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Hello, looking for some advice if any found a good “run time” to refill smoke fluid?  Say a legacy engine that you fill up Originally per the manual, says 20 drops, when refilling....is it an hour of run time or 20 minutes before I should refill with 5?-10? drops?  Just trying to get a gauge so I don’t ever run in empty/dry.  Also does time effect refill or just run time?  As in say it sits a week without running but it had fluid added at the last run which was say only 10 minutes or something.  So short run time but it sat.  

Thank you in advance for your help and input. 

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Smoke time varies way too much to set a time frame before adding more fluid.  The amount of drops of smoke fluid added makes a big difference on run time.  The best gauge is to simply add more fluid when the smoke coming from the stack gets light.  Run time also depends if you have your smoke unit set on low, medium or high if it is adjustable. The time an engine sits also has a bearing, as fluid in the smoke unit will evaporate out.  I limit this from happening by covering the smoke stack with aluminum foil.  I have found that I can triple my run time by using this method after shutting down an engine.

When the smoke volume falls off very noticeably, I add smoke fluid.  If you have good smoke, let it run until the smoke volume is at least about half of when you first filled it.  Also, different locomotives will have different run times.  I have some that seems to drink the stuff in gallons, and others that will run a lot longer before a refill is needed.

See the following videos by Laidoffsick, very helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRcpFRtA6IY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1asUWbJtfok

I have been experimenting with 1 drop of fluid for each minute of run time with 10-15 minutes between refills; but, I have not taken apart a smoke unit to verify this; my objective is to prevent burning the wick.

Last edited by RickM46

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