Help. Smoke Unit causing electrical malfunction

The smoke resistor is 20 ohms, if that checks out, make sure that the smoke wire isn't shorted to the frame.  The DREU has a smoke triac, if it shorted, it could possible cause this issue.

Have you tried switching the lights in the cars off or just removing them from the track and then switching the smoke unit on?

RickM46 posted:

Have you tried switching the lights in the cars off or just removing them from the track and then switching the smoke unit on?

I did try removing everything else from the track and running just the train with the smoke on. The train ran for a couple seconds longer, gave a puff of smoke and then quit out again, same as before with the green light blinking on the transformer.

Do you have other locomotives that have smoke units that you can drive with the CW80?  If it is not the CW80 itself, then what GRJ said.  I only have experience with fixing 1 smoke unit (I am an amateur) and that was on my Big Boy; easy to do if you get the parts from Lionel and know how to solder.

Had a smoke problem with my flyerchief northern. Loco stopped running and no smoke. I could run the loco if I turned off the the smoke unit ( with the switch ) I found the trouble to be the fan motor not running. I removed the unit and found the resistor to be ok but the fan motor to be dead. Replaced the smoke unit with a new unit. All ok now.  I have to say that the fan motor turned every thing off.

Hi WAGTAG7, just out of curiosity, how many drops of smoke fluid did you put into it?  I am an expert at either drowning smoke units (which usually takes out the fans or circuit boards) or starving them.

The smoke resistors occasionally fail, shorting to 1-3 ohms, on these starter sets(probably others too).  This wasn't a big deal until Lionel started connecting the smoke element to the motor output through the reverse board(to prevent meltdowns in neutral), so now they short and take out the reverse board.

The telltale is that one tremendous PUFF  from the stack before the loco shuts down.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

The smoke resistor is 20 ohms, if that checks out, make sure that the smoke wire isn't shorted to the frame.  The DREU has a smoke triac, if it shorted, it could possible cause this issue.

Checked the resistor and it is working fine. Wire was not shorted to the frame. Put it back together and took all the trains off the track again and it ran fine smoke and all.... BUT, when I put the rest of the cars back on the tracks and tried to run everything all together it could hardly crawl even at full power. The blinking green light began blinking again and gave up after about 20 seconds of crawling. Still runs fine once I turn the switch to the smoke unit off. Is something wrong with the CW80 Transformer that it isn't able to supply enough power for all of the cars and the smoke stack at the same time? Can I test that?

RickM46 posted:

Hi WAGTAG7, just out of curiosity, how many drops of smoke fluid did you put into it?  I am an expert at either drowning smoke units (which usually takes out the fans or circuit boards) or starving them.

I fear too many.... I think I put close to 6, but I can't remember now.

If you have a multi meter, maybe you can check the amperage draw with smoke and without cars and then with cars one at a time.  I think the max amperage draw of a CW80 is 4.7 amps (on mine that is 80watts divided by 17volts that I put on the track).  Here is a thread where I did that:

https://ogrforum.com/...ra-pacific-vs-a-cw80

BUT, I will tell you, I am no electrician and defer to GRJ and Rob.

Six drops should not be an issue unless it was already loaded.

So in summary, resistor is good, smoke unit and loco alone work fine with transformer. Add the cars and overload, if smoke is on. If smoke not on, no overload and all operates.

Sure sounds like the extra current of the smoke unit is overloading the transformer. Can you check the current like rickm suggests?

I'd start by trying a different transformer or checking the train on a different layout.

I would defer to Milan's reply above if you have not resolved the problem. I had exactly the same symptoms you mentioned on a Legacy Y3, replaced the smoke unit motor, all is fine now.

Ray