My Problem Child Again...Legacy 10 Wheeler

Lionel item number ?????

I'm with Marty, we need the item number.

I can tell you the board that you have displayed there isn't your problem, that's strictly a control for the fan.  The heater is controlled by the smoke regulator.

You do realize that Legacy locomotives, including the 10-wheeler, have a three stage smoke and if you have the smoke up high, you do have to step it down three times to turn off the smoke.

If the smoke resistor is hot and the fan is turning, I can't imagine why you don't have smoke, that's all the necessary ingredients.  If it's not getting hot enough to generate smoke, nine times out of ten it's the smoke regulator.  You can disconnect the smoke unit and measure the resistor, it should be in the 6 ohm ballpark.

Thanks Guys

Canadian Pacific Legacy 10 wheeler....6-11202

With the shell off....

When the engine stops smoking, the smoke unit is hot and the fan is turning.

It's as if the resistor is being tuned down or off ...

A (R) reset puts it all back in proper order.

Could the smoke regulator be failing occasionally?

Thanks Dave

I thought I remember hearing an issue with the smoke units not responding correctly to legacy.

When theres came out folks were setting the smoke under TMCC control and then it would work.

Marty and John are certainly the experts here. I'll try "surfing", and see if I can pull up where I read about smoke issues with these ten wheelers.

Here you go:

Legacy F12e regulator issues.

I've had the smoke regulators fail in assorted ways.  I had one that would do something similar, I couldn't get decent smoke, and I'd fool around with the locomotive and suddenly I'd have smoke again.  I finally just replaced it, no more problems.

I'd probably replace the resistor first, cheap to do.  Maybe it's opening up after getting hot enough.

My RX for stuff like this is run it on the bench and break out the heat gun and warm things up to see what causes it to fail.

Thanks Rick.........

John

Pic attached.........is this the item you are speaking of?

Check out  the link I posted above.

I posted, but for some reason my post has to be approved by the board admin.  I don't know what crap is going on...

If you read that thread Rick, his issue was resolved by Lionel putting in the correct smoke regulator.

Yep, that's the smoke regulator.  If the resistor is good, that's the top suspect. 

Look at the bright side, we had one of those go with a shorted triac at our club, it was spectacular for about 15 seconds!  Instead of 5-6 watts in the smoke unit, it had around 50 watts being dissipated!  It took me that long to realize why we had such great smoke and to get to the kill switch to turn off the power.  Before it burned up the resistor, wick, and smoke PCB, it had more smoke than I've ever seen out of a locomotive!  I've fixed them after the fact, that was the first one I actually got to see happen.

The locomotive still smells like cooked circuit board.

Read over the article Rick........brought back memories of the GP 7 smoke funnel issues which I also had.

They seemed to settle on the issue of the wrong Regulator.

Thanks for looking

Dave

Must have been quite a show John!

If the smoke regulator is the culprit........would it also be responsible for the issue of several taps on the OFF button to get the smoke off and likewise ocassionally to get L-M-H smoke levels to work?

In other words a faulty smoke regulator can affect Legacy smoke commands from the Legacy remote?

Thanks

Dave

I sure hope the new ones have the correct regulator. Hopefully, by now, all of the TMCC parts have been used up out of the factory parts bins

The smoke regulator receives the serial data and adjusts the smoke level based on the serial data.  I've seen them where you had to keep banging on the control to get a reaction.  As I recall, most of those were TMCC locomotives where it should have been one press.  There is a specific key raindance to set the smoke level from the TMCC remote, it doesn't work like the Legacy smoke regulator.

Funny, They call it a smart smoke unit, but it has no smarts attached. G

I don't think there is a difference between legacy and TMCC smoke reg.  But maybe the code evolved.  If you look at Lionel parts, those old TMCC ACREG are obsolete and the 103 replaced them.  So even if you have a TMCC engine, the 103 is the replacement.   G

 No smarts but I have used this nice compact fan unit in upgrades. Just replace the resistor with a 22-27 ohm one connected directly to the R2LC and drive the fan with a homemade puff and chuff circuit to isolate from the chuff input on your audio or radio board. 

Being able to adjust the quantity of smoke remotely might be a nice a feature but not at the cost of reliability.

Pete

Blasphemy!  Use the Super-Chuffer, what's this homemade stuff?

One difference in the newer smoke regulators is they started bolting the triac to the chassis in an effort to reduce triac failures.  Since they still fail, I don't know how successful it was, but that's a change.  The older ones have it wrapped inside the heatshrink.

Well....... a new resistor did not bring any luck.

So I suspect.....as you have all said.....the AC regulator.

Two Questions:

Could you just do without the AC regulator.....if it just gives L-M-H smoke levels.

The choice of levels means nothing to me.

Second, I see where the AC regulator is affixed to the frame......the white substance used between the regulator and the frame....what is the purpose of this?

Is it necessary to re-apply when installing a new one?

Thanks Again Guys

Couldn't fix much without OGR providing a link to the Great expertise out there!

Dave

Dave, you can't do it without the regulator, the Legacy R4LC code doesn't control the on-board triac as it does for TMCC, you'd have no on/off control of the smoke from the remote.  You'd also have to change the resistor in the smoke unit, but it would be on all the time, probably not what you want.

The white substance is thermal paste, it's necessary to provide maximum heat transfer from the triac to the frame.  The frame serves as a heatsink to draw heat away from the triac.

You are correct. I had the NYC version and I could not shut it off... so I reset it, then tried to turn it on with the Legacy remote... no go.

Had to turn in on in TMCC...

I called Lionel and told them what was going on and they repaired it for free.

Seems there was a mix up and these engines got the wrong regulator board.

Obviously, there is a difference in the regulator boards.

I know there are boards for 6 ohm and 8 ohm smoke units, so that's certainly a difference.  That may just be on-board software, don't know what the differences are.

The new smart smoke units seem a little different.

In my pics .....the clear plastic piece goes over the fan blades.

Now why they would use plastic on a smoke unit............................

As you can see the plastic "cover" has taken a beating.

The good part is .........does not seem to matter.......works just as well without it on.

John............where can one buy thermal paste.....

Thanks

Dave

I buy the thermal paste on eBay, I bought a tub of it that has lasted me for a couple of years.  Places like www.newegg.com have it as well.

As for the gasket, just make sure the smoke isn't leaking around the top of the PCB without the gasket.  Some Lionel smoke units don't have any gasket.