Once again - smoke unit fan blade direction.

Correct.

The fan blade pitch will tell you the proper direction.

Rookie mistakes.  I'm replacing the mother board in the fan unit of the Backshop accessory.  First time I've taken a fan unit apart.  First mistake:  I assumed the fan motor was bad...turns out it's fine.  Second mistake: before it occurred to me to power up the fan motor to test it before i removed the leads, I removed the leads paying  no attention to the position of the red and black wires. I assume the direction of the blade is dependent on the position of those leads. I did notice there is a white dot on the motor next to one lead.  Am I correct in assuming that's the positive side?  i can't determine which direction the blade is spinning no matter how hard I look, or the voltage applied...gett'n old I suspect.....

ToledoEd posted:

 I did notice there is a white dot on the motor next to one lead.  Am I correct in assuming that's the positive side?  i can't determine which direction the blade is spinning no matter how hard I look, or the voltage applied...gett'n old I suspect.....

The white dot will normally indicate the positive lead input. 

If the fan/impeller is of the type that has curved blades then (although I have always thought that this is counterintuitive) the concave side faces back and the curved side is at the front in the direction of clockwise rotation, which I understand is a noise reduction feature. As impellers of this kind can only be fitted one way you'll know which way it should be turning.

In the last analysis if you are uncertain which way the fan is spinning (you can usually see which way it starts turning when power is applied to the motor), reassemble the smoke unit, ensure that the wicking has sufficient smoke fluid for normal operation and start the whole thing up. If it's working correctly there will be the usual output of smoke but if the fan direction is wrong the normal output will not be there.

D500 posted:

The fan blade pitch will tell you the proper direction.

Not necessarily.  It actually looks like the fan is running backwards as the blades curve away from the airflow direction.  That's apparently to reduce the fan noise.  CW is almost always the right direction.  I'd say always, but someone will find an oddball smoke unit that runs the fan the other way.

Thanks for the help Gents.  Now, if only I can find those tiny, tiny screws that hold in the fan motor....sigh!

They're under your workbench, keep looking!

Ah, hah.  Are you sure? 

ToledoEd posted:

Ah, hah.  Are you sure? 

Until you figure a way to prove me wrong.

Gunrunner, I can definitively state, after much searching they are not under my workbench.  I've concluded they went to the same place that "the other sock" goes to when you look  in the dryer.  When I find that other sock...I'll find my screws. Of course, my wife tells me on occasion, that my screws are not merely loose, they're lost also and Iv'e not found them either.   But, I'll keep looking.  Seriously, any suggestions for a source for little tiny screws like those?  

I'm not sure what size they are, I'd probably just paw through my tiny screw box and find one that fit if I lost one.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything that small. just ordered an assortment (ca-zillion) case of small/micro screws from Micro-Mark. I'll make the case a part of my estate...as I'm sure it will long outlast me!   

Problem solved, and you are leaving a "screwy" legacy for your kids.

ToledoEd posted:

Unfortunately, I don't have anything that small. just ordered an assortment (ca-zillion) case of small/micro screws from Micro-Mark. I'll make the case a part of my estate...as I'm sure it will long outlast me!   

Those are the tiny little #000 Phillips screws that you access through the small holes in the impeller blade, right?

I have a hunch that they are tiny metric screws; something like an M1 or M1.5, but I could be wrong. Hopefully the assortment you are getting will have a couple that fit. I recently found a similar size screw that had gone missing by finally dragging a magnet all over the shop floor. guess what? Found it, when I could have sworn it was not there. You could likely order a couple of screws from Lionel. Wish they included them with new fan motors. A small magnetic parts pan is really handy for keeping track of this kind of thing.

Rod

Update: I searched Lionel parts for backshop, but there is only about 3 parts listed. Nothing about the smoke unit. Is the smoke unit #630-8057-200 ? If so, those screws are shown as:

 and cost 30 cents a piece. if I was ordering some I would go for about half a dozen, just to make sure I had them for future.

Rod

The 1.3mm sounds about right for that screw.

I get a lot of tiny metric screws from dead hard disk drives, I take them apart and toss all the little screws in my hardware box.  You'd be amazed at the number of tiny screws you get from those and old dead laptops.

Good idea John. I need to start doing that since dead hard drives are pretty common.

Rod

Rod Stewart posted:

Good idea John. I need to start doing that since dead hard drives are pretty common.

Rod

Way too common at my place!

Never occurred to me!  I have a few paperweights masquerading as hard drives as well. Now they can actually serve a useful purpose. Thanks!

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Problem solved, and you are leaving a "screwy" legacy for your kids.

Yeesh

Please listen to Gunrunnerjohn --- he just coached me through a smoke unit repair --- fan direction / resistor ohms / batting / etc

Engine now smokes like crazy

Thank you John

You're most welcome.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

The 1.3mm sounds about right for that screw.

I get a lot of tiny metric screws from dead hard disk drives, I take them apart and toss all the little screws in my hardware box.  You'd be amazed at the number of tiny screws you get from those and old dead laptops.

Good idea on the screws. I never thought about saving those, just salvaged the magnets. I have a pile of old, smaller size IDE hard drives still laying around. From now on I will be saving the screws along with the magnets.

1.3mm is spot on.  that's the size Lionel  is sending me.

When you take apart the hard drive save the Neodymium magnet. That sucker should be strong enough to find those screws from halfway across the room. On more than one occasion I have found a screw in the dogs fur since she loves to lay at dads feet while he fixes trains. I wonder how many she dragged off to nowhere. Im sure I will get reunited with them when I die. Ill have plenty of mismatched sokcs and single screws in the afterlife

Matt, I have a few 2x1x.5 Neodymium magnets, they'll pick up 100 pounds if you could actually get a grip of them!  I stuck one to a steel plate, I had a devil of a time getting it loose!  I had two of them about 8" apart on my workbench, they decided to get together and destroyed themselves in the process.  I'm just glad no body parts were in the way, they must have been going Mach 2 by the time they collided!  They shatter into a bunch of little pieces, what a mess!

I put one of these in a rag and drag it around the floor, it picks up anything magnetic.  Then I just remove the magnet from the other side of the rag to release all my treasure.

I watch my brother stick one to the work bench. He got 4 blood blisters when it pulled itself to the metal from about 4 inches away with the tips of his fingers in between. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I told him to be careful.

I never manipulate more than one of them at a time any more.

I used to have a hockey puck sized one. That thing was dangerous

ToledoEd posted:

1.3mm is spot on.  that's the size Lionel  is sending me.

Good call Ed. Then you know you will have what you need!

Rod

Gents, I finally fixed the Backshop smoke unit.  Screws arrived and this time I managed to put them where they  belong!  Fan works, smoke, smokes!  I also rewired the motherboard, previously, so the smoke unit responds to the Cab2 as described in the manual.  Power to the unit, Aux1 9 turns on the milling activity and a spin of the throttle and fan spins up, smoke comes out.  However, the fan does  not turn off when I hit Aux1 + 8 as described in the manual, so  I just shut  down the unit's power.   My lights are fluorescents and LEDs powered off a wall wart as are the welders so I'm good with it.  It's now back on the layout and I can move on.  Videos below, so I can show  off!  

Actually, I believe that correct fan rotation direction depends upon whether you are running in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern.

Fortunately, the smoke goes up, not down so I believe it is spinning in the right direction being located in Virginia. :-)