Lionel SD70ACe smoke and sound issues

Running with the smoke unit on and no fluid can burn the wick. A burned wick will not absorb fluid and you will get poor smoke output. Take the unit apart and see if the wick is blackened by the heater-resistor. You can buy replacement wicks from the manufacturer.

Try reprogramming the TMCC ID, this does an engine reset for this model.  If that doesn't change the behavior, I suspect Pat is right, the smoke unit needs service.

 

My Legacy diesels all smoke quite well, so this is not normal.

 

Thanks guys, will try your ideas. It only has about a half hour of run time, and I don't think we've run it out of fluid. Hopefully an easy fix! Thanks again, will post results when we get it apart.

I am a big SD-70 fan by Lionel and have that engine.  They smoke great unless you are in a situation like Pat stated.  Do what John stated and see what you have.  You may pull the smoke plug from your RCMC and put it back in agaion.  Those plugs can be funky.

Thanks Marty, love the looks and sound. Can't wait for smoke too!

With regards to sound, I believe the throttle turned slowly will not increase the RPM level. I know this was true in recent engines.

romiller

Is this normal? Seems tough to get any smoke out of this set up, more than half the resistor is out of the batting.

It's fairly normal for a Lionel unit Bobby...Make sure the channel from the fan chamber to the smoke unit "pot' and resistor is un-obstructed. Also, your batting looks to be fairly dry , at least as it shows in the photo. I'd soak it good while the cover is off prior to screwing the CB back on. Make sure the resistor is making contact with the batting when the cover is in place.

First off, I see there isn't any discoloration of the wick material.  Either you haven't run with smoke on for more than 5-10 minutes, or the resistor isn't getting as hot as it should.  Also, the wick material does look very dry as stated.  If it really is pretty dry, it should have discolored even more quickly, so I suspect something may be amiss.

 

Did you measure the resistance of the smoke resistor with the board unplugged?  It should be close to 6 ohms.

 

 

Thanks for the input guys. We had put a lot of Mega-Steam into it and were actually afraid we had flooded it so much the resistor couldn't get hot enough to vaporize it and that is why there was no smoke output. Fluffed up the pad and soaked it with fluid prior to reassembly. The resistor measured about 9 to 9.1 on the 200 scale. It smokes much better now than before, you can actually see billowing clouds of smoke. Prior to this most of the time you couldn't even tell if it was on.

The frame was wet with fluid, is it possible that the black smoke box housing has a Crack in it on the bottom? Did not remove that.
Thanks once again for all the help.

You sure the funnel was connected to the smoke unit .. That unit looks like it had no Fluid in it to me. I have never seen a bad bowl . I have seen funnels not in the units and gaskets stopping the fluid from getting in the unit .

The resistor sounds a bit high in value, how certain are you of the accuracy of your ohmmeter?  That unit has a 6 ohm resistor, so if it's really 9 ohms, that would explain weak smoke.

 

According to Lionel Web site for that engine smoke unit it is an 8 ohm, not 6 ohm.  SO the reading is probably ok.

 

It does look dry to me. 

 

Also doesn't that unit have a L, M and H smoke setting?  Try setting it for high.  G

Going to replace the Lionel pad with a new one if I can. Possibly the funnel was askew when it was assembled. The frame was loaded with fluid so guess it wasn't making it into the unit. Has anyone done the MTH style wick and wrapped it around the resistor on these? Even with a new pad most of the resistor will be away from the smoke fluid. Really dislike purchasing new stuff and it needs repairs right out of the box:-(
Thanks for all the help guys!

your not suppose to wrap  the wicking around the heater, just suppose to touch on one side of the heater resister!

Alan

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...ded-nov-6---pictures

 

This is what we've done on MTH units. Lionel has let's say a bed, and it isn't tall enough in our unit to get half way up the resistor. With the help here at least now guests believe me it has a smoke unit. Still not MTH quality but visible now