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Hi all, I have a Vision line Challenger smoke issue that I have been working on for some time. All 3 smoke units were producing, however, it seemed at poor levels. I replaced all 3 resistors - 8 ohm, batten, and reservoir gaskets. After all of that what I've found is that when I run the engine for warm up, turn the smoke off and back on with the legacy remote it begins smoking correctly (big plooms). This will last for about a minute and all 3 units will return to reduced output. Off and on again and it's back smoking great and issue repeats itself a minute later.

Is there a current limiter (on watchdog timer) or something else that is causing the issue or is this normal or ?

Any help is greatly appreciated! Ready to see this beauty smoking hard all the time...

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I've had that board fail in the same locomotive, but I had no smoke at all.  In non-vision line stuff, I'd also had a number of the voltage regulators fail.  I just wrapped one up, did the same thing.  Smoke was great for a spell, then then fall off as it ran.

I'd actually start by looking for any connection issues, defective connectors, etc.  Anything that limits the current flow to the smoke units will cause this.  Since you have multiple smoke units, there's a fair amount of current flowing, bad connections can be a real problem.

Yep, I've been down that path at least with verifying the connections. One of the things bothering me was wherever the control signal came to the board to control smoke output (low, medium, high). I was wondering if maybe there was another board that sent a digital signal to the smoke board IC or voltage or whatever to make certain the correct board is replaced. Varying the output from the cab doesn't seem to make any difference. I'm assuming you can't get a schematic on these things. You're a wealth of knowledge and really appreciate your help!

Yes, I replaced all 3 resistors, dual smoke and injector with batting. Built new gaskets too since unavailable from Lionel. Pretty much a complete rebuild of all. It will smoke however it's weak until you turn the smoke off and then immediately back on it smokes great for about a minute then weak, turn off and immediately back on, it's back smoking great then process repeats

Sure sounds like the regulator circuit isn't working properly.  That's a classic symptom, for some reason the uP just "forgets" the smoke level setting and starts dropping it.

I've actually put a couple of the regulators on the bench to see if I could make them work, but I've never been successful, I think the little uP is losing it's memory from the heat of the smoke regulator, only thing that seems to make sense.

Update

I replaced the smoke control board and it's doing the same thing as before. From the measurements I've taken it appears the smoke circuit increases resistance to ground after about 20 seconds on the return (- side of the smoke element). I get about a 5vdc voltage drop across the element(s) at start up or alternating smoke off/on and it smokes great but after about 20 sec the voltage drop starts to vary between 1.8 and 2.6 vdc. The supply side is rock solid at 8vdc as well as the ac input to the rectifier. I also removed the command base and checked it conventional only with the same result. Going from low/medium/high on the legacy remote really doesn't show any difference on smoke output and maybe .2vdc difference across the smoke element. Does the RCVR board control the serial data to the smoke control board and could the RCVR be bad (I've already ordered one from Lionel - I'll have a spare if doesn't correct it). I'm stumped....

 

It's pretty hard to measure those voltages with a multi-meter, they're chopped waveforms.  Even with a true-RMS Fluke, I don't get readings that are all that accurate for smoke regulator output voltages.  The only way to really see what you have is with a 'scope.  It is normal for the voltage to start higher and then drop off, that's a fancier version of what TMCC does, full track voltage to "preheat" the smoke resistor, and then drop down to normal voltage.

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