FAN DRIVEN SMOKE UNIT WIRING

That smoke unit already brings the fan and heater on at the same time.  Why do you feel the need to create your own power for the fan when there's already an identical circuit on the smoke unit?

hokie71 posted:

I am working on a rewire of the backshop and it has an 8057 fan driven smoke unit.  Here is a pdf with a picture and the circuit. My question for the smoke unit experts is why can't I feed both the orange and the red from the 14-16vac accessory source on my layout (PLUG J1)?   My guess is in the original wiring plan, the fan and the heater came on with different commands.  My plan is to bring them on together with a simple switch (I run conventional).  Does anyone know of an issue with wire nutting the red and orange together to the hot side of the accessory feed?  Thanks.

BTW: a nice link for the parts list at lionel on these smoke units:  www.lionelsupport.com/ReplacementParts/index.cfm?doAction=productPartFilter&number=610-8057-200&productID=1067947c-6b7a-424a-a2d3-705c23d6c233

If I understand your question correctly....Look at the printed circuit board traces on the top at the red and orange pins.  These smoke unit were made with a trace that connects the red and orange post. Normally.  Some smoke units have  solder blob as the jumper others a full formed trace, and others it is open.  When open it is because they powered the smoke fan 5V circuitry separately.  Usually when trying to puff it from the cherry switch or some other source.

So your red and orange may already be connected.  Or YES, you can just connect red and orange to an AC Red output and power it directly.  G

Thanks John and George for the responses. Sorry I did not ask the question well but George read between the lines.

I got a "bargain" on this back shop and the electronics had known problems.  Lionel service has been great but it seems the best board/ part replacement  is a $120 upgrade kit that replaces what is currently in the brains of this thing but this forces TMCC only operation. I run conventional so  my bright idea is to simply rewire using some on/ off switches (smoke, doors, machine shop-lights, etc.).  the smoke unit apparently has been a focus of several Lionel modifications over the years and I wanted to be sure the separate (they appear to be separate) orange -red was for TMCC operation so the smoke output could be adjusted.  I am not interested in this feature so I just wanted avoid land mines in doing this.  I'll proceed with a single 14vac power line to the smoke unit

Not to hijack my own thread, but I need a recommendation on a small profile adjustable ac track to dc power supply.  the motor on the up / down doors is dc and seems to run well at about 8VDC or so.  I can't find specs on it- hence the idea of an adjustable buck converter.  I thought I had seen it here but my searches are only coming up with DC-DC.  thanks again.

You have to add components to make them AC-DC.  Specifically, a diode or diode bridge and a filter capacitor.  It depends on how small you need it and how much power it has to deliver.  I've been tinkering with such a supply in various configurations.  I'm targeting locomotives and rolling stock, so I'm trying to keep them as small as possible.

"Universal" AC-DC Power Supply for O-gauge Locomotives and Rolling Stock

Proposed AC-DC Power Module for Layout use

Thanks John, Interesting threads.  do you make / sell these now or are you in the product development mode?

If there's sufficient interest, I might just make the PCB available.  There's a big jump between the PCB and getting the boards assembled, the tooling charges are hundreds of dollars before you get a board.  So, I only do that for stuff that is pretty sure to sell in volume, that's stuff like the Super-Chuffer, the Chuff-Generator, and the 20110 LED Lighting Regulator.  The Lighting regulator also goes into the 20100 Passenger Car LED Lighting Kit.  Those three boards are the only ones I've actually paid the tooling to get assembled in quantity.  You may have seen my sale thread on the Locomotive Motion Detection Module Kits, I decided to make a kit of parts available as there were a few folks interested.  However, I couldn't see trying to setup to sell finished product, I didn't see the volume possibilities.  The power supply versions might go the same route.

Right I did see that motion detector and just bought one or your passenger car kits from Hennings.  Before I broke the bank with an "auction site" purchase (or all electronics) on the buck converter, I thought I would check.  I think you are probably correct in being cautious on the power supply items.

I'm bench testing one of my switching hybrid power supplies now, at 5V with 18V track power coming in, it handles a bit over half an amp out if I want to stay under 70C for the P/S temperature.  It's really the eBay switcher that is getting warm, so the 3A rating is mostly BS I would imagine.