ES44 Smoke Stack Fire

That is scary!  I have the same engine.  Only got to run it once before we moved and I don't think I used the smoke feature because we were moving and it had to packed back up soon.  I have other MTH ES44's and have used the smoke with no problems. I also use MTH smoke fluid. Have no idea what would cause that?  It is good you didn't get to the newspaper in the tunnel! 

That is defective 13 drops shouldn't cause that.  

Something along the same lines happened to a Lionel steamer several years ago.  There were several pages of Forum comments.  This should be interesting.

 

I'm glad there was no damage to anything or anyone other than to the engine.

It's a GE.  Fire from the stack is a prototypical feature.

;-)

Too bad I didn't have time to record the firery event.  My brother yelled, "hey John is that supposed to do that?"  Just barely had time to react!  Yes it was scary!

After it was all done, did you smack your brother??

I had a P3 smoke unit go bad on an sd70. There was the smell of burnt electronics and looking down the stack you could see a red glow which increased /decreased when more voltage was applied /lessened. The surrounding area on the shell was quite hot...Per the returned repair invoice, MTH changed the p3 board . Not an electronics guru but perhaps a factory defect in these P3 boards

Well that is 100% a product liability claim. They are not designed to start a fire period. I suggest you contact MTH.

Very glad it turned out OK.

 

That's why I always keep a good fire extinguisher close to the layout. There's a lot of power there and you never know when a piece of electronics could be defective.

We've already sent MTH the photo.  And, you bet, I'm getting a fire extinguisher!  It was a close call.

Several cases of this happening on PS3 engines.  This is the third instance that it's been brought to light on this forum.

 

Sunrise

I'd guess without actually seeing it, the smoke FET shorted and put full voltage on the unit.  That would result in a LOT of heat and smoke, at least for a short time.

 

We just had a Lionel regulator failure at the club last week with a similar result except the diecast shell didn't melt.  Boy, was there ever a lot of smoke!

 

I'd get on the phone with service tomorrow. MTH doesnt seem so good with email response. After you talk to someone, they may be able to give you an email address to send the photo where it'll be reviewed and brought to the attention of the necessary parties, and obiously, give you an RA#.

I'll make the call.  MTH has been good with my email inquiries in the past.

I had my Hudson Jr do this pulling a long line of cars up a grade close to full throttle. The smokestack started to glow cherry red and then shot a 3 inch flame out the stack for a couple of seconds then nothing. The resistor was fried. I was using Mega-Steam. It was pretty cool looking.

 

As posted previously, I to wish I had recorded it.

Sorry about your Hudson.  Agreed, mine was cool looking, too.  But, not at the expense of a new loco.  

John, I think this is a good move. I think you should get the information to Rich Foster also at MTH. Thanks for sharing your story. Please give up a follow up post as to what MTH is planning to do.

That was me. I had a Lionel small, non-scale, hudson with TMCC. I picked it up at York to run around my Christmas tree. After a couple of times around the track flames started coming from the smoke stack on the engine. Sent it back to Lionel and they sent me another one. Same thing happened so I asked for a got a refund.

 

Some referred to this action as Protoflame!

Yes I've had a couple fires on my display. Fortunately most of my small display is not highly combustible and I do have an extinguisher handy. During the last one; as the adult in me was reaching for the kill switch the kid in me kicked in and said grab a camera.

 

 

Neat smoke effects, TMack.  And, Matthew, my flame was shooting out of the smoke stack.  I was in shock by the pyrotechnics that I didn't even think about recording it.  Will let everyone know what happens with MTH.

Its prototypical:

 

Rick O,

WOW that is quite a video you have posted. Hope that is not going on too often. Thanks for the post.

Matthew B.,

Man O man that fire in the stack had a real glow/ Hope you have reported this to the MFG?

Thought you all would like to know that Nick at MTH apologize for the smoke stack fire and emailed us a FedEx label to send the diesel to be repaired or replaced.  I'll let you know what happens.

Being the engine was diecast, it did no damage. The was glowing the smoke stack like in the video posted here then erupted with a 3 inch flame.

mrmuggs,

 

Thanks for posting this. I kind of recall the other posts, but haven't gone back to look for them yet.

