MTH Part number that corresponds to the Lionel one? Any help would be appreciated.

If they had a bunch of bad ones then I will go to another brand.

If you're a Veteran, ask for a call tag, they offer free shipping for Vets.

The MTH smoke fan motor number is: BE-0000041

I've put the smoke motors in a number of Legacy locomotives, I have one here now that has the error code that's due to get one.

Dd you just add fluid before it started blinking? If so, you may have just flooded it. Sometines a shot of canned air, or let it sit for a day or two, might take care of the problem.

if it is a fan motor, they are not that hard to change.

Fred

Thanks for all the responses. I will call Lionel to see of they will ship me a new one or I will pack it up and send it back. I m not locked out yet so I have options

I plan to go on line and order a few from Lionel and MTH

I am pretty solid with repairs and from what I have been told the change out is simple.

Gunrunner John,

Thanks for the part number. Will call MTH tomorrow as well. Anything else I need to know on the unit. Simple change out? any additional electronics I need to be aware of or just un bolt and replace?

Interestingly enough, that is exactly what happened. Was working fine, add fluid, then the lights started blinking. Could not clear it so went to the conventional mode, worked fine, then when back in the TMCC mode worked for a few laps then blinked.

Tried the blowing into the manifold to see if an air pocket - bubble was in it - but no luck. 

Sounds like I need a replacement unit from Lionel or from MTH.

Gunrunner John,

Is there still a quality issue or has that been resolved? Which smoke unit is better? Lionel? MTH? Looking to do this once bit willing to invest in a few units as I also purchased the Lionel Heritage units - Southern and Penn. Figure if the one has a bad unit the rest do as well - 

Based on what I know there are several different smoke motors out there and there were some bad batches that got into the mix. No telling what you have until it fails. The smoke motors are not that expensive....just a PITA to do. MTH is supposed to have better motors. Aside from the smoke motors both smoke units are pretty reliable from there but the MTH units usually will fog the room.......then the prototypical guys get upset and want the pretend EPA to stop all RR operations for pretend excessive pollution.

I don't know what the situation is now.  Lionel is aware of the issues and is certainly working them.  Some time back I sent them a few motors from my repairs and Jon Z. evaluated them.  He indicated they were addressing the situation, so I suspect it should have been solved in new stuff by now.  However, there's a lot of the older stuff still in the pipeline that may have issues.

Note that many folks never see the issue, but enough of them fail that it's a pretty well known issue.

Thanks for the information

Gunrunner, Captaincog and team,

Great information - No problem on fogging the room. The NJ Hirailers 15K sq ft room can handle it. 

I ordered a few MTH units today and will also ask Lionel to send a replacement. I would rather do it myself, faster and cheaper. Great information folks, really helpful.

Keep up the great work.

KM

Is there a recommended place to purchase the MTH part number BE-0000041.  I have not been able to locate that part number online for ordering.

Send me an email and I'll sell you one of those, shipping will be a lot cheaper than most places.

Kbmkam@aol.com is my email address.

Actually, I was thinking you'd send me an email to my profile address.

Thanks John.  I sent an email to you earlier.

Hi PSU,

My new AC44ES did all the smoke unit diagnostic blink sequences plus intermittent whinning noise and smoke.  I thought surely it was a bad motor.  Luckily I have a local authorized Lionel service tech that does warranty work regardless of where the engine was purchased.  It ended up being something he called a bad "heater".  He said while he had it apart he also "trimmed" the impeller which I think is the fan.  The motor ended up being good.  It must have been a low cost fix, as he said it wasn't worth doing the paperwork!  Do you have an authorized Lionel Service Center LHS in your area?  That way you won't have to deal with shipping and possibly more damage!  The engine smokes great now, but the smoke unit does seem a little louder than most my engines.

Stack

The impeller hitting the gasket or top of the chamber is a common issue.  I either trim the gasket or just push the impeller down a bit.

The loud Lionel motors usually end up needing to be replaced.

 Noise is the fan motor, 3 cab light blinks is the fan motor. 2 cab light blinks is the "heater" or resistor

He did not replace the motor and its still noisey.... its the fan motor. It will likely get louder and louder until it quits altogether. You will then get the 3 cab light blinks again.

Rick is, of course, 100% correct.  The 3 blinks have nothing to do with the heater, it's the Legacy locomotive sensing a fan motor defect.  Anything other than fixing the fan motor did not address the issue.  The noise confirms that you still have the issue.

Just for the record, If Gunrunner says its So, believe me, it's So!  He repaired my 4-4-2 Atlantic Steamer with Legacy, Whistle, Smoke/Steam Effect Perfectly! For some reason Lionel was unable to fix it correctly. Happy Railroading.

I sent the unit back to Lionel for repair. I got it back today and will test today and advise. I  have had three friends report the same problems. More later.

Kevin

Gunrunner - did you ky my email address

kbmkam@aol.com 

Are you sending me something?

If you want to get me, send an email to my profile address.  I'm not sure what you think I should be sending you.

I received the fan motor yesterday and installed it today.  Now I know why people like the MTH motors.  I have only had the SD70ACe for a couple of months.  I never liked the way it smoked.  It was always smoking.  It was just very faint.  Nothing like some I had seen online.  I thought it was possibly the heating element.  Since I started getting the motor noise and the three blinking lights, I decided to replace the fan motor first.  After installing this motor, my basement was smoke filled.  Plus, the new motor was much quieter.  It was nice.  I am no longer disappointed with my purchase of the NS heritage.    Thanks again John for the assistance.

Glad it worked out, enjoy.

Thanks - appreciate it. 

Have you heard of any issues with the 6-11454 Berk? the 2014 release? Looking for one

Did you install the smoke unit and fan? What parts did you use? GunRunner John gave me a part number from MTH. I bought it and need to install it when it arrives. can you share the part numbers?

I am going to buy a MTH smoke units. I have to put an order for other MTH items so I am going to add them as well.

Seems like that might be the best back up

I just ordered the MTH fan motor that John posted earlier in this thread.  I was going to order a Lionel motor, and heat resistor and wicking from another site.  Just in case the fan motor was not an exact fit.  When I proceeded to the checkout, they wanted to charge seperately for shipping and processing (almost as much as shipping cost).  I am okay with shipping fees.  Not a fan of processing/handling fees.  I would rather they roll those charges into the price of the item/s.  I decided not to proceed with the order and see how the fan motor impacted performance.  I am glad I waited.  I am very happy with the smoke output now.

While fan motors are replaceable, swapping smoke unit is not going to work.  Legacy operates smoke units differently than MTH PS-2.   The resistor values are different, the method of powering let alone finding a match of the smoke stack and unit mounting.

There are ways to make different smoke units work for upgrades but you need to understand those principles.

The key to MTH PS-2 is microprocessor control of the heating elements and the fan motor separately with PWM.

It is interesting to hear that the MTH motor turns an anemic Lionel smoke unit into a heavy smoker.  I always though the single element and the method of powering was the main issue with poor Lionel performance.   G

I don't quite understand it either.  It might not be smoking as much as an MTH engine.  It is just tons better than  what I had originally.  I was thinking that maybe the original motor was not spinning as fast as it should.  Maye the MTH motor is able to push out more smoke because of higher RPMs instead of it pushing only a little smoke.  Just speculation on my part.

The only thing I can think of is the original motor wasn't spinning fast enough. 

Like George says, this is an effort that will almost surely go down in smoke and flames.  The Legacy smoke units are very specific.  Replacing these with the MTH is not going to be easy, if it can be done at all.