Disappointing Lionel Parts Order

$70 doesn't buy what it used to. Have you contacted Lionel?

Just took it out of the plastic bag. I'm going to send them an email.

@J.Dooley posted:

This is a $70 "new" replacement smoke unit I just purchased direct from LionelSupport.com. 🫤

Disappointing, to say the least.

Perhaps it was from one of the factory sample units.  Was it the last one they had?

@Sean's Train Depot posted:

Perhaps it was from one of the factory sample units.  Was it the last one they had?

I just put 50 in my cart and it was ready to let me check out, so I'm guessing there are plenty in stock. 😂 Clearly, it's been powered on, probably for a good bit of time. It came in the little plastic bag just like everything else from the Lionel Parts Store, so no idea.

It's not at all uncommon to get used parts from Lionel.  Most of the parts come from teardowns of returned or damaged locomotives.  I have a second RCMC that I'm going to return again, the original and this one both had HS compound on the bridge, so clearly they were used.  The first one was really wonky in the motor drive, this replacement just zorches the smoke unit with double power all the time!  It's binary, on or off, no smoke volume control from the CAB2.  I must admit it was impressive, but since this is a diesel, I don't want quite that impressive.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I must admit it was impressive, but since this is a diesel, I don't want quite that impressive.

I had that one Frisco Meteor where it was stuck at full power and "impressive" meant a slagged smoke unit casing in about 45 seconds. We need to make "I like my smoke impressive, but not THAT impressive" t-shirts.

I've seen several early Legacy steamers with the modular boards have a regulator failure and put 18 volts on the smoke unit.  So, instead of around 5-7 watts for full smoke, they got 40 watts into the smoke unit.  Obviously, this is only good for 20-30 seconds, but boy is it impressive!   I only wish I'd have gotten a video of one of them.

I have a Legacy k4 that I’ve had all kinds of problems with. (See Pulling drivers on a Legacy K4) Had to order a new RCMC board for it. That fixed the running problems, but I got the runaway smoke on both the smoke and whistle steam. Ordered another RCMC board and motor drive, and sounds were screwed up. Put the old board back in and contacted Lionel about sending the “new” board back for exchange. Their reply was “take it to a service center”. So I’m stuck with another 200.00 bad board. This is my first Lionel locomotive, and I’m definitely NOT impressed!! No smoke, or whistle steam, but at least it runs.

Bob

I'm having @Brasseur Electric Train Repairs work on a diesel switcher for me to replace an RCMC board that popped a cap, and last I heard the first one they got sent as a replacement was bad as well. Seems like less a Lionel problem than a sourcing vendor issue, not sure it's possible for Lionel to test every component that comes in. Definitely a PITA though.