err company cruise commander

There is no provision on a CC for a fan driven smoke unit, …..you need a stand alone system to drive it, …..look into John Will’s Super Chuffer and Chuff generator,….you can use those two devices to drive your chuff, and your fan driven smoke unit, ….also can provide added features, like cab lighting, rule 17 headlight, etc,….

Pat

There's no way a smoke unit should draw 4 amps!  That will cook the R4LC triac in seconds!

Also, if the engine is drawing four amps without the smoke unit, you likely need to either repair whatever is binding or if everything is free, replace the drive motor.  An unloaded locomotive with a can motor running alone shouldn't draw more than about an amp.  I have seen a few defective Williams motors that draw excessive current, and I've had to replace them.

As Pat suggests, the Chuff-Generator and the Super-Chuffer II will give you a complete smoke management package for steam fan driven smoke.

What is the part number of the smoke unit? An early Legacy 6 ohm unit powered by track voltage may approach 4 amps. If using a Z4000 the readings can be optimistic.

If in fact this is the case then you will want to replace the resistor with something in the 20-27 ohm range.

Pete

hay John i may have posted it wrong, it is 0.4 amp less than 1/2 amp my mistake for not knowing how to type

OK, that's more reasonable!   That's about right for a standard smoke unit.  That will connect fine to the feature output of the Cruise Commander, you'll get continuous smoke whenever smoke is enabled.

As a side note on your Weaver 4-8-4 CC install,…..Weaver was pretty notorious for tall gears and amp hungry motors,….as John stated earlier,….best to test the draw on that motor, and know what you’re up against before relying on the CC to try and clean it all up,…

Pat

i also have a scale k line 2-8-2 with cruse commander in it  it pufs with the chuf but I have to shut off the smoke unit with a slide switch  being the northern is all brass I am tempted to just leave the Lionel smoke unit unhooked that way the fireman is doing his job

I've had a number of the Williams and Weaver motors on the bench that drew 2-3 amps and even more when free running, that's WAY too much current!  Needless to say, they also got pretty hot after a short time.  I properly operating can motor that you find in O-gauge your model locomotive should never draw even an amp on the bench with no load.

A popular Pittman motor size, the 9433F686 draws just over 200ma at 12VDC on the bench.  This is the size motor that's used in the largest steamers.  The Mabuchi 555, a similar size motor, draws around 300ma.  My Mabuchi 365 and 385 samples draw from 175ma to around 300ma on the bench.  All these motors are rated at 12V, and those are the results I would expect as a rule.