That said, last night I pulled my RRC and DCS units out to have a look. What I did find on the RRC unit smoke unit was that both resistors were in full contact with each other. I do not know if this would cause the issue you had or not. I provided a little space between them by slightly repositioning the wick/batting. Added smoke fluid per the manual, put everything back together and put her on the track(this is the first time operating the smoke unit). Started the engine and let it run for about 15 minutes. At point in time no issue.

 

I looked into the DCS unit smoke unit, and found space between the resistors. Put everthing back together, added smoke fluid and tested for 15 minute. Again, no problem at this time.

 

Lastly, I took a look at my Christmas gift from my wife and daughter, the Western Maryland Alco FA-2 set. Both A unit smoke unit resistors had a little space between them. The trailing unit had a little bit of the wick/batting tucked between the resistors like the other smoke units did. The lead A-unit just had the wick/batting pushed in the smoke unit cavity. I tucked the wick between the resistors and the unit now produces the same level of smoke as the trailing unit and the ES44's.

 

I hope MTH Service let's you know what they find. I also hope that someone more experienced in servicing MTH could comment on what I found on my ES44 (could or would the resistors making full contact cause your issue?)

 

I will be running my toys some more this weekend to break them in and see how the smoke units perform. BTW, how long had your engine been running when this happened? I am also happy to read that MTH helped you so quickly!

 

Enjoy your day!

The ends of the resistors touching shouldn't create any special issue, as they're connected on the PCB directly above.  OTOH, if the nichrome wire itself in the middle were shorted to the other resistor, that could create a problem.

 

I'd bet money that the smoke driver FET failed on that board and put full voltage on the resistor.  The 8 ohms of resistance of the two 16 ohm resistors in parallel should result in about .75 amps of average current for a total of 4.5 watts from the logic.  If the FET shorted, it would provide around 18 volts for 2.25 amps and around 40 watts!  Needless to say, 40 watts in that little cavity would create a LOT of heat in a hurry!  Even if it didn't get past say 20 watts, that's still a huge heat load for the unit.

Thanks gunrunnerjohn!

 

What I failed to mention in my above post is that the resistors in the RRC ES44 were also sitting in a more diagonal position initially as well. (And, I should have taken pictures to post here as well... )

Henry J, the diesel ran for less than a minute.  It started up like a PS3 and smoked almost immediately.  Maybe it ran a few seconds more, but because my brother wanted to see it run, I ran it slowly forward for about 10 seconds.  That's when he noticed the fire coming out of the smoke stack. 

Wow!

A very short run!  

 

When I initially purchased each one,  took it out of the box to exam them. Added some smoke fluid to wet the wicks some, knowing it would be a little while before running them. I did let the units get through the start up sequence and shut the smoke off during the initial test running late last year. I was surprised how 'dry' the wick had become in what I feel is a short time in storage.

 

General question to the knowledgeable forum members, does smoke fluid evaporate off over time? Thanks for the help.

The red glow is a giveaway that there's too much power there!   That kind of temperature would easily ignite the smoke fluid.

 

The interesting thing is, I actually have an MTH locomotive that has a red glow in the smoke unit by design, the P5A.  I was surprised to see the red glow down there, they heat it up and then shoot out a "burst of steam".

Thought you all would like to know that we received the repaired MTH ES44 yesterday.  It runs great, smokes great (no fire coming out of smokestack), but there are problems.  Now, there are no flashing charging lights and the right ditch light is out.  Oh, and they kept the instruction book that originally came with the diesel.  We emailed the MTH Service Department about the problems, and we're waiting for a reply.  Sure hate to return the diesel for more repairs! 

That's a bummer, you would have hoped that it would come back 100%.

 

Thanks for the support, John.  Yes, we had hopes, too.   

Did you try a "Feature Reset?"  That might get the charging lights to work again.

 

Stuart

 

That's a good idea, Stuart.  I'll give it a try.  Meanwhile, MTH hasn't returned our email.

 

Did MTH tell you what was wrong with it and what they fixed/changed?

Sorry to hear the repair went bad. I would be very upset. I see the original posting was on 1-12-14. I don't know when MTH received your loco, but  2 months+ turnaround time to do the repair on the smoke unit seems excessive.That hot smoke unit inside that tunnel could have been a real problem. I would have thought MTH would prioritize this repair. If the loco has to go back, MTH should prioritize this and pay for the shipping as well.

 

Thanks.  Agreed they had it a long time!  They paid the shipping the first time.  We're working on the problem, but we also need to hear back from MTH.  We will let everyone know what's happening.