Lionel railsounds problem

Well, I'm a little confused.  The Lionel 6-18080 D&RGW 2-8-2 MIKADO #1210 shows it has a mechanical puffer smoke unit.

Are you sure that's the number?  The puffing every other time indicates it's a mechanical unit, the cam in that engine does two chuffs/rev, and the puffer only gets one.  However, the User's Manual seems to indicate it has a fan driven smoke unit, so I'm not sure who's right.

The machine gun chuffing sounds like it could be the cherry switch going nuts or a broken wire in the IR tether.

Did you do a reset as per the manual?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Well, I'm a little confused.  The Lionel 6-18080 D&RGW 2-8-2 MIKADO #1210 shows it has a mechanical puffer smoke unit.

Are you sure that's the number?  The puffing every other time indicates it's a mechanical unit, the cam in that engine does two chuffs/rev, and the puffer only gets one.  However, the User's Manual seems to indicate it has a fan driven smoke unit, so I'm not sure who's right.

The machine gun chuffing sounds like it could be the cherry switch going nuts or a broken wire in the IR tether.

Did you do a reset as per the manual?

I guess it does have a mechanical chuffing unit, I really can't tell the difference because I don't have a fan driven smoke unit to compare it to. I just tested it out and it apparantly chuffed a bit better on a cw-80 transformer, but not fully, don't know why. I didn't try resetting it yet, nor did I test another engine. This is the proper number for the engine, d&rg 1210 Mikado ,  6-18080. I didn't take apart the engine but I know it's the engine because if I just put the tender on the track railsounds will sound but it wont chuff. I will be back at my layout maybe this afternoon and I will try your suggestions. Thanks! ��

Well, it could have a fan driven unit and Lionel pointed to the wrong parts breakdown, it happens.  Some of the puffers do pretty well.  A key is, does it run continuous smoke or chuff smoke?  Since that vintage of Lionel steam had no chuffing smoke for fan driven units, it's easy to tell what you have.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Well, it could have a fan driven unit and Lionel pointed to the wrong parts breakdown, it happens.  Some of the puffers do pretty well.  A key is, does it run continuous smoke or chuff smoke?  Since that vintage of Lionel steam had no chuffing smoke for fan driven units, it's easy to tell what you have.

No, it's a chuffer, it only puffs.

In that case, the smoke unit will never change how many puffs it'll do for a driver rev, as it's mechanically locked.

The chuffing issue top suspect is indeed the chuff switch.  For fan driven smoke it's typically down in the frame on an axle cam.  For most mechanical smoke unit models, it's activated by the same cam that operates the piston arm that pumps the smoke.

Well, if I can't get I can't get it fixed then I'll just give back to the ebayer I bought it from. Is there any chance that I could upgrade it to a fan driven smoke unit? That would be awesome. Thanks!

I'm currently putting a Super-Chuffer and a Chuff-Generator, fan driven smoke, flickering firebox, and an ERR Cruise Commander M into a K-Line scale Mikado, so it's certainly possible.

The issue with a fan driven smoke unit is, of course, in order to get nice chuffing smoke, you have to add the controlling electronics.  Here's the one nearing completion on the bench, just waiting for the glue to dry on the flickering firebox and I'll put it back together.

That looks like the next project for me to try, I've heard of the super chuffer, I've seen them on eBay too. I might try to do that, if my engine gets fixed ofcourse. I've never really "played" around with electronics in a lionel train, but i do build computers, so it should be similar. I saw on the railsounds board the 4 or 6 pin motherboard connector to the pay, and some other familiar pins you would see on the front panel pins on a computer motherboard. 

Once you find your way around with the TMCC and RailSounds stuff, it's pretty logical.  There are, of course, a few gotchas that will bite you along the way, part of the learning process.