Ok so to simply start yes I opened a brand new locomotive. Moving on I have a 2031700 Big Boy that I have always been suspicious of the smoke unit. When I first got it put out a LOAD of smoke. And within the first 5 minutes I didn’t like the smell and popped it open to already find the elements and batting charred. So I cleaned the elements replaced the batting and moved on. I also found a wire to one ground light smashed and burned on in two by the factory, that was repaired. Recently I had it at the club and close to the end of the day I got two blinks from the cab. Main element failure. Whoopee, finally cracked it open
first I find the smoke funnel partially melted, (this is going to be promising) get everything apart and the main stack element has the wire broken loose. And the whistle unit (might I add the unit that was still working) obviously overheated deforming the funnel and actually did start to deform the impeller but it’s not bad. I have replaced both elements since I had new 8ohm elements had to get some new high temp solder but they are new had the new elements same hight as the thermistors and everything perpendicular to the PCB, set everything back together and got again a TREMENDOUS amount of smoke on the “LOW” setting. Shut that down after a couple of minutes and waited for the smoke to clear (it was that much). Decided to try pushing the thermistors closer so they run cooler and this time left the funnel off and now I’m concerned I think that helped but the resistors are getting RED hot. Now I don’t typically look at elements under use so is this normal and I’m over reacting or is there another issue?
With the new smoke “improvements” and the number of whistle steam units over heating I don’t wonder if there is a slight bug in the firmware or if it’s all mechanical.
Thanks in advance for all thoughts
