Blinking Cab Lights

Smoke unit might be dead, maybe the fan motor.

The manual has a list of cab light blinks vs fault.

Too much fluid can sometimes get into the fan blades. Give it a day. Then try it again.

If I rebut the SD70ACE without the smoke unit on everything is OK. Since the wisdom of the forum has come forth I noticed the smoke does not work at all, so I am guessing it is dead. Thanks so much.

Three blinks is fan motor. Even thou fan not working it shuts the whole smoke unit down and also like cjack says let it dry out or get megasteam eliminator put in smoke unit or if your comfortable taking shell off you can clean the motor with electric contact cleaner and after dries out then oil the motor bearings. Also you can try blow small amount of air down smoke stack with small air compressor.  

If you are willing to open it up, it's not that difficult to replace the smoke fan motor, which is sometimes necessary.

 

had an interesting issue with my lionel northern the other day. started smoking like normal, ran about an hour still no issue. shut down for about an hour, when started back up got the three blinks, reset the required times no luck. ran it anyway for an hour. let it set for another hour, started back up still no smoke about 30 minutes into this run all of the sudden it started smoking like nothing was wrong.

seems like smoke fan motor got hot when it cooled it started working again.

 

ordered the mth smoke motor.

The MTH motor fits, but it's close to the shell.  I suggest some Kapton tape on the shell to make sure you don't short the terminals on the rear of the motor to the shell.  The MTH motor is slightly longer than the Lionel one that's stock for the Northern.

So you gave up with the Lionel smoke unit?

just the motor.  just like gunrunnerjohn states above.

 

thanks john, am going to give it a try after the motors arrive.

I had a legacy diesel give me the 3 blinks last week, I had new motors so I rebuilt the smoke unit, Turned on the power and 3 blinks, the motor was tested before I put it all back together. It turned out that the resistor was broken. So that can give a 3 blink code as well.  

That's not the normal blink code for the smoke resistor, it should have been 2.

 

1 Main drive motor stalled.
2 Smoke 1 element problem.
3 Smoke 1 fan problem.

 

You can also have more for whistle smoke, and the VL-BB has a whole different set.

That is strange John as I checked it 3 times and it was 3 blinks.. I was stumped at first but knew it had to be something with the smoke unit..so out came the multi meter and  I found the issue... it fixed the blinking...this was in the DD35A so I had to switch front and rear units off to see which unit was giving me the problem.

Odd, but then that's what we expect.

 

Since,  I  am not good with repairs  I have decided to send the locomotive back to Lionel,  Thanks for all you help.

Schumann....can you report about how things are going?  I have a new (just before Christmas 2014) Legacy Berkshire that I only ran 2-3 times for about 15 minutes each time.  Now all I get is blinking lights.  Won't run.  Won't smoke.  Had axels fall off this expensive engine when I took it out of the box.

 

Very very frustrated and disappointed.  I had high hopes for this Lionel.  I'm no trainsgineer.  Just a guy who wants to run toys with this kids.  Any suggestions to a quick fix before Christmas is really appreciated.

 

John Rubi

Dallas, Texas

I had the same exact problem with my Dad's 3759 Northern. Replaced the fan motor and still had the same problem.

 

I found it was the wires, and not the fan motor. They were jammed in there so tight and twisted into a mess.....I don't know how there wasn't other things wrong.

 

When you open it up, swap the wire harness end for end that goes to the smoke unit. Solved my issue.

I had this happen to 6 of my brand new engine. After trying to reset them i called the customer service department where they walked me throught the reset procedure. Ultimately, Lionel issued me an RMA and replaced all the fan units. My engines were on the shelf of a dealer for about 9 months and all stopped smoking within 2 weeks of me getting them

Previous post identified that there was / is a bad bunch of fans and you may have one.  Call Lionel and have them walk you through the process.

K

Lionel just sent me a new smoke fan unit for my SD70Ace, I installed it and the blinking lights continue. I guess I will not use the smoke anymore.

You said you were sending the whole engine back and it still blinks?

Lionel will be very fast to fix it if it's a "boomerang repair" as they say.

I would have sent it back to Lionel for repairs as it might not have only been the fan unit, actually 6 of them brand new go bad within 4 weeks of getting them from the dealer. Sent them all in to Lionel where they repaired them all, tuned and tested and sent them back. Was I thrilled with this, no because, they were new and I had to pay for shipping to them. took less than a week for the turn around. They installed a new fan unit, batting and tested

 

By doing it yourself you might have voided the warranty which means you might have to pay for any and all repairs.

Lionel does not seem quick to void warranty in these well documented chronic issues with new engines.

Just tell them it didn't help and would they fix it.

That's not alway the case. I have personally experienced the sorry it is out of warranty comment if I chose to fix it as I was not an authorized factory tech.  Ultimately the issue was resolved - by sending one some in, changing a few out on my own then at the local dealer.

Bottom line, they reserve the right to choose to call it in or out or warranty during and after the warranty period.