Mike CT posted:??Thermistor?? not properly covered with fluid, as Mike R mentioned above, that is design to inhibit Smoke resistor burn-out. With the fiber wadding, in the smoke fluid chamber, sometimes the Thermistor is not positioned properly. Too close to the Resistor, another possible problem. The blue thing.
That is a very good point. At least a couple of the 3rd Rail steamers I have required the spacing between the thermistor and the (ceramic) resistor to be adjusted - as in increased to something like 1/8th inch. Many Legacy smoke units now have thermistors and the same problem arises with them, exacerbated by the fact that their wiring is not as robust as in the unit shown above so the terminator is pretty easy to get in the wrong location when pressed into the smoke wadding.
I may be repeating what other people already know but some while back Jon Z. explained that the thermistor senses heat through the fluid in the wadding so if it's dried out that may cause smoke output effectively to stop - although there will always be some power to the resistor.
P.S. My TAS unit doesn't look exactly like yours - it's bigger but I'm aware, as GRJ mentions, that some of these didn't have all the electronics on the unit itself. Somewhere I have seen reference to cutting part of the PCB off to split the unit into two parts.
