Blue Comet

Yes, they are related. You must read the manual, I believe you get a one time reset, before you must return for repair, Good Luck.

reprogram to factory settings??Engine or legacy manual ?

Sorry I took so long I had to find it again. See page 31 of your locomotive manual under Locomotive Diagnostics. I was wrong, you get three times to reset then you will have to return to Lionel for service, as the smoke unit will shut down. Again Good Luck.

thanks,I will try it,press R on cab 2

Gentlemen,

You get more than "one chance" as Casey points out. The electronics are designed with self preservation. If the output of the board detects a short to AC ground or an instance where the amperage exceeds what it is expecting it turns the output off before it self destructs that output and causes permanent damage to the RCMC.

Let me give you an example; You have a loco with 2 blinks in the cab light. This means the main stack element is touching AC ground (all the devices inside your loco are run off of DC power now, which is a different reference than AC). You think "oh, I need a reset" so you press AUX1 + 0 (R). Cab light stops blinking. You turn smoke on again from the remote and the cab light begins blinking. This tells you that the element is DEFINITELY touching ground (could also be an open circuit on the element!). To overcome the problem, simply turn the smoke off from the remote OR go to the switch and turn the main stack smoke unit off. The loco will operate fine in all other aspects.

You can perform this reset as many times as you like (careful though, you may border on the brink of insanity by doing the same thing over and over again an expecting different results!). The manual states 3 times and it has to come in for service. This is a good rule of thumb, as the more times you heat up that output (that has a problem) the more likely you will be to damage the output.

What I am trying to say is this; if your cab light blinks 2, 3, 4 or 5 times it is solely related to smoke units (2 and 3 blinks for the main stack) and 4 and 5 blinks for the auxiliary smoke unit.

If your cab light blinks only 1 time that tells you there is a driveline issue. This could be something as simple as the crosshead/crosshead guides being pressed inward towards the drivers and creating a bind with the side rod screw. Or a simple bind on the drivers (traction tire conflicting with a brake shoe, etc). Nevertheless, 1 blink is a bind of some sort (could be anything; motor screws loose from the mount, the dogbone disengaged from the driveshaft coupling, encoder ring off the flywheel, etc.) I am certain you can fill in the blanks here!

For the record (and in every manual thus far);

1 blink; Driveline issue

2 blinks; Main stack smoke unit element is open or shorted to ground

3 blinks; Main stack smoke unit fan motor is bound up up bad

4 blinks; Aux smoke unit element is open or shorted to ground

5 blinks; Aux smoke unit fan motor is bound up or bad

(6 blinks; you should immediately give your locomotive to someone who does not have a train or everything on your layout will fail catastrohically (all at once)!) well, maybe not, but that would be pretty funny if we could get one to flash 6 times!

Hope this clears the air,

Mike

Lionel

thank Mike Iwill give it a try tonite

It don't get any better then that Mike.Thanks for the explanation and the sense of humor.

pressed R main smoke still not working although the whistle steam is working

so i will send back to lionel

Don't forget to have Mike change that horrid whistle sound set while its there.