Lionel Smoke Unit Testing, where there is smoke....

Here is the same deal only I cut the woven sock off the resistor and used the Lionel batting after pulling it apart and balling it up. The whole unit ran muuuuch cooler because the airflow was not impeded and as a result the smoke was thrown higher but was much thinner.

So now I am into changing resistors. This one sports a 16 ohm drop. Notice I had to jumper the resistor because the PCB trace failed when trying to put the new resistor in. This occurred during that first run when it overheated and started bubbling up the PCB at the solder joints. Much more smoke volume with the 16 ohm at 16V as expected.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! And now for the coup de grace... 24V at 16ohms so right around 36 Watts. Would be equivalent to a 7 ohm resistor at 16V. Note that the smoke unit and resistor were fine after this.

So the 3rd test with the 16ohm resitor mod would be ok in a legacy steamer? Thats great smoke output.

Lionelzwl2012 posted:

So the 3rd test with the 16ohm resitor mod would be ok in a legacy steamer? Thats great smoke output.

I don't think this would work in a Legacy steamer. I think I recognize this smoke unit as a stock TMCC item meant to run off of track power with the resistor and fan power supply onboard the PCB. This sort of unit certainly has its uses but I don't think operating under Legacy control is one of them. 

Besides, if you check though various Legacy spare parts listings on Lionelsupport.com you will find a literally bewildering assortment of different specs and the later models all have plastic bowls instead of metal. I've never really understood why Lionel use so many different versions of smoke units. The best ones were the 6 ohm units from about 2005 but they have discontinued supplying those as a complete unit. They regularly blew out the AC regulator and they changed the design anyway. 

Yeah, Hancock is right this would be in a TMCC app. Legacy uses a regulator to regulate track voltage to the unit based off of several different variables and also uses a 6-8 ohm resistor depending on application. The learning for me is to consider using a standalone relay or triac that is triggered from the factory smoke signal. This smoke unit is going into a dummy B unit diesel and will have a relay or triac that is fired from the A unit smoke board and then receives track voltage from its own pickup.

Relying on the expensive and relatively fragile Lionel boards to pass the current of an upgraded smoke board just seems like dancing with the devil. I will experiment more and see what the max output if the unit is before going into flames like the last video showed. Then I will also see what I feel comfortable with in terms of smoke bowl temps going into my plastic shelled diesel.

Sssssssssssssssssssssmokin! 

Thank you Doug. I have recently thought of sending track power directly to a smoke generating resister in an 18 v ac model railroad environment and controlling the smoke output (in a small way) by changing track power in the range of about 12-17 volts. Your experiments are the great initial steps to get the data base needed to design such a system.

What about the fan speed, could that be powered from track power also and semi-permanently adjusted by a small rheostat to one's preferred air flow?

Rick

Putting 36 watts into a smoke unit for any length of time will result in a cooked PCB.  When the voltage regulator fails on a late TMCC or Legacy engine, the track voltage makes short work of the resistor and PCB.  It is spectacular for about 30 seconds, the smoke has to be seen to be believed!

MineRun posted:

Thank you Doug. I have recently thought of sending track power directly to a smoke generating resister in an 18 v ac model railroad environment and controlling the smoke output (in a small way) by changing track power in the range of about 12-17 volts. Your experiments are the great initial steps to get the data base needed to design such a system.

What about the fan speed, could that be powered from track power also and semi-permanently adjusted by a small rheostat to one's preferred air flow?

Rick

You can’t power a standard smoke unit fan motor directly off AC track power - I did that once by accident and the motor was kaput within seconds. There’s another recent thread that discusses alternative fan motors:

https://ogrforum.com/...ful-smoke-fan-motors

but they are all DC powered and the normal rating is actually less than 5 VDC. 

The factory can pack an amazing amount of smoke into some of those little tiny chips on the PCBs too!  Sometimes seems like it's a never ending supply... 

Veeeerrrrry interesting!!!

rtr12 posted:

The factory can pack an amazing amount of smoke into some of those little tiny chips on the PCBs too!  Sometimes seems like it's a never ending supply... 

Fortunately,  smoke replacement kits are available!  

http://www3.telus.net/bc_triumph_registry/smoke.htm

I'm sure some of our more innovative thinkers can figure out a Lucas-to-Lionel adapter.  After all, they both begin with L, right? 

Mitch 

MineRun posted:

Thank you Doug. I have recently thought of sending track power directly to a smoke generating resister in an 18 v ac model railroad environment and controlling the smoke output (in a small way) by changing track power in the range of about 12-17 volts. Your experiments are the great initial steps to get the data base needed to design such a system.

What about the fan speed, could that be powered from track power also and semi-permanently adjusted by a small rheostat to one's preferred air flow?

Rick

I  surprised as anyone with the flame that shot out from the unit in the last video. Seems like it would be a real fire hazard on the Legacy engines should the regulator fail shorted and the loco is going through a cardboard strip based mountain feature; low probability, high consequence I guess.

For the fan unit I found one that spins higher than the normal unit lionel supplies and I am waiting on the slow boat from China to get a test unit. I will probably experiment with adjusting voltage to the fan as well since I like thicker smoke that comes with lower fan speeds. However, for max smoke production the higher speed fan and a bigger smoke bowl will be needed to accommodate a bigger/higher rated resistor. The trick is then getting that packaging into an O scale loco. Luckily I have a dummy B unit test mule with plenty of space to go big.

M. Mitchell Marmel posted:

rtr12 posted:

The factory can pack an amazing amount of smoke into some of those little tiny chips on the PCBs too!  Sometimes seems like it's a never ending supply... 

Fortunately,  smoke replacement kits are available!  

http://www3.telus.net/bc_triumph_registry/smoke.htm

I'm sure some of our more innovative thinkers can figure out a Lucas-to-Lionel adapter.  After all, they both begin with L, right? 

Mitch 

Great find there!! I sure could have used that a few of times during my working life. I had a couple of co-workers that might have been interested as well. So far I have been good during retirement, but you never know when you might need a jar! Saved the link and am going back to finish the Q&A's in a bit...there are some real geniuses out there inventing these things!!  

You know, you’ve got me thinking about the higher RPM motors - but I’ll wait to see what you find out!

OK... I am gonna hi-jack this thread a little.  Have taken the smoke unit "hardware" off a burned out smoke unit board from a PS1 Big Boy.  Also the blower fan itself has a damaged couple of blades I believe from the smoke unit over heating.

 Have good working pc board from smoke unit taken out of a PS2 PA engine, the cast alum bowl and fan housing are showing signs of metal fatigue and cracking, side caving in.  Have anyone else experienced this?  Also, how do you go about removing and replacing the fan motor in it's housing?  The motor and blower fan are good in this unit, but the metal fatigue described prevents making use of the entire hardware parts.  I would like to use the good motor and fan, mounted into the PS1 housing and mount it all onto the functioning PS2 smoke unit pc board.  All I can see is you have to pry up on the motor and pull the shaft from out of the fan center itself.  So, how else do you go about remove/replace a fan motor on this type smoke unit?  Do not have a gear puller small enough for this one............

Recommended procedures.........

Thanks,

Jesse

OK... found the two screws located inside the fan housing.

Jesse

I have never seen any smoke unit - Lionel, MTH, Train America Studios included - show metal fatigue/ deterioration in the bowl that holds the wicking. I suppose that it is possible from overheating or, maybe more likely, a bad batch of metal. 

You found the fan motor screws so that is a good start!

Hum!  Zinc pest, perhaps?

Hancock52 posted:

I have never seen any smoke unit - Lionel, MTH, Train America Studios included - show metal fatigue/ deterioration in the bowl that holds the wicking. I suppose that it is possible from overheating or, maybe more likely, a bad batch of metal. 

You found the fan motor screws so that is a good start!

I've seen many of them, it's typically zinc pest.  I've had them literally falling apart in the locomotive and leaking like a sieve.

Removing the fan motor is easy, pull the impeller straight off (it's a friction fit), and then remove the two tiny screws.  To replace it, attach the smoke motor and press the impeller on.  Make sure the impeller doesn't hit the bottom of the chamber or the PCB on top as it rotates after you put it together.  Also note that the fan rotates with the convex surface of the blades pushing the air, not as you'd think with the concave surface pushing the air.  The reasoning here is it makes a lot less air noise to do it that way.

Thanks, John.....   I know I stated aluminum....duh....    Yes, looks a lot like zinc impurity.

Here is what they look like:

Jesse   TCA

texastrain posted:

Thanks, John.....   I know I stated aluminum....duh....    Yes, looks a lot like zinc impurity.

Here is what they look like:

Jesse   TCA

Textbook case of zinc pest, with the cracking, crazing and warping clearly evident in those last two photos.

I've had them come out worse than that, one was just the two posts with the bowl in pieces inside the engine!

Yep, that’s the way zinc-pest infested parts ultimately end.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that smoke unit castings have also fallen victim to impure zinc mixtures or manufacturing process errors, but it unnerves me nonetheless.

I was accustomed to hearing about zinc alloy bodies, frames, trucks and couplers crumbling due to zinc pest, but to think that castings hidden inside the shell of an otherwise flawless locomotive may be rotting away inside my models is a new twist. Very upsetting.

It’s another example of the problems associated with subcontractors working with our manufacturers’ contract partners not following well-established standards for zinc alloy casting.