Puffer smoke unit gets hot!

Hi the big qustion you will get what owm resistor did you use.

 most of those type smoke units use a 27owm resistor. if you have some thing

like the 10owm or 7owm this will happen. check the resistor.

This is the stock k-line resistor. I'm guessing this is the 22ohm resistor that most k-line locos came with.

we sell the 27owm resistors at our store and online for about  $5.00

 it won't put out as much smoke as the 22owm.

Regarding the failure to turn off with the TMCC command, are you sure it's actually wired for TMCC on/off? I've worked on some K-Line engines with puffer smoke units that were wired straight to track voltage, not to the TMCC board. 

As Southwest pointed out it is probably wired direct to track power or the smoke triac on the R2LC is shorted to power. If you have another R2LC try switching them.

Bill

I've replaced many smoke triacs, they're the easiest of all of them, except perhaps the front headlight.  They're right on the edge, no sweat.

I normally chop the legs off then remove them one at a time, easier to remove the individual legs than trying to take the bad part out intact, and I don't care to keep it anyway.

Digikey has both types of triacs, and their shipping is very cheap for small orders via USPS.

2N6073AG higher current direct replacement for the 2.5A triac.

MAC97A8G higher voltage direct replacement for the lighting and coupler triacs.

Alex yes you can swap in a R2LC from your diesel and program it for steam using AUX code 4.  Chuck has provided good advice though.  G

Note that the smoke triac is sometimes used for beacon, so when you're picking the diesel to swap, I'd pick one that doesn't have any function for the smoke channel or that will not be controllable.  Also, if the smoke triac is shorted, it's putting out track voltage AC and not half-wave rectified AC for stuff like the beacon, which will likely burn out any bulb running off the output.

It sounds like just replacing the triac and element is the best idea rather than playing around with the boards and possibly short something out.  Thanks for all the advice and tip!

Why can't he just reprogram the R2LC to steam, when done with test back to Diesel?

If you have a volt meter you can check for continuity on the legs of the TRIAC.  If shorted 2 will read 0 ohms.  G

If the wiring has a short, he'll cook the new R2LC triac...