How many drops do you put in your engine. I have an ac6000 and I only out about ten. Is that not enough?
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
What does the model's manufacturer recommend? Maybe that information is in the owner manual?
Well I was reading other forms and people put 15-20 drops. So I wasn't sure if what the manufacture says is just a minimum. Thanks for the helpful info hot water.
Originally Posted by Andrew87:
Well I was reading other forms and people put 15-20 drops.
Although I rarely use smoke, since it messes up my weathered steam locomotives, I have NEVER put 15 to 20 drops in.
So I wasn't sure if what the manufacture says is just a minimum. Thanks for the helpful info hot water.
Glad you found it helpful, as it is always best to READ THE MANUAL/INSTRUCTIONS FIRST.
This topic has come up a lot. Alex M has posted several times after rebuilding smoke units and I've pretty much discovered the same thing after rebuilding some of mine.
If your engine was setting awhile, then 10 drops wasn't even enough to thoroughly soak the wick. You didn't say what manufacturer your AC6000 is but I assume Lionel or MTH.
When I had my MTH Dash 8 and 9's apart for service, I put 25 drops in the bowl and that was barely enough to soak the wick. I ended up putting 45 drops in everyone of those engines (6 total) and man what a difference. Those things will smoke you right out of the train room, just 1 engine by itself.
My new Legacy Cab Forward was pretty much the same, and Alex M posted some excellent information on this engine after he had his apart. It took more than 25 drops to get a large volume of smoke output.
I guess there is no easy way to be sure unless you've had the engine apart and can see for yourself. Follow the manufacturer's instructions, which are usually conservative, because they don't want you to overfill it and have to send it back. I personally have found that their recommendations are pretty conservative. Don't get me wrong, I've also over filled a few engines at times, but I also never had them apart to know for sure.
Do you want to take every engine apart to find out? Probably not. So just go with their recommendations. Add a few more drops if you haven't run the engine in awhile because the wick dries out.
Originally Posted by Andrew87:
How many drops do you put in your engine. I have an ac6000 and I only out about ten. Is that not enough?
This and other smoke fluid questions really depend on which model you are running and whether at command control track voltage or something less or slightly above. You don't specify which manufacturer's AC6000 you have but I can speak from experience regarding two.
I'm delighted with the operation of my Lionel Legacy AC 6000 but the MTH PS3 version I have also got is pretty weak in the smoke department. For the Lionel model ten drops to prime the unit for first use will not be enough - 15 or 20 applied with a needle dropper that gets it on to the smoke wadding will keep you running for a long session. When the smoke output starts to decrease, I'd generally add 10 drops rather than 15 but that's just to stay on the safe side.
With the MTH engine after putting in the recommended first "dose" of fluid and getting disappointing results I decided to open up the shell and make sure that the wadding was in the right contact with the heating element and saturated but not overfilled. It made no difference to the output. This is very unusual for an MTH engine so something else may be wrong.
However you just can't generalize about what works or not even just across Lionel and MTH models. Most of the current owners manuals (yes, I read and keep mine) recommend 15 or somewhat more drops to start and a little less once it appears that smoke output is decreasing.
P.S. The previous posting about Alex M's advice is right or at least corresponds with my own experience. Sometimes it takes 30 or more drops to saturate the wadding and in some engines the only way to do this properly is to get under the boiler/body shell and see that it is saturated.
When I rebuild a smoke unit, I use 30 or more drops to saturate the wick from a dry start. I just keep it coming until it's good and soaked, then put it together and away I go. If the smoke unit is truly dry, 10-15 drops won't really do it for most fan driven smoke units.
