JT's Mega-Steam's New Product Announcement

What is considered a low quality smoke fluid?

This sounds great, but the main question is HOW does it lubricate the fan exactly? I just don't get the physics of how it would come in contact with the fan with the liquid being applied to the wick, then blown out of the stack...

Jeb had asked me to test this product to see what I thought of it and here are my findings. First off I think the whole point of the new product is more of a "scent""Eliminator" than anything else. That said when Jeb asked me to test the product out 3 day's before I received it in the mail I took one of my prize MTH standard gauge engines and a MTH smoking tank car and filled them both with "Brand L" smoke fluid and ran the fluid threw both smoke units. I refilled both with the same fluid and let them soak and sink in for 3 day's.

When I got the bottle of "Eliminator" I ran the engine and tank car again and got the train room nice and "Stinky"  BTW.After putting in "Brand L" I noticed an almost immediate smoke decrease in both MTH smoke units!"No real surprise there"  I shut both units off and let them cool a few minutes then added the "Eliminator" fluid. After a short warm up I noticed a rapid difference in the smell to a pleasant lemon/lime scent and I did not detect any of the other smoke fluid smell!  I'm no scientist but I think we have a winner here!

My biggest pet peeve is buying a new engine and having to go threw running multiple cycles of Megasteam or changing out the wick just to get rid of the nasty stuff they put in the smoke units at the factory. Megasteams "Eliminator" neutralizes the fluid in there and kills the bad smell. Eliminator will help the transition from one flavor smoke fluid to the other if you want to change fluid scents from one season to another.  Disclaimer: I am not a paid celebrity nor do I play a doctor on TV!    I just wanted to share my experience with Megasteams new product and thank Jeb for giving me the opportunity to try it out.

I love Mega  Steam but FABREEZE  mega steam??Im still  Waiting on the gallon refills.Great stuff.

hey the wifes and girlfriends would love it and us more..heck they would be pleeding with us to run our trains more..lol..

Chris:

Thanks for the report of your test use of the new MegaSteam product. Looks like another winner for them.

Keep asking!!  maybe you'll finally get someone to answer!  I'm curious too.

- walt

Inquiring minds would like to know!   (add me to the list)

-Dave

I would imagine the vapor permeates the bearings from the smoke chamber.  Short of drowning the smoke unit in fluid, it's not going to be liquid over in the fan chamber.  Since I've been successful in fixing many of them by simply giving them a little proper lubricant, I suspect it doesn't take much to lube the bronze bearings.

I will give it a try. Sounds like another great MegaSteam product.

This new product sounds like a real winner! I can't wait to try it out 

Gunrunnerjohn,

You got it right. While the main reason for developing our new "Eliminator" was to have a product that would eliminate those nasty smells, we did spend a lot of time working with viscosities that would still be within the strict parameters we use in the manufacture of our smoke fluid line. Eliminator is a smoke fluid...same base as our line of products with a couple of unique chemical engineered features. In all of our in-house testing we did notice the elimination of nasy smells from brand new out-of-the-box locomotives and we did find that our new product worked well with transitioning from one scent to another. Use it just like smoke fluid.  We also found that any locos with squeeky fan noise quickly quieted down at about the 2-3rd filling. Having spent over 60 years in the hobby so far, over 25 years dealing with smoke units, and the last 10 years with JT's Mega-Steam, we can only theorize (educated guess) what is going on deep inside the smoke unit housing.

The noisy fan fix is a by-product of the viscosity of the Eliminator. No matter how many people say it isn't so, a tiny little bit of oil does sometimes make its way back to the fan housing in the smoke unit...usually a fine mist droplet, but none the less, just enough. We have found through testing that some smoke fluids are too light and those noisy bearings have to be manually lubricated. Eliminator has a special formula blend that uses just the right viscosity (thickness) of oil to help lubricate that fan. That is not the main purpose of Eliminator, but we tried to develop it so that it would accomplish that as well. We found it to quiet those noisy fans and Scott Smith in his testing shared the same result. It might work for you or it might not since a lot of factors do come into play with individual smoke units, operators, and conditions. We hope it does!

What we are confident is that Eliminator will indeed eliminate those bad smells of old smoke fluid and give you a fresher cleaner smoke unit to add whatever scent or brand you so choose...we just hope you choose JT's Mega-Steam!

Fabreeze? Not today, but who knows what might turn up Patrick!

Hope this answers your questions. Thanks to the OGR Forum for this opportunity.

Jeb Kriigel

JT's Mega-Steam

Well, I didn't find it on the website, and I just placed a $50 order for smoke fluid!  I wanted to try this as well.

Thanks Jeb.  I'll be picking up a bottle next week at York.  TAKE A LOT!!!!!

- walt

Jeb, I also will be picking up a bottle next week at York.

