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Good afternoon everyone,

 

I don't know if anyone has done a thread on these puffer units, sorry if it has been done before. I figured I would pass it along if anyone is interested.

 

  This morning a very nice fellow forum member came by my house and he was telling me that his Lionel J1A had a puffer unit in it and the smoke output was poor at best. So I opened her up and I completely dismantled the puffer unit and started a complete rebuild on it. What I did was put a new resistor in it and new wick material. There's also two small holes that lets the piston of the puffer unit push air into the smoke chamber. I decided to drill these two small holes slightly  larger and we ended up with an awesome smoke output.See photo's and video below.

 

THANKS FOR LOOKING, ALEX

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Original Post

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Hey guys thanks to all of you.

 

Dave the resistor value was 27 OHM and is a wire wound resistor. The engine was in command mode.

 

Dave1 give it a try it's not to difficult

 

RickO Yes he wanted 3 plus to 4 chuffs per rev. and he knew that it wouldn't be synchronized. But like you said, I was thinking the same thing to get it synchronized.

 

KevinB yes the parts are Lionel, but I purchase all of them from fellow forum member BOX CAR BILL.  He's a great guy.

 

 

Thanks again, Alex

 

 

Originally Posted by Alex Malliae:

Hey guys thanks to all of you.

 

Dave the resistor value was 27 OHM and is a wire wound resistor. The engine was in command mode.

 

Dave1 give it a try it's not to difficult

 

RickO Yes he wanted 3 plus to 4 chuffs per rev. and he knew that it wouldn't be synchronized. But like you said, I was thinking the same thing to get it synchronized.

 

KevinB yes the parts are Lionel, but I purchase all of them from fellow forum member BOX CAR BILL.  He's a great guy.

 

John, give it a try, drilling out those small holes a little larger seem to help a lot

 

 

 

Thanks again, Alex

 

 

Really nice Alex. Any idea how well it might work on my Polar Express with its fan driven whistle steam effect feature? Wonder whether it would adversely affect the whistle steam smoke capability? Has anyone tried this on a Lionel puffer which has the fan driven whistle steam effect? Also will using a higher value resistor adversely effect the running of the loco by overheating, etc?

Should likewise be interesting to see how much smoke Lionel's new LionelChief equipped rtr starter set puffer engines will put out since track voltage from wall wart will be 18 volts. Curious if Lionel puts a higher value resistor into them than it puts in its conventioanal locos to keep the smoke output down and keepthe parents who buy these sets for their children happy.

Originally Posted by JohnB:
Alex Great job what an improvement. I wonder if it would work on my J1a.....wait a minute that is my J1a. Thanks again for doing such a terrific job. Also thank your wife for the snacks. Being an x Nabisco guy I really like wheat thins. JohnB

And snacks too!...... I've never heard of Mike Reagan handing out snacks in Ohio! This upgrade gets better and better by the minute!

Originally Posted by ogaugeguy:

Curious if Lionel puts a higher value resistor into them than it puts in its conventioanal locos to keep the smoke output down and keepthe parents who buy these sets for their children happy.

That, in fact may be the case. The starter set engines come with a 28 ohm resistor but its not the extra 1 ohm that makes the difference. Rather its the fact that the 28 ohm reistors are ceramic coated and don't transfer the heat as well as the uninsulated wire wound units do.

 

Pete

Originally Posted by TheBigT:

Alex,

 

Thanks for sharing.  I would really like to know if this modification would work with the Polar Express Jr. Berk from the set.

 

Todd

It looks like what Alex did would work for most puffers, can't imagine why it won't work with the PE Berk.  I thought about drilling out those holes, now that I see the result, I'm going to try it.

Hi Guys thanks for all the nice comments

 

Guys like Gunrunner John said, I'm pretty sure this should work on all puffer units.Drilling out the holes was a chance I took and it worked out great!!!!!

The holes were so small and I thought if I made them larger there would be more air pushed from the piston and it worked out that way.

 

Thanks very much to all, ALex

Thanks to all,

 

Ed I used an 1/8 inch drill bit. It seemed to be just slightly larger than the holes on this particular engine. I'm not sure if all the puffer units would have the same size holes. So just go a little larger. I wouldn't go to large because the unit might not work right.

 

Gunrunner John, if you want to experiment you can try drilling the holes larger than I did. Maybe if you have an extra puffer unit laying around. Just to see if it works even better.

 

Alex

Anyone ever open up both a rtr set Polar Express Berk and also the P.E. Berk with the fan driven steam whistle effect to compare them? If you have, is the puffer unit in the steam whistle effect Berk the same one that's in the rtr set Berk? Would Alex's mod work equally well in a P.E. Berk with the fan driven steam whistle smoke effect?

Last edited by ogaugeguy
Originally Posted by Alex Malliae:

KevinB yes the parts are Lionel, but I purchase all of them from fellow forum member BOX CAR BILL.  He's a great guy.

 

Bill is a great guy.  He sent me a couple of transistors to repair my two modern whistle tenders at no charge.  I have a couple locomotives I wouldn't mind putting a cruise commander in at some point (when money allows), so I'm sure he'll be getting my business in the future.

It seems to me that the points of importance are,

1) slightly increase the holes for more air flow.

2) Fill smoke unit will fibreglass insulation wool so the chamber will hold more smoke fluid.

That's it.

Don't vary the value of the resistor, but use an exposed wire wound rather than an encased type, for more immediate heat transfer.

It begs the question, what's the best smoke fluid to use. Indeed, what did Alex use?

I for one would be using JT's Megasteam.

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