Lionel smoke element for AF

The Gilbert nichrome wire wound smoke units are about 40 ohms. Are these new elements designed for full track voltage? Replacement smoke wicks are available inexpensively from a number of sources for those who do not want to wind their own. It would be interesting to know if someone made one of the new smoke elements work without a circuit board for control.

I have used  all the above and even 10 ohms ones.  You must make sure the leads do not touch the sides of the chamber and it must come in contact with the batting.   They will work, don't know the life is on them, keep them wet...

Marty

Do you know if these be ordered from an electronics supplier like DigiKey or Mouser?   And in different ohms?

 

You might try Hennings trains here they are a sponsor..

Marty

In my opinion that won't work. There is no way the element is going to get any fluid to heat. Don't forget that most of the American Flyer wicking is in the bottom portion of the smoke unit and the wick comes to