Hello,
I just finished my 2- month project of upgrading my Lionel Yellowbelly with ERR Cruise, fan driven smoke with GRJ's Super Chuffer, a can motor, and all the other goodies. Everything is working fairly well now, except for the smoke output.
I used terminal 7 (the "feature" terminal) of the ERR Cruise Commander for the hot connection of the smoke resistor, and it is grounded to outside rail ground. However, it seems the smoke output is not nearly what it should be, especially for the smoke unit I'm using. The smoke unit is an MTH unit, the standard type with the cutoff PCB that they used in PS2 and later models with smoke control.
I added a 22 ohm resistor in place of the 2 factory equipped resistors, and the smoke unit tested great. Also, when I hold the "smoke boost" function on my Cab-1, (AUX1 + hold 9), the smoke unit performs very well. However, when normally running, sometimes the smoke can't even be seen. There is sufficient batting and fluid, and since the "smoke boost" function makes the smoke appear just fine, I'm wondering if there is a setting for the Cruise Commander to always enable a higher voltage to the smoke resistor. It is already programmed to AUX code 4, which sets the "feature" terminal to smoke.
Here is a video with the no "smoke boost", just running normally:
And here is a video with the "smoke boost" enabled- a large difference:
Please let me know if there's anything I can do to improve the output of the unit, I look forward to your comments.
