lionel lionmaster tmcc sd 90 smoke unit problem

sounds like the two motor bearings need oiling.

romiller

ROMILLER49,  I have never done that  can i just put a drop of oil on the shaft without taking the motor off?, this is new territory for me .

It may be that the 5V supply for the fan motor is dying, that could be another reason for it vibrating like that.  Another thing that happens is the impeller starts slipping on the shaft, that's very common with MTH steamers, as they dynamically brake the motor for each chuff, and it puts a lot of stress on the impeller.  I've seen it on diesels as well.

You can't really oil the important top bearing without at least pulling the impeller off the shaft after taking the PCB off the smoke unit.

gunrunnerjohn, can i just pull the impeller off to oil the bearing,or is there more to it than that ?

Yep, you just grab it with needle-nose pliers and pull it straight off.  After putting a drop of oil on the bearing, push it back on.  This is important, make sure it's below the plane of the top of the smoke unit PCB, but not rubbing on the bottom!  It must be free to rotate, this is probably the most common issue when people pull the impeller.

OK  John,thanks i will try that tomorrow & post what happens.

I pulled the impeller off & put a drop of oil on the shaft,put every thing back together & still the same problem,it starts to spin,but then just stops it does spin freely ,so what can i do next i am including some photos,so if you can advise me on what to do next it would be appreciated very much .PLEASE try to keep it as simple as possible,as i know very little about this especially when it comes to identifing parts but i am willing to give it a try with your help.

It's quite possible that one of the components on the smoke PCB has failed, top suspect is the little 5V TO-92 regulator.  Next would be the cap, then the diode.  I've had boards where the diode failed and took out the other two, I just replace them all.

Of course, the motor could be drawing excessive current and simply overloading the fan motor supply, no way to know that without a bench test.

If the heater is getting hot, it's pretty much got to be either the motor or one of the components I mentioned.

John, is replaceing the motor hard to do,if not i would rather try that first because i do not have much knowledge about electronics,although you guys have helped me in the past & it turned out well,i would need to know how to remove the motor,i have been looking at how to do it,but so far i haven't figured out , & yes the resister is getting hot.

Replacing the motor isn't that hard.  You are 90% of the way there.  When you pull the impeller, you'll see two tiny Phillips screws under it.  Remove those and the motor comes off.  The only issue in replacing the motor is making sure when it's in place, it rotates in the correct direction.  Viewed from the top of the smoke unit, that's clockwise for your smoke unit.  Swap the motor leads if it rotates the wrong way.

Thanks John ,i did see the two tiny screws ,but i wasn't sure what they were for,could you advise me as to where I can order the motor,& i would order some batting for the smoke unit providing i can get them both from the same place.

You can get the motor and the wick from Lionel.

691-SMKP-008 Smoke Unit Batting

610-1154-130 Smoke Unit Motor

The motor has the diagonal holes, but I don't think it'll make any difference, the other style is marked unavailable on the Lionel site.

Thanks  John, i placed my order with lionel ,i will post when i get the parts i hope thats all it is,we will see soon.

You're in good hands with GRJ. You'll get it fixed. Good luck.

Romiller 

If it's not the motor, it's almost surely the regulator components.  If that turns out to be the case, I can fix those for you if you don't want to try your hand at PCB repair.

Thanks for the offer John,if it turns out not to be the motor then i can bring it to Alex  Malliae, if he has the time, he only lives about a half an hour from me,he has actually repaired this engine for me in the past,i like to try & fix it myself if possible it would make me feel good if i can do it,lets see what happens when i get the parts then i will decide what i want to do.     Thanks Again.    Jerry  M.

Good news,i received the smoke motor from lionel yesterday & today i took the shell off to remove the old motor when i loosened the 2 small screws holding the motor in place i noticed there was a red wire disconnected  from the motor,i was thinking that this is going to be easier than i thought,just resoder it back on,i did this & put everything back together ,put the engine back on the track to test it,well same problem so i took everything apart & put the new motor in,put engine back on the track,powered it up & it started smoking normal again,so all is well & i was able to do it myself with a lot of help from the forum . I do have a question for GUNRUNNER JOHN, you mentioned that if it wasn't the motor it could be the 5v to 92 regulator,the cap ,or the diode, i don't even know what these parts look like ,if they are visible in any of the pictures i posted could you point them out to me for future reference?    Thanks Again .   Jerry  M.

That's easy Jerry, they're the only components on the board, other than the actual smoke resistor and the two connectors.

John this is great,at least now i have a reference i can go to in the future if i have anymore problems with smoke units, so next time i have a problem & someone tells me if the motor is good change the filter cap, or change the diode at least i can look back & know what they are talking about ,i am saving this thread on my computer so i will a source to go to,thanks to you,again i appreciate all the help you guys have given me.    Jerry  M.

Glad it all worked out.

Quick question about the fan motor, when i ordered it i ordered 2,along with some batting,my question is can i use this motor in any lionel engine with a fan driven smoke unit?

Pretty much.  There are two motors, at least there used to be.  One has diagonal holes and the other one horizontal holes, there were some smoke units that you needed the correct type.

I didn't know if i should start a new thread or not so i am bringing this back up. As you are aware i put a new motor in the smoke unit because the old one wasn't spinning,so i decided to hook the old motor up to a AA battery to see what would happen,well the motor is spinning just fine,so the question is ,is the old motor still good even though it did not spin when it was hooked up in the smoke unit ?, any thoughts on this?    Thanks,    Jerry

It could be drawing too much current and overloading the regulator, that little regulator doesn't supply much power.  It could also have a dead spot on the commutator.  The fact that it didn't work in the smoke unit and the new one does, I'd pitch it.  It's a $6 motor, do you really want to put a likely defective motor into something else?

John, I had thrown the motor in the trash ,but then i was thinking about it & was curious to see what would happen if i hooked it up to a battery & i was surprised it worked,i would never think about putting this motor in another engine ,curiosity got the best of me & i had to see if it would work with a battery.

I sent several motors out the Jon Z. at Lionel that I had taken out of Legacy stuff that had the three blinks, they required 100's of milliamps to run, far more than the electronics was able to provide.  If a motor is suspect nowadays, it hits the trash, life is too short to spend time trying to save a cheap motor.

I agree 100%, when i tested it with the battery & it started working i thought that maybe there was something else wrong with the smoke unit that was causeing the motor not to work,but i do not have the knowledge to know how to do other tests,that's another reason why i posted about the battery test,thanks to you John, i was able to make the repair myself, it made me feel good for being able to do that.    Jerry  M.