What Is The Ideal Smoke Unit?

Anything's possible, but will it be MTH or Lionel?

My best guess at this point would be Lionel. They seem to be looking for innovation.

Although I have no MTH "smokers", my best Lionel are my postwar ones. Smokes a long time, and smokes after sitting on a shelf for 11 months. Wish my newer TMCC ones were like them.

Personally, I think smoke is overrated. I end up turning off the smoke units after 5 minutes or so.

Marx 666.  It smokes like the devil!

Well Lionel produced the pinnacle of smoke features on the Vision line engines. I am anxious to see the Big Boy with these added smoke features. Anything that adds a new dimension to running trains is good.

One that produces ubiquitous smoke or none at all. Depends on the audience.

Agreed. 

In my opinion, MTH has the superior smoke unit design, and I would like to see these improvements to it:

> Wick material with a higher temperature rating so it will not melt;

> Silicone or other rubber gasket material that is durable enough to last for several dis-assemblies of the smoke unit;

> Less expensive smoke fluid.

MTH units are simpler and more reliable (I have only had one fail) but Lionel has reached for more realistic features, some of which (like smoke "lofting" out of the stack at idle after a good belch on start-up) may have to do with the Lionel-TAS tie-up. Unfortunately, the extra features have come at the price of reliability.

Anyway, my ideal SMU is one that works as advertised out of the box.

"What is the ideal smoke unit?" Hmmm.....I know. How about NO smoke units? IMHO this is one of the better reasons to run prewar. The other reason is NO electronics.

Aaaahhhh; the smoke unit debate again.

With all due respect to those that dislike smoke and high tech trains in general, I feel that smoke is a highly desirable feature, especially for steam. Diesels not so much.

PS-2 steamers have always had great smoke units, and the ability to customize the output as well as shut them off when desired is great. The sequenced puffing with the drivers and the ability to switch between 2, 3, 4 or whatever chuffs per rev at the push of a button, really does it for me.

Recent Lionel smoke units also put out good amounts of smoke; much better than the older 27 ohm units, which were anemic at best. Lionel has also added puffing smoke in recent years, which is light years ahead of the older steady stream units.

All in all I think todays smoke units are great, and they add a huge amount of interest to the hobby for me, as well as plenty of others I suspect.

Rod

If a smoke unit could be designed that could swap out the smoke wadding without having to open up the engine would be a winner.  Not sure how it could be done without messing up the looks of the engine, but wow would that be a winner if it could be done.  Of course I don't want to have to buy some special smoke unit parts to do it either!

Or Wick that could rotate and use it all up would be a new design as well.

Jim

Some good points above.

Bob C.

Actually I am not sure that any of us answered your original question!

Yes, I'd also like to see a better system of feeding the smoke fluid to the heating element but I don't think that the present, non-rocket science method of using a wick is the source of most really annoying operating problems.

I think that the real problems are in the supply of regulated current to the SMU and the control boards that Lionel use. I've had AC regulators on Legacy engines burn out with no obvious reason (bad components) and a couple of SMUs that simply didn't produce any great volume even on "high" setting.

The SMUs that TAS used to produce were very robust, smoked like the Dickens and had some of the features of modern Legacy SMUs. They also had temperature sensors to ensure that the unit would not burn out, although that is not a problem for those of use who use smoke regularly as the fluid level is always kept topped up.

What I'd really like is for Lionel to produce a manual that explained the variations in their more recent SMUs and exactly how they are meant to work. Mike Reagan's "Smoke Units 101" video was great but it stopped short of explaining these matters.

Many of the earlier smoke regulator boards in Lionel units were not heat-sinked, and the current simply cooked components and they did seem to have high failure rates.

personal opinion is None .  its a health hazard and it really makes I mess of a nice locomotive ,especially at the prices they go for now.

No offence but going around in circles with no smoke or quality sound is so boring..

Give me all the ps2/ps3 and legacy trains please ...

One wonders why post in a thread about improving smoke units if you don't use them at all and never would...

Personally, I'd like to see a reservoir to allow operation for a longer period of time without refilling.  Also, a better method of determining if it's full or needing fluid.  Finally, an automatic shutoff when it's out of fluid so it doesn't destroy the wick and cook the resistor.

As already noted, MTH makes a very good smoke unit for Steamers. Diesels should, in my opinion, smoke only if there's a real problem. Blowing smoke out of the side covers during a break-down sequence would be kinda neat.

Gilly

Amen brother!