WHAT I FOUND WHEN I OPENED UP MY NEW ENGINE

wow good catch... I am surprise you were able to save the board.

Just curious whats wrong with having 2 resistors ? I have seen this in MTH smoke units before.

Hi Patrick, and Todd

   I asked in my post above if this is okay in a Lionel engine, I have never seen it in a Lionel engine before. I would also think that there should be some type of in line diode. I'm totally aware that MTH engines have  two resistors. I don't think this engine I have has the proper electronics to support two resistors. The unit as shown in the photos above was almost on fire, the smell that was coming out of the stack was a burnt plastic. So is it okay to have two resistors with no in line diode. Sounds incorrect to me

Thanks,

Alex

Lucky for you that you caught this problem early on. It is now in very capable hands to do a smoke upgrade properly. Good luck with your new engine.

Here's a quick video after I fixed it my way, I think it smokes great. I wish I had a before video, just imagine 3 to 4 times the  smoke you see in this video

Alex

If you have a 8 Ohm smoke unit of Lionel and put 2 MTH (or similar) 16 Ohm resistors in parallel that is perfectly fine.  Your still running 8 Ohm in parallel.

Jim

Nothing wrong with two resistors as long as their combined resistance is not much less than the original single resistor. eg if the original one was 27 ohms you could put two 50 ohm resistors in parallel to give 25 ohms. 

Pete

Hi Alex. Looking at your photographs, the 2 resistors appear to have been installed in parallel with each other. This will have halved the electrical resistance, and could easily have overloaded the circuit. I think that it is a good job that you spotted it quickly. 

Thank you Nicole, you are 100 percent correct.That's exactly how it was installed, I knew it was incorrect. I'm glad I decided to open it up and see what was going on. I upgrade Lionel smoke units all the time, but I never seen this before.

Thanks again Nicole

Alex

Also to to let everyone know the two old resistors were both 8 OHM

Thanks,

Alex

Alex, you're lucky the driver for the smoke unit didn't die in the process!  Being 8 ohms each, I'm assuming you have the smoke regulator module, those don't stand up to abuse all that well! 

However, that explains why it smoked so well!

If 2 -8 ohm resistors are wired side by side(in original photo) instead of inline does this still double the 8ohm of resistants?

If I am remembering correctly, 2 8-ohm resistors wired in parallel act like a single 4-ohm resistor.  Only if they are wired in series does the resistance of each get added together.

Andy

Two 8 ohm resistors in parallel as indicated gives you 4 ohms!  Much too low a value.

100 percent correct, that's why this unit almost when on fire. I don't know how the person who owned it before me didn't burn it up.

I want to thank everyone for you great info and input!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks,

Alex

Patrick I'm not too sure maybe Gunrunner John will know

Thanks,

Alex

Hi Alex - What Did you do to increase the smoke output?? I have this engine and won't mind having more smoke - Thanks

If the (2) 8 ohm resistors are wired in parallel like they were, the effectively become a 4 ohm load.  If they are wired in series, end to end, they become a 16 ohm load.

They never ran it with the smoke unit on is my guess.

Hi George, if yours is all original, first open up the smoke unit and cut off the batting that's around the resistor, put new batting in and drill out the air intake hole in the PCB board, just slightly larger. Be very careful not to drill into the copper traces in the circuit board. reassemble the unit add plenty of smoke fluid.

Thanks,

Alex

Hi Marty great to hear from you.

 Thank you for the excellent info !!!!!!

Thanks,

Alex

Alex, what Jim stated has been a common way to get two resistors in a Lionel smoke unit.  From your photo it looks like the one on the left was touching the smoke bowl.  Putting two in requires very careful placement so they do not touch.    I had that locomotive new and put two in from day one with no problems.  Two 16 ohm MTH together reads 8 ohms. 

One day I'm going to try the dual resistors, but as you say Marty, you have to be careful so they don't touch the bowl and smoke the regulator.

Given how well the MTH units smoke, I think that might be an improvement over the single resistor.

Hey,  Alex, 

since we are letting out a few secrets, with a brand new Lionel C420,

I wondered about just drilling the hole on the board some, has less than

30 minutes, running,  Do you suggest still change batting , if so what is best

kind !  I figure after I add diodes, ( to slow it down)  and possibly do your suggestion, this thing will put the white stuff out big time !!!!!!!!!!  thanks

After doing this with the two resistors, do the following.  After you put the unit together, set your meter to continuity and put one probe on a heater pad and the other on the metal housing.  If you get no continuity, you should be good to go.  If you get continuity, open it up again and bend the resistors to make them not contact the case.

I have the old version of the 2-6-6-2 USRA Mallet, which was made around the same time as the 4-8-2 so presumably has the same smoke unit. I did the Mike Reagan modifications as described above by Alex and I'm getting plenty of smoke out of it now. I see no need to mess around with trying to install an MTH-style dual element setup unless you do the full Reagan on it and it still doesn't smoke enough for you. 

Good catch Alex, it sure runs great now and puts out plenty of smoke. You sure are the wizard of smoke. 

Hi guys,

I just want to thank all of you guys for the expert info, and the input.

Terry what is the item number of the engine you're talking about

Thanks,

Alex

Hi Terry,

First thing we need is the item number,of the engine you're talking about

Alex

Appreciate infor,  putting 2 and 2 together, when you replied to 

George,   I then searched M Reagan video,  and  ta-da there it is , 

it was the long round piece of whatever ,  and I watched him cut it right off !!!!!!

My 1st ever, and I do have some improvement.  Wonder what cutting out a second

hole in the board, would do ??

thanks

Looks and sounds great Alex!  How did you increase the chuff rate?

Steve

Hi Steve,

There's a few ways of changing the chuff rate. I have tried all of the ways, and I'm most comfortable with the method I used on this particular engine. Which is using a reed switch with two magnets on the trailing truck wheels. The reed switch has to be hooked up to the two cherry switch wires and you will net 4 chuffs per revolution. I will post a link here in a few minutes on how to do this and also the smoke upgrade.

Here's the link  increase chuff rate and smoke upgrade

https://ogrforum.com/t...ith-photos-and-video

Thanks,

Alex

Alex,

Many thanks!

Steve

BTW, although you would not want different resistor values for two resistors in parallel for heating smoke oil, the actual calculation for resistance is as follows...

For R1 in parallel with R2, the Parallel Resistance equals (R1 times R2) divided by (R1 plus R2).

So for two 8 ohm resistors, that's (8 times 8) which is 64, divided by (8 plus 8) which is 16 and the answer is 4.

If the resistors were different, say 8 ohms and 16 ohms, the resistance for them in parallel would be 5.333 ohms...try it.

Also since we also use capacitors in engines, capacitors in parallel ADD. So two say 100 uF capacitors in parallel would result in 200 uF total capacitance.

And not to confuse things, but if the capacitors were in series, they would conform to the above C1*C2/C1+C2 relationship given for resistors in parallel.

What I found when I opened up my new engine was a smoke unit that doesn't need any mods  ability to adjust chuff rate and a whole lot more   This is the item number 20-3458-1

So Ben, why did you open it up?

Maybe destroying traces on the board?    I doubt you're going to find any other part of the board where another hole can be made without damaging it, let alone be properly situated under the smokestack.

I'm guessing that having too much input air may also affect the smoke output, there has to be a point of diminishing returns.  If you get sufficient airflow, the resistor may not be able to get hot enough to produce much smoke.