Voltage regulator for lionel smoke unit: interpreting the part #

Some of us don’t even bother with the crummy regulator, …..it can pretty easily be bypassed, …a 20-27 ohm resistor, a little voodoo wiring, and you’ll be back in business, for pennies…..

Pat

Hokie,

Once again someone poses the eternal question, "What are you thinking?", as if you're crazy.

Pat, if it's that simple why didn't Lionel do it that way in the first place?

BTW -- From the tone, nature, and conclusions of your running commentary here on the forum I think I know what your answer will be and I'm probably in agreement with you.

Hokie, If you'd like to fix it "the right way" any of those listed will work largely because the mechanical packaging appears to be the same.  The extra letters frequently refer to:

1. Package style, if there's more than one available.
2. Rating, which could be commercial grade, automotive, or military.
3. Temperature Range (Operating), which could be 0 to 85 degrees C, or -40 to 125 degrees C or similar.

In this case if we had a Texas Instruments data sheet, or a alternatively look up the LM78L05ACZ at TI's website, we could tell specifically.

Here's an example of one table pulled from the respective sheet highlighting some of the kinds of things I'm talking about:

Mike

@harmonyards posted:

Some of us don’t even bother with the crummy regulator, …..it can pretty easily be bypassed, …a 20-27 ohm resistor, a little voodoo wiring, and you’ll be back in business, for pennies…..

Pat

Pat, wrong regulator. hokie is asking about the 5v TO92 regulator on the smoke unit, not the AC regulator used on the semi dumb, not so smart units.

Can’t help Hokie. I use them interchangeably in this application.

Pete

Woops, …..my bad, ….chalk up another ….I assumed,…. and yes I know the root definition of assume …..

Pat

Any of the garden variety 100ma TO-92 +5V regulators will work fine.  Just don't pick one of the negative regulators.

Thanks to all for the sage advice.  I feel much better about spending my $12 and I hope I have 4 spares to pass on to the next generation of smoke system repair experts, It seems I can't get myself to buy only one due to a bizarre concept known as the cost per unit.

@hokie71 posted:

Thanks to all for the sage advice.  I feel much better about spending my $12 and I hope I have 4 spares to pass on to the next generation of smoke system repair experts, It seems I can't get myself to buy only one due to a bizarre concept known as the cost per unit.

You can get them at Amazon for less. If Jeff doesn’t have it you don’t need it.

Pete

@Norton posted:

You can get them at Amazon for less. If Jeff doesn’t have it you don’t need it.

Pete

Bingo, Why didn't I think of amazon? Maybe trying to do something different after what I spent there  over the last few days?

@hokie71 posted:

Bingo, Why didn't I think of amazon? Maybe trying to do something different after what I spent there  over the last few days?

Last week I was going to order a few transistors. These were made over 50 years ago and likely cost 2 bucks apiece back then. Jeff had 100 for 8 bucks.

Pete

I buy stuff like this in bulk.  How about 50 of them for less than $3 shipped from Aliexpress?