Lionel Legacy steam—under warranty—main smoke unit out—no reply from Lionel

@DawgTrainman posted:

My theory is that when these fans get noisy then there is usually more drag on the shaft which draws more current and on the newer Legacy steamers with the safety circuit that shuts down the fan motor (I could be off the mark though).  

Your theory is exactly correct, that's how the fan blinks are triggered with the Legacy RCMC board.

@DawgTrainman posted:

Rick—thanks for the reply.  I actually got a hold of Lionel yesterday by phone (after trying for a few days with no luck).  They said they will issue me a RA# within 2 weeks as they are that behind.  

 

Glad to hear you got through and  hope they will make things right for you!

I imagine a good part of the backlog was created because I believe they were shut down for the virus like many other buisnesses.

@DawgTrainman posted:

Rick—thanks for the reply.  I actually got a hold of Lionel yesterday by phone (after trying for a few days with no luck).  They said they will issue me a RA# within 2 weeks as they are that behind.  I have actually tried the putting a drop of oil on the fan motor shaft method on one of my Lionchief steam engines and it solved the squeaky/noisy sound coming from the smoke fan that developed in pretty short order with that unit.  I could be wrong, but I don’t think the Lionchief engines have that safety circuit that shuts down the smoke fan if there is a short or an over current situation.  My theory is that when these fans get noisy then there is usually more drag on the shaft which draws more current and on the newer Legacy steamers with the safety circuit that shuts down the fan motor (I could be off the mark though).  At any rate, since my unit is still under warranty I am going to send it back to Lionel and let them fix it as it might be something else like a board (more $) so I don’t want to void the warranty by trying to fix it myself.  Now, come next year when it is out of warranty, then I will definitely do the “oil drop on the motor shaft/bushing technique” if the fan gets noisy.  I’ll keep you posted!  May be a month or longer for me to get it back from Lionel at this rate so I’m not holding my breath!

Thanks to you and others for the terrific advice and insight.

 

Don't get your hopes up I've been waiting a month for an RA and haven't received it.   I'm starting to think its not behind but uncappable.  I've got 3 sitting around(2 DOA'S and one smoke unit related) that need to go back that they wont take at this time.  Said they we'll extend my warranty coverage to offset the delay.   If it wasn't for not wanting to eat all the shipping cost I would send it somewhere else.  Really starting to take a down turn as of late.  My experiences have been very positive.  However lately in my own experience and what I see here makes me wonder where we're really headed.  Not to get off topic but while I'm venting I'm really tired of not getting what's advertised as well.   Total BS.   Makes me whish there was another alternative.  You can only ask for such much forgiveness and patience.  Instead of driving folks to MTH it'll be to HO or N.   Love Lionel but I'm not impressed.   

On the bright side, parts are coming a whole lot faster, so maybe they're turning it around.

@jeremy ferrell posted:

Don't get your hopes up I've been waiting a month for an RA and haven't received it.   I'm starting to think its not behind but uncappable.  I've got 3 sitting around(2 DOA'S and one smoke unit related) that need to go back that they wont take at this time.  Said they we'll extend my warranty coverage to offset the delay.   If it wasn't for not wanting to eat all the shipping cost I would send it somewhere else.  Really starting to take a down turn as of late.  My experiences have been very positive.  However lately in my own experience and what I see here makes me wonder where we're really headed.  Not to get off topic but while I'm venting I'm really tired of not getting what's advertised as well.   Total BS.   Makes me whish there was another alternative.  You can only ask for such much forgiveness and patience.  Instead of driving folks to MTH it'll be to HO or N.   Love Lionel but I'm not impressed.   

FWIW, I got an RA last week in 2 days. I guess mileage may vary. BTW, it may help to follow up.

I could be wrong but the MTH locomotives smoke a lot better than Lionel even my Visionline Niagara does not smoke properly even so I send  it back to N. Caroline when it was two weeks old, I am going to miss MTH

While MTH is arguably the smoke champ, most Legacy and TMCC stuff can be tuned to smoke more than sufficiently.

I wanted to give everyone an update on my RA / repair.  It took about a month to get a RA, but the good news is that once I sent it back, the turn around time was less than a week and I had it back repaired!  The problem turned out to not be the smoke fan motor as I suspected.  The repair order said they replaced qty. 2 of “smoke resistor / 8 ohm”—part # 691RES8OHM and qty. 2 of the smoke unit fiberglass batting.  Any idea as to what would have caused the resistors to fail?  I’m always careful to not leave the smoke unit “on” if it starts running low on smoke as I believe if it runs dry then that can burn out the resistors...   Thanks for any input/insight!

No clue about the resistors, they are not a common failure item.