I have a love-hate relationship with this accessory. It is a TMCC controlled accessory. I've replaced the mother board and the sound board. I rewired it as Lionel described to allow the Cab to turn on and control the smoke unit and the doors and the motorized accessories. Since I've owned it, the smoke unit produced a wafting smoke stream, very light, but constant. A few weeks ago, I goofed and dropped fluid into the air intake hole, not the smoke hole. At the time, it didn't seem to affect the unit. However, Monday, it stopped producing smoke. I did the usual, a few drops of fluid...nothing. I did check, the resistor and it was hot. I opened it up, and noticed a few things. The batting was compacted and burnt as was the sleeve on the resistor. Also, I saw a fan blade which surprised me as the smoke output was never as dense or voluminous as you would expect with a fan driven unit. I powered up the accessory to see if the blade turned and it did not. One last data point. I followed Mike R.'s instructions in his TMCC smoke unit rebuild video and replaced the batting, and cut off the sleeve on the resistor. No smoke to speak of. If I use a dropper to push air into the air intake hole, a bit of smoke will come out, but then nothing.
Question: Is this smoke unit fan driven? I realize there is a fan, but maybe it was just simpler for Lionel to put a unit in with a fan but no motor?
thanks,
