Lionel Legacy Mikado Smoke Unit Resistor?

It's very likely that it may not be the actual resistor.  I recommend you look at the wiring and connectors first before just replacing the resistor.  The resistor is an 8 ohm 2 watt wirewound resistor, Lionel has them in stock.

Wow!  That resistor will draw over 2 amps!  That ought to smoke like crazy!  Don't touch it with your finger, you'l get a severe burn!  Hope Lionel drives that resistor with a FET device!  One with super low internal resistance.

Hey John, what are the low and medium voltages across the resistor?

@donhradio posted:

Wow!  That resistor will draw over 2 amps!  That ought to smoke like crazy!  Don't touch it with your finger, you'l get a severe burn!  Hope Lionel drives that resistor with a FET device!  One with super low internal resistance.

Hey John, what are the low and medium voltages across the resistor?

The resistor doesn't draw anything like two amps, it's run at a much lower PWM power level!  It's hard to exactly specify what voltage is across the resistor since it's a PWM waveform.  However, from the smoke produced, it's about the same as around 6VDC from my bench on the resistor.   That being the case, I'd guess that the power the resistor is dissipating is around 4.5-5.0 watts at around an average voltage of 6 volts or a little more.  I find that in more applications, but the time you get to 6 watts in the smoke resistor, you're getting some pretty decent smoke.

gunrunnerjohn,

Thank you very much for the response sir.

I am going to go ahead and order the resistor before I take the locomotive apart.  If the connector is just loose, that will be fine.  With my luck, if I don't have the resistor on hand, it will be the bad.

The other thing with some Legacy smoke units is they used screws & nuts for the smoke unit.  Many times, they come loose.

Thank you again!

I will check that also.