Anyone else have this smoke issue on new scale PE?

I believe there is only one fan motor....so if the smoke is coming out the whistle it is working well.  The problem sounds like you have a miniscus over the hole that sends smoke to the smoke stack.  I am betting if you blow down that hole you will free up the trapped smoke in that chamber.

some other things to increase smoke outage are to have the Cab momentum set to high,

set smoke to high, set efx to high and pull train brake down about 1/4.  Start engine out in low speed, Then blow down the stack for good measure.

also, I know you are aware, that train must be moving for smoke to exitbthe stack.

Hope this helps

-Pete

I'll second blowing gently down the stack. A faulty fan motor would mean no puffing at all and noise, and you would likely get a flashing diagnostic code.

However there are two seperate motors that share a resovoir. you can see in this parts photo what I would guess is the elbow for the whistle smoke plumbing.

There maybe be another for the stack outlet although not nearly as sharp since I doubt one side of this dual smoke unit could not be centered under the stack and still fit.

Thanks for the reply.  I have blown down the stack by blowing through my mouth into the stack, with the suplied pipet, and with one of megasteams precision point droppers.  Smoke is coming out, is is just not as dark/thick as when the whistle blows. 

I do have smoke set to high and efx set to high.  I have not tried setting momentum to high.  I will try that out.

The next question is, how much fluid are you using and how often? These newer legacy units are thirsty, especially this double resovoir. 20 drops is probably just getting started and it may only be good for 5-10 minutes before needing more.

Its a good idea to do a "night before" filling to give the fluid a chance to absorb into the wicking. Theres a chance the stack fan may be blowing it out or burning through it faster with the higher volume.

I did not think about not having enough fluid.  I am always afraid of adding to much.  I think I have been cautious and adding 15-20.  Forgot that it would probably be a bigger reservoire.  I have been trying to fill it after running and then running the next day.  The last couple of days I have been using the megasteam eliminator to get rid of whatever the original smell was that came with it.  Last night was the first night that it finally started to smell like the original smell was gone. 

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Mine works like a charm. Wonderful feature on these terrific locomotives.

I finally took off the cover and pulled the smoke unit.  Like you said, the funnel for the main stack travels at an angle in order to fill the reservoire and still provide smoke to the center for the stack.  The divider for the reservoire is Part #2 in the above picture.  It pushes down on the wick material.  The wick material for both sides is attached.  The divider just compress the wick in the middle.  My problem ended up being that the wick was charred.  Mostly on the stack side and not so much on the whistle side.  I decided to turn the wick material over and try again.  This seems to have resolved my issue.  I did end up cutting the wick material in half in order to make it fit easier with the dividing plate in the middle.  The plate has a raised section in the bottom middle that will allow fluid to travel under the divider to the other side of the reservoire.  I wish I had measured how much fluid it would take while I had it open.  The reservoire seems like it is almost double in size when compared to my SD70ACes.  I am thinking that these things could handle much more than the normal 20 drops.  But that is just speculation.

Because my new Legacy B&O Lionchief Plus has always produced just wisps of smoke, I called Lionel Customer Support.  A lady there suggested that I look at the following Lionel video 'Smoke Units 101':

http://www.lionel.com/Customer....cfm?documentID=6458

There I learned the following:

You should not add fluid to a hot smoke unit; turn the unit off and let it cool for 2-3 minutes before adding more fluid.

If you do add fluid to a hot unit from a stack or port, the fluid will crystallize on the hot heating element and you will not get smoke.  If you do this, you will have to wait anywhere from 4-5 hours, to overnight, to 2-3 days for the crystals to bleed off into the batting and the unit has to be off.

Lionel Customer service uses a needle applicator down the stack and past the heating element to deliver the fluid straight to the batting.

Using a needle prevents the meniscus from forming on the passage to the batting; it seems drops of fluid will adhere to the passage and around the passage to form the meniscus.

You can get the needle applicators from Amazon at:

http://www.amazon.com/Gaunt-In...ke+applicator+needle

RickM46

Oops, I just saw needle dispensers at Megasteam; ordered a few.

RickM46

The precission point won't be able to get to the batting on the this PE loco.  The funnel on this locomotive directs the fluid and smoke to an off center position.  The precission point works great for a lot of other locomotives.

I will also add that the tubing for the wistle steam on my PE looked burnt and partially melted/deformed where it connects to the metal pipe.  I did not find any residue on the metal pipe for the tubing to connect to so I am not too concerned yet.

I feel like I'm putting smoke fluid in the VL Big Boy every lap!  They really are very thirsty!