Erie Triplex Smoke

The exact model would be really useful here.

Nothing comes to mind that won't involve a bit of work.  Check the tether connection between the tether and the locomotive, it may be loose.

with smoke unit on blow down into stack that is not smoking.  Lot of times that works.

With the sound turned off, can you hear the impeller(fan) spinning?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

The exact model would be really useful here.

Nothing comes to mind that won't involve a bit of work.  Check the tether connection between the tether and the locomotive, it may be loose.

MTH 20-3109-1 Erie Triplex 2-8-8-8-2 Steam Locomotive & Tender

clem k posted:

with smoke unit on blow down into stack that is not smoking.  Lot of times that works.

I tried that and still nothing but thank you for taking the time to offer your advice, much appreciated.

Lehigh Valley Railroad posted:

With the sound turned off, can you hear the impeller(fan) spinning?

yes, I can hear and feel the fan spinning.

I have one of these (PS2) that arrived new from the dealer when they were first issued. Straight out of the box there was an issue with the main stack smoke unit being misaligned with the stack itself. The result was that there was some discernible smoke output but it actually came out from beneath the boiler. I got impatient and actually took the boiler off (no easy feat with this model) to realign the unit with the stack. Can you see down the stack of yours whether the smoke unit is properly aligned? When the engine is running, can you detect air being blown out of the stack in synch with the driver rotation? If so, is it warm air or not?

Later on the tender smoke unit in mine failed and had to be replaced. This is the ONLY MTH engine I have that has ever had smoke unit issues. Mostly MTH smoke units are bulletproof and should not require anything but routine maintenance.

I've learned to try simple solutions first and if there is no blockage of the smoke output I wonder if it needs a little running time to burn off excess smoke fluid? Also have you tried setting the smoke output in DCS to the high setting?

Usually the simplest answer is always the one.  As some suspected the front smoke unit has a solder connection that had come off.  They said it was an easy fix once they were able to get to the smoke unit and it is now back on its way to me.