No Smoke on Early Lionel TMCC - PICS

Lionel replaced the board on my LC+ A5 due to no smoke. It may be a board issue.

Well, the LC+ and the early TMCC locomotives are night and day, and this one is long past it's warranty, there'll be no free replacements!

If it is a vertical mounted resistor, there was a suggestion made here to drill a small hole through the wall where the resistor was so air would blow directly onto it. You can always take the sleeve off of it and put some small amount of wicking up against it so that will soak the fluid.

28 ohm resistor may not get hot enough so you can always try a 25 ohm one.

Thanks Guys

Ted.....appears that the smoke unit is sealed...all plastic.   I "assume" that the positive to the board provides power and on/off   via the remote?

Could one just wire the smoke unit direct to track power?  Might need a switch to shut if off but would it work?

Thanks

Dave

First, make sure you haven't accidentally turned-off the smoke unit. AUX1-9 will turn it back on.

Next, perform a restore/reset of the board. The correct code for your locomotive is 4.

As you stated, the smoke unit in your loco is sealed (sonic welded). If it works by hooking it up to track power, then it should be fine. But hopefully you disconnected it from the board first before trying that work around.

If you still don't have any luck, then it's likely the LCRU2 board. The triacs on those can be repaired, if the microprocessor wasn't damaged.

TRW

Thank You TRW

That's the info I was looking for.  I did disconnect from the board before trying the smoke unit on direct track power.  In command mode....how much voltage is sent from the board to the smoke unit?

Dave

I don't recall the exact spec, but the smoke unit voltage was normally around 80% of track power. When you press AUX1 and then hold down the 9 key, that triggered "smoke boost" which essentially applies full power to the smoke unit.

Something I just remembered.... there are about four or five different software revisions to the LCRU2. Some don't supply any power to the smoke unit in TMCC mode until the first throttle command is received, so be sure to "throttle-up" first (even if it's just one speed step) before checking for voltage. This prevented the smoke unit from burning out while stopped.

One more thing... while troubleshooting the smoke output, I'd disconnect the smoke unit and substitute an 18v bulb. One lead to the smoke output and the other to ground. It's a much more visible way of troubleshooting. Don't connect both the smoke unit and a bulb, as that might be too much for the triac to handle.

Were you able to do the restore/reset with the 4 code?

TRW

Great info TRW....Thank You.

Good idea on the light bulb idea.  Will try the boost....did not know it had that function.

I didn't like the wire connection from the smoke unit to the board.  The smoke unit wire simply fit into a metal sleeve.  No solder and loose fit.

Between that and resetting the board, I am back in business.  I did not know you could reset that board with AUX codes.

Thanks

Dave

Smoke is 1/2 wave track power and boost is track power.  For 18V, the RMS values of half-wave is around 12V and of course the full-wave RMS value is 18V.