My engine smokes in neutral when I have the throttle up to about 80%. However , there is very little smoke output when running at normal speeds around the track. PS1 effects does not have the puffing smoke, but a constant smoke where the fan is always on. I am thinking of inserting some diodes at the motor to drop the voltage, thereby giving more voltage to the smoke unit. Any other ideas? Perhaps I need to get a PS2 or PS3 Railking engine.
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The smoke unit should produce plenty of smoke at most transformer settings. The smoke unit may have an issue switching between modes, it has an internal voltage regulator. What is the track voltage when running that you get the reduced smoke output?
Sounds like the Transistor may be damaged and the second resistor is in series all the time instead of just at high voltage. Should be fixable. G
I measured the voltage today and here's what I found. In neutral, the smoke has medium output at 14 volts, and heavy output at 15.5 volts. When going forward, the engine is too fast at 10 volts, and there is no smoke output. BTW, what is the ohm rating of the heater resistor and what is the constant voltage applied to the resistor? Perhaps it needs replacing??
George is likely right, the primitive "regulator" I mentioned probably isn't switching the resistors. At around 10-11 volts, the transistor in question should start conducting and short out one of the 16 ohm resistors and leaving only one with the full voltage across it. It sounds like that's not happening. Here's the schematic if you feel like swapping a part or two.
Measure the resistors they are 16 ohms each and wired in series. It could be a few issues, misaligned/burned wick, bad transistor, bad element. Open it and check. Normally they smoke well at the lower voltages. G
Have you checked the wicking material ?
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