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The MTH 2015 Volume One Catalog has been out about a week now and I am surprised no one has made any mention of this new MTH diesel smoke feature on the forum, or anywhere else.

 

In viewing the new MTH catalog, all Railking and Premier diesels with smoke units have the following feature, "Operating proto-smoke unit WITH 8 INTENSITY LEVELS" (emphasis mine). The operating protosmoke part is nothing new, but the "8 intensity levels"is new. The steam locomotives in the new catalog do not have this feature mentioned in there features section. I also checked the MTH 2014 volume two catalog to make sure the 8 intensity levels feature was not offered before. Sure enough, there was no mention of it in that catalog.

 

So I am correct this seems to be a new feature. There is no mention of it in the beginning of the new catalog where MTH usually mentions its new features, like the new quillable whistling steam for the future Big Boy, and new PROTO 3 upgrade kits. "New features and improved sounds" are mentioned, nothing about about 8 intensity levels for all Railing and Premier diesels that have smoke units. There was no mention made about it at the MTH booth last week at York.

 

Assuming the text in the new MTH catalog is not a mistake, the question becomes, what is this new feature and what does it do? I have no idea what it is. If this is indeed a new feature, MTH has not done a good job of publicizing it. 

 

Post your responses below of what thou think it might be.

 

Thanks.

 

Erol Gurcan 

Last edited by locolawyer
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Errol
Nice discovery. Using DCS there are Low, Med High smoke settings.  seems MTH cranked it up a bit. Don't understand MTH not publicizing it. Last week at the TCA museum (I saw the video posted here on the forum) I don't remember Mike speaking of this at all?!@#$
 
 
HHOriginally Posted by clem k:

Maybe its when you use the labor feature on the remote. the smoke varies in intensity the harder the locomotive works. It was always there but now maybe more accurate 

 

Clem 

 

Personally I'm very grateful to Erol for raising this issue as I think it explains something that has really been annoying me.

 

I have only two PS3 diesels, the GEVO with charging lights and a UP AC6000. I think that they were issued a year or maybe more apart, the AC6000 being shipped in May of this year. Smoke performance of the two is wildly different with the GEVO doing what I expect of an MTH diesel (whether it's realistic or not to run them on the high smoke setting) and the AC6000 apparently not producing any smoke on start-up and indeed it appeared to me to take ages for the smoke unit to warm up. 

 

I didn't see anything in the MTH documentation or on the web page for the AC6000 about a new variable intensity smoke output feature but if it has it that would explain why it behaves as it does. I have not run this engine at max revs yet so I can't be sure.

 

It seems a little odd that the feature hasn't been explained more fully by MTH but maybe I have missed something in the product announcements.

 

I probably didn't need to take off the AC6000 body shell and fool around with the smoke unit to see if it was defective . . . Live and learn. 

Originally Posted by Engineer-Joe:

maybe some should read this!

http://mthtrains.com/news/464

 

Not to make a big deal out of this but I would not have got the picture about the new smoke feature out of the news item linked to (which dates from 2011) or the later item about the PS3 AC6000 model, which is here: 

http://www.mthtrains.com/premier/spotlight/07_2013/a

 

Also my PS3 GEVO actually dates from 2012 and doesn't appear to have this feature. 

 

To me it's quite a big change in MTH diesels if the smoke output now only ramps up with higher revs whatever setting you apply - high, medium or low - in the DCS system, which is what seems to be the case. I don't see it referenced in the current edition of the DCS manual that I have downloaded but that could be out of date. I'm sure however that I'll get used to it!

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