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Reply to "Schematic For PS-1 Smoke Unit; Board Modified"

The reason the 5V regulator goes is without any heatsink, the TO-92 package is only good for maybe 20ma running from track power.  If you have 12V on the track, the regulator is seeing around 17 VDC on the input, and it has to drop 12V to output 5V.  That results in dissipation of .25 watts at 20ma, but if the smoke motor draws 40ma, that rockets up to half a watt!  That's more than the little package can deal with, so it shoots up to more than 100C.  Even if it runs for a spell, it just cooks the regulator.  For the same reason, I replace a lot of those on Lionel smoke units.

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