Yesterday i decided to run my lionel legacy shay ,#6-11364 & when i tried to put the smoke unit on it wouldn't work & the cab light was blinking 3 times ,usually it means smoke unit problem if i am correct ,i tried hitting the reset button on the cab-2 ,nothing worked ,so i let it sit over night & & this morning i was ready to open it up ,then i decided let try one more time ,i put it on the track ,powered up the cab light was still blinking ,i hit the reset button the light stopped blinking & it is smoking back to normal ,anyone have any idea why this happened ?,is it possible that the resister is going bad ? ,right now it is working ok.
Replies sorted oldest to newest
3 blinks is the smoke unit fan. It may have gotten stuck for whatever reason.
Don't worry about it and just run it. Some run time may free up the fan a bit preventing it from reccuring
If the fan motor gets noisy and stops working you'll likely have to replace it.
Fyi.You get 3 resets after the light starts blinking . Then the smoke unit will automatically shut down until the power is removed from the loco.
Powering it up again will give you another 3 resets and so on.
Lionel has had an epidemic of smoke fan failures since about 2011 or so. Minor fan issues with my recent purchases give me the impression they still haven't quite figured it out.
Meanwhile my old tmcc steamers puff away and the fans are practically silent.
Ricko,I never gave it a thought about the fan being stuck, at least it is working now i hope it stays that way .
Being from the 2013 Catalog, it's right in the middle of the flaky fan motor band.
I wasn't sure when i had bought this engine ,so i looked back at my receipts & sure enough John it was bought August 2013 ,you were right on ,so far she is smoking perfect .