Question about smoke

yes, you are using up the fluid.

Check the manufacturer's recommendation for how much fluid to add to your particular models. At the level you are adding most smoke units will run out pretty quick especially at full track voltage.

One thing I have recently/belatedly found is that Legacy smoke units have a 'sweet spot' in terms of the level of fluid used meaning there's a point where they smoke best - too much fluid and the smoke production actually goes down until the heater vaporizes the excess.

A fan driven unit will normally have a squarish, metal bowl inside that holds the soft batting which soaks up the fluid for use by the heating element. These types of units can normally hold 20-40 drops of fluid during a refill.  However, like mentioned above, check your specific loco's manual as some are smaller in size than others.

The piston style of smoke unit, or Puffer, is used on cheaper Lionel steamers and postwar units. They hold much less fluid. More like 4-8 drops per fill. Again, check the manual.

yes you should add fluid when the smoke lessens. with practice you will get a feel for when and how much to add. in elongated operation the smoke unit needs constant monitoring and refilling.

Bob C.

Good afternoon, a few months ago there was a question about the amount of smoke fluid and someone mentioned about 20 drops in an MTH steam engine.

I have never had a problem with MTH steam engines with 2.0 making smoke. 8 to 10 drops and you had all the smoke you needed.

MTH Proto 3 engines were another story when it come to making smoke.

 After reading the older post and the comments I thought this was a lot of smoke fluid, but thought I would give it a shot on my newer MTH Pennsy L1 and M1A Imperial models that are equipped with 3.0 .

With the 20 drops placed in the 3.0 engines smoke unit I had plenty of smoke, Matter a fact the towns people called my railroad office complaining of the road engines filling the town full of smoke  !!!!   Actually it was my wife thought I had something on fire in the train room.

I tried this same procedure with the 2.0 and I ended up with a mess, with smoke fluid all over the boilers.

So with this I think you need to play around  as mentioned earlier with the amount of smoke fluid you use in each engine to get the best results.

Smoke em if you got em  !!!!!!

I'm not sure why 2.0 or 3.0 would make any difference when it come to the amount of fluid in the smoke unit but I have put 20 to 25 drops in both and never had any problems.  

Hello Chris, I didn't think there was difference in smoke units between MTH 2.0 and 3.0 engines but their must be.

I agree with Chris Lonero above, I don't think it's the differences between PS2 or PS3, but MTH does have more than one type/size of smoke unit which I think would make a difference. Most of my MTH smoke units are larger dual element smoke units, but I have one RailKing Scale RS-3 that has a much smaller, single element smoke unit. I have diesels only, no steam, but there are at least two different types that I know of used in diesels. Some of the folks here (GRJ, GGG, Marty F to name a few) that work on these regularly could probably add even more.

Not only is there no difference between PS/2 and PS/3 smoke units in full sized models, but the fluid bowl in the MTH is as big as it is with Lionel, and they will easily handle 20-30 drops from dry without leaking any fluid on anything.

But software control can be different and some PS-3 need to be reflashed with code to increase heater current. (early stuff).   G

I'm not sure what you mean by reflashed with code?

i would advice you to check the manufacturer's recommendation for how much fluid to add to your particular models. personal i put about 25 - 30 drops. never experience any problems with that.  

taki53 posted:

I notice whenever I put in smoke fluid my engines (both lionel and MTH) they smoke really well but after sometime it just about fades out. I know that you're not suppose to run an engine if the smoke switch is on and there is no fluid. I just assume that when no smoke comes out the fluid is depleted. Should I keep putting fluid in? I usually put between 8 to 10 drops and I mainly use Mega smoke.  My engines are new. Thanks.

The instructions say to add smoke when needed. I would add the instructed and keep an eye on the smoke output, I would blow into the stack in order to get the meniscus or air bubble to stop the hydro lock in the line which will create more out put in smoke. If you run them in command modes, make sure the smoke is on, that helps a lot.

MarkStrittmatter posted:

Hello Chris, I didn't think there was difference in smoke units between MTH 2.0 and 3.0 engines but their must be.

 

Chris Lonero posted:

I'm not sure why 2.0 or 3.0 would make any difference when it come to the amount of fluid in the smoke unit but I have put 20 to 25 drops in both and never had any problems.  

I notice there is not much of a difference except in the 19th Century Ten Wheelers... the Proto 2.0 models put more smoke out than the Proto 3.0. I just replace the wick in the Proto 2.0 Model and it looks great now.

I have found that smoke coming from the stack is good. Out of the cab, not so much.

handyandy posted:

I have found that smoke coming from the stack is good. Out of the cab, not so much.

Even coming out of the stack isn't always good. My old Marx 495 smoked out the stack once, thought nothing of it bc I forgot it wasn't a smoker. Next morning it had a carbon coating on the lovely silver boiler, had me wondering where the heck it came from.