Smoke unit issue

No, they just burn up more readily at the voltage levels used in postwar trains.  They do need to be kept wetted down with fluid for longer life.

You might want go back to the original innards and cap unless you want another hobby to take up your time.  There is nothing inherently wrong with the ceramic / mica nichrome heater element smoke units.  Use a generous amount of wicking material and keep the vent holes clear.

In either case, the cap must be insulated from the hot lead(the cap is grounded to the smoke unit pot and loco chassis).

I rebuilt my 681 smoke unit. The original metal cap fits inside the smoke unit and the new plastic cap has to be trimmed on the inside to fit over the smoke unit. I decided not to use the new plastic cap. I drilled to holes in the top of the original metal cap to accommodate the wires for the new resistor. I used cloth insulation on the power side instead of heat shrink tubing. The sharp edges of the holes will cut the plastic tubing and not the cloth insulation. I also tried adding 2 20 Ohm resistors from Digikey instead of one. So far so good with healthy smoke out put. Good luck. I love this forum!!!!!!!!!!

Thank You Dale H. and Gunrunnerjohn

Head slapper moment!  I had the track power leads switched on my 1032 transformer.  Wonder why I thought the U post was the common.....

Switching them to the correct posts solved a lot of my weird wiring issues.  Now I wonder if that had anything to do with the smoke unit burning out.

Im 99% on this but what you did was solve nothing.It doesn't matter unless you are running Legacy or TMCC control.

Ahh, but it did actually solve the problems with the isolated rail section accessories that were wired with fixed voltage.  Now they work as they should with no power applied to the track, and the uncoupling piece works with fixed voltage now too.  Before you had to have power applied to the track for them to work so it was not really fixed voltage. 

I don't really think that had anything to do with the smoke unit, but it most certainly did with the fixed voltage stuff.

Thanks.