Answer to good smoke

I think you'll find most brand new engines will smoke better after you've done a couple of fills and the wick gets totally saturated.  When I rebuild them, I make sure that happens before I put them back together.

Is it true that the wick that the train comes with is crap? I read that a lot, and people were saying buy a replacement one and just change it. but maybe if the original one gets saturated, it works just fine? I would never feel comfortable taking this thing apart even with strict direction. 

Chris, here are 2 videos by Laidoffsick done a few years ago on filling smoke units; very informative and what GunrunnerJohn said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRcpFRtA6IY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1asUWbJtfok

Rick, i just watched those. 120 drops is prolly what i used the other day. I just don’t want my wick to burn. Would never feel comfortable taking it apart to put a new one in. And sending it in the mail to a store would make me even more nervous. Trying to find something on which smoke fluid is best for my engine. Mega steam or Lionel premium smoke fluid. I want to try the mega steam, but if Lionel makes theirs different to specifically run in their trains, i would like to know. Any opinions?

Chris, I am experimenting with 1 drop of fluid per 1 minute of run time and refilling after 10-15 minutes of run time; therefore, 10-15 drops from a Lionel graduated smoke dropper.  I don't know if that is effective since I have not taken a smoke unit apart for some time.  My objective is to not burn the wick.

I had to rebuild the smoke unit in my Vision Line Big Boy; received a ton of guidance from the fellas on the forum; just replacing the wick was a minor effort compared to all the other components I chose to replace - reservoir, gasket, pcb, fan motors (the hardest part was soldering due to my shaky hands); got all my parts from Lionel; with the help of the fellas -- success.  When wetting the wick, I used a total of 70 drops on each wick and there was no dripping when I turned the reservoir up side down.

Just received my new legacy EM-1 and over a few days, I have added about 70 drops gradually with some smoke time in between filling.  I will now adhere to my experiment above.  Smokes like crazy.  If you are familiar with recent (my experience began in 2014) Lionel smoke units, you know that at startup, over 2 amps of voltage are fed to the smoke units by the RCMC to get them going, then after less than a minute the amperage drops back to less than 2 amps.

I think Laidoffsick showed differences between Mega Steam and Lionel Premium in the 2nd video.  On this forum, you will find many guys lining up behind each.  Per Mike Reagan's advice, I am using Lionel Premium.

@RickM46 posted:

If you are familiar with recent (my experience began in 2014) Lionel smoke units, you know that at startup, over 2 amps of voltage are fed to the smoke units by the RCMC to get them going, then after less than a minute the amperage drops back to less than 2 amps.

 

Correction to the startup amps above: just took a look at the amps at startup for my EM-1 from the meter on my ZW-L; when turning on the smoke unit cold, the amps go up to 4 and hold for about 10 seconds; then, the amps drop back to 2.25 for 10 seconds; then the amps drop back to 1.5.

That's interesting because I've been wondering why my Legacy B6 has such weak smoke output after 5 minutes of run time. Sounds like I'll need to try this!

Pre-saturating the wick makes perfect sense. The only catch is that the locomotive must be stored upright to prevent leakage.

BillyYo and Matt, you may want to take a look at Laidoffsick's videos above.