Doug

I don't have any smoke units which are loud, but I do have some which still smell of the Life-Like smoke fluid I used before I found out that not all smoke fluid produced and smelled the same. It stinks so bad!

So I am in for a bottle! Sounds easier than trying to replace the wicks!

"Eliminator has a special formula blend that uses just the right viscosity (thickness) of oil to help lubricate that fan."

why not do this with some of the regular fluid, like NADA?

Very impressive and interesting. Taking smoke fluid to new levels. Very nice work.

Since your working miracles, how about figuring out how to produce black smoke!

Black would be good, as long as it doesn't leave black all over things!

I'm sure that would be very difficult to do, since any of the current smoke fluids leave residue all over the track & scenery, not to mention the tops of weathered locomotives.

why not do this with some of the regular fluid, like NADA?

Forrest Jerome,

Every scent has its own properties and proprietary formulas. If we added the special blend to NADA (No Scent) it wouldn't be NADA. Eliminator does have a very slight lemon/lime scent...that we use as an indicator. When you smell that in place of the old  smoke smells you know it working. Usually 3 filling cycles in sufficient to solve the problem. Some people may want to use Eliminator all of the time, but our thought is that you use it only when you need to. It's a special maintenance item.

Black smoke?

So far in our research and testing, black smoke can only be produced when something is burning and producing carbon. That smoke would definately not be good for you, your train room, your house, your girl friend, or your wife and kids, etc. FYI: Model train smoke fluid is not burned, but vaporized by the tiny heating element in the smoke unit. Now..."if we could get something to vaporize into dark gray or black that wouldn't be harmful to people or model trains!" TMI

BTW: Our "Eliminator" is not available from any dealer, LHS, or on-line at our website until after York. We are in production for its premier release at the York show and will let everyone know when it is available elsewhere. Thank you.

 That's all for now. Thanks for the questions.

JT's Mega-Steam

Black smoke?  Something tells me that's a bad idea!

You want to replicate the fireman not keeping the steam locomotive properly fired, huh? 

Black would indicate a poor 1:48 fireman.

Kool new product!  Since I am only using JT's, I don't need the eliminator.  When I switch from one smell to another ... its all good.  That sounds kind of like an advertisement?

My name is Rich, and I'm a smokeaholic.  I have been using Mega-Steam exclusively for a long time, never a problem.  IMHO, NADA is a must have.  I use it to transition between scents, or even to tame down some of the more perfumier scents.  I will be trying the new product to see if it will quiet down some of the fans, which would be great if it did!  The noise could be more due to vibration or an unbalanced fan prop.  Thank you for continuing R&D Mega-Steam!

Stack

Is there any benefit to using Eliminator in a post war, pill type smoke unit?

Being a relative newb, I thought the Nada had a very 'chemical' smell at first.  I did not realize it was likely the smell of the new smoke units during break-in...or the Nada has grown on me   However, I'm still anxiously awaiting the availability of the new Eliminator online   Thanks Mega-Steam!

Robert

The ultimate test:  That nice Pepe LePew smeeling flavor from the WICKED green bottle:  MARX!

Already available in gallons, Patrick! It's called Super-Dri Aviation Smoke oil by MDW Aviation, about 23.00/gal for all the smoke you'll ever need. At you LHS now and none of the bull.

Bob

I'm guessing the motor has to be removed from the smoke unit to oil the bearings.

Actually, no.  Did you read the other thread about the tests on noisy smoke units?

Actually yes, the newest legacy units have the impeller enclosed in a seperate fan housing which is connected to the wicking bowl via aquarium air line tubing.

The housing has to be unscrewed from the rest of the smoke unit and the fan removed from it.

 To make things more tedious, most of the legacy smoke units are mounted to the underside of the shell instead of the chassis, the unit itself has to be unplugged from the board mounted on the chassis, then you unscrew it and pull it out from under the shell.

The "good ole days" of popping the hood and servicing the smoke unit while its still mounted to the loco are going away, at least as far as steam locos are concerned.

I believe the only locos thst still use a "chassis mounted smoke unit are those that have the cylinder blowoff like the MR S3

This is broken down but you can spot what 'm talking about.

http://www.lionel.com/CustomerService/ReplacementParts/index.cfm?doAction=productPartFilter&number=620-8312-200&productID=0a28c14f-22d4-49db-a07d-67e7752119e8

Having said all that, I'm not sure how well this new smoke fluid will lubricate the new legacy smoke units since the fan motor is more "isolated" from the rest of the unit.

This, on top of the fact the fan is mounted horizontally, also signifigantly reduces the risk of "flooding" the fan motor with oil. Its too far to go, and what fluid that could in any way find its way through the tubing would just run out of the bottom of the impellar housing.

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