Flashing cab lights. How to stop that

You may want to check your manual.  Oftentimes flashing cab lights indicate a diagnostic problem such as a faulty smoke unit

Pete

Thanks. If all else fails read the instruction manual. Come to think of it only the front smoke unit is working now. The other night it was just the rear one.

My guess is three flashes indicating a smoke unit issue.

I just looked at a video from last night and it is flashing three times, stops and does it again. A trip back to Lionel is next?

just an FYI....I remember reading if you change back and forth from forward to Reverse with your Legacy controller it will clear the code and cab lights will stop flashing

Pete

I will try that later. Not near the trains right now. Thanks

I will try turning it upside down, it might be overfilled.

The flashing is the fan drawing too much current.  With the rash of bad fan motors that Lionel has had lately, it may be that you need a new fan motor if you can't clear the error.

Good info. I will check that out. It might be me but whenever I buy a new Lionel engine I have a problem, but with MTH I rarely have any issues. Bad QC?

3 Flashes is a problem with one of the fan motors, I sent one of mine back twice for this issue.

If you see the light inside the cab flashing, press

RESET (for LEGACY operation), 0 (for TMCC operation), or DIRECTION/power interruption (for conventional operation to attempt to clear the problem. The locomotive will immediately check itself again. If the problem persists, the cab light will blink the code again.

Note that smoke-related errors can be reset a maximum of three times. On the third try, if the problem still persists, the smoke unit will be shut down and must be returned to Lionel Service for repair.

Turning the smoke unit switch to the off position will disable diagnostic checks of the smoke system.

Number of Blinks Diagnostic Code Description

1 Main drive motor stalled.

2 Smoke 1 element problem.

3 Smoke 1 fan problem.

4 Not applicable.

5 Not applicable.

Note!

You can clear the error, but if the fan motor is still bad, it'll come right back.  I recently replaced the motor with an MTH fan motor for a forum member for this issue after several trips to Lionel.  So far, it hasn't been back.

Probably a bad fan motor.

Most likely but I believe Nicole from the UK found that sometimes over filling got fluid in the motor or some sort.  By turning it over, the fluid got away from the motor.

Not sure of that but it maybe worth a try as she had experience with it working.

It certainly can't hurt Marty, and it's cheap to try.

I have 2 DD35a units and if they sit for a length of time I get the cab flashing lights. I have had luck with another way to clear the error. Open the roof access to the smoke motor switch and with the engine getting a full 18 volts of track power cycle the fan motor switch off and on until you get the fan motor to stay on and then let the engine idle for at least 10 minutes with the fan motor running. You may have to add a little smoke fluid. Once the motors have run for a while they tend to stay running. They really like the ZW-L the best for prevention of the stall in the first place. I hope this helps.

I'm not sure I get the ZW-L reference, the motors run on filtered DC and would get the same power from any transformer.

Maybe the ZW-L is putting out a higher voltage to the track versus what my ZW-c did? I do not know for sure but I think so. I do know that I have much better performance and luck with the smoke motors running using the ZW-L.

I believe the MTH and Lionel smoke motors are the same.

Well Chris, recent Lionel motors have been failing, and I haven't had the same issue with the MTH motors.  So, they may look the same...

FWIW, many of the current generation Lionel motors are shorter than the MTH motor by about 1/8", so those are clearly not the same.

Well even if they are/were the same, theres no question lionel got ALL of the defective ones

How do I clear the error?

Turn off the smoke unit, power down the tracks, power back on, error cleared.

I will try that later. Thanks