Another Question Regarding Smoke...

Interesting post. What smoke units do you have in these locos? They are from the era of Lionel units with 27 Ohm resistors with fiber sleeves on that should be removed but I am assuming that they are fan driven at all. 

Also I don’t know how you are powering one of them from DC track power - they were meant for AC.

Not sure of the particulars in your case, but my lionel legacy engines smoke a lot better on chopped sine wave transformers. 

Actual models would be useful.  I'm assuming you're running in conventional mode since you ripped the electronics out, so how are the smoke units getting power?  I suspect without adding some electronics, the smoke is likely as good as it gets.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Actual models would be useful.  I'm assuming you're running in conventional mode since you ripped the electronics out, so how are the smoke units getting power?  I suspect without adding some electronics, the smoke is likely as good as it gets.

The Consol is # 6-38036; after I gutted it, I just re-soldered the ground lead as before, to the side of the smoke unit; and the other end of the resistor to the "hot" wire from the center rail.

The E6 is # 6-28005; since this runs ok with my MRC 027 pack, it is still factory-equipped.

Since they are both pretty much the same "vintage", I was wondering if the "lower" smoke output is a characteristic of this era of Lionel releases.

If this is, as you say, "as good as it gets", that's fine; I was just checking. They are both beautiful models. 

Mark in Oregon

Can't look up exactly which smoke units are stock on these models because the Lionelsupport website is currently down (overwhelmed on spare part sale weekend I guess). But from the SKUs they are both early TMCC or "TMCC-ready" models. While that pre-dates any detailed experience of Lionel smoke units I have, they may both have the early 27 ohm sleeved resistors. I've never understood why the sleeves were used and Mike Reagan's advice with fan-driven smoke units was to cut them off, repack the unit with new smoke wicking and enlarge the smoke unit intake. My advice is to use Megasteam (!) too and soak the wicking with it while you have the unit apart. 

It's also possible to swap the stock resistors for a lower ohm rating but I can't recall exactly what's recommended - maybe it's 24 or 25 ohm. 

Alternatively, and space allowing, if these are even earlier units than the ones I am thinking of, I suppose you could also swap them out for newer track powered units although those might require the same treatment as described above to get the most out of them.

Finally, as has already been mentioned, I find that Lionel units (and the fan-driven ones used in Sunset 3rd Rail engines) generally run better if you are using a Lionel chopped sine wave transformer. I know people have taken issue with the technical side of this but it definitely reflects my experience. I'd check what voltage you are actually getting to the track too as that's another factor in smoke unit output.

They have puffer smoke units, so rebuilding them wouldn't be a bad start.  As suggested, perhaps a 22 or 24 ohm resistor in place of the 27.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere! 

 I will try to find some lower rated resistors...do you think Lionel has anything like that?

Mark in Oregon 

Probably not, I get mine from Digikey.

Here's a 22 ohm 2W Resistor, this is suitable for the task.  I usually use a Dremel wire wheel to knock the ceramic coating off, helps with the smoke performance.

Interesting thread so I thought I would see what happened to the wattage produced by the resistor as the ohms drop and maybe find a wattage smoke threshold .  I assumed  a constant voltage (I heard somewhere these resistors get 5 volts more or less)  and went from there.  I expected more of a change in watts as the resistor changed.  

Not sure where you get the 5V, most older conventional stuff puts track voltage on the smoke unit.  For TMCC smoke outputs, they're half-wave track power, a lot more then 5V.

Speaking of "voltage", here's something I wanted to mention.

I'm running my "gutted" Consol on DC: it runs at what I consider a reasonable speed at about 9-10 volts; the smoke output, as I mentioned earlier, is "ok: not great".

The E6 (since it seems to be OK on AC) puts out about the same volume of smoke at about 6 volts AC. Now, I get it that this Atlantic is a real race horse, so it takes less power to obtain a "reasonable" speed, and that may account for the difference in voltage(?). Let me add here that this engine is quick: I can't imagine how fast she would go on 9-10 volts, because anything above 6V and she really takes off!  

My initial reason for this discussion was to see if you thought there might be a "typical" difference between the Korean-built Lionels and more recent, Chinese-built models; so far I'm guessing "no"...

Mark in Oregon

John and Mark,

Mark's question was what I was trying to get a baseline on, in general.  I thought the common denominator might be wattage to see if there are differences.  I pulled 5V out of my fleeting memory, thinking I had read that someplace on the forum.  I have not measured the voltage on any of my smoke units. 

But the interesting part is that if the actual is over 10 volts (rms, dc equivalent, or whatever), and the resistance is below 25 ohms,  the wattage in that resistor is over 2 watts.  Are the 2 watt units mentioned sufficient?  Once again, I have not checked OEM specs on these resistors.  

The whole point of the smoke resistor is to get hot enough to vaporize the smoke fluid to make "smoke".  You can't do that if you run the resistor at the 2 watt rated power, it will get to around 100C, not nearly enough heat to produce "smoke".  The typical power in the resistor is in the 5-6 watt range to make good smoke.

That is what was confusing, the digi-key unit was two watts.

So is the Lionel resistor.