I've boticed when I start to move the engine the smoke increases and once it's running the smoke decreases. Is this normal?
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How new is your engine?
I've acquired 4 new steamers since Christmas; and, until the smoke units were used for some time, smoke production started out anemic and decreased when the engine was moving. Now, after many refills (be careful on refills as over filling ruins the smoke units), the smoke units are producing adequately and much better than when the units were new. I think the batting in the unit takes time to get saturated.
I just received the engine yesterday. It was one from the 2014 catalog. I'll keep running it and hope the smoke increases.
Normal, here's a video, not mine, with the smoke increased when moving.
laz is correct, its as designed. It better mimimcs the prototype, diesels ( when they smoke) tend to do so more when under load.
I believe theres an instructional video on Lionels website "smoke units 101" possibly, where Mike Reagan explains how and why they work this way. Legacy steamers do this too.
Purely speculation on my part. "Possibly"part of Lionel doing it this way also helps prevent overheating or burning out the smoke unit on a loco that was left idling and/or forgotten when running another.
Originally Posted by Bagelman:
I've boticed when I start to move the engine the smoke increases and once it's running the smoke decreases. Is this normal?
1. I think that this is normal on both recent issue Legacy diesels and indeed PS3 MTH diesels. You can easily be fooled into thinking that you have a duff smoke unit by this new style variable output. It isn't fully explained in either manufacturer's manuals.
2. The smoke output is not adjustable just by toggling the "Low - Med - High" setting. On Legacy engines adjusting the EFX or labor effect will make a significant difference and the output also varies with RPMs, or so I have found. I have one PS3 diesel where the smoke output was whispy at best until I manually adjusted the RPMs, at which point it began to function as you'd expect.
3. Saturating the smoke batting is essential and sometimes that will not happen until you have refilled the unit a few times - unless of course you open up the engine and fill the smoke unit directly through the output.
4. Oh and lest I forget VOLTAGE properly applied and uniform through the track makes a huge difference to how quickly the smoke unit actually cranks up and its output generally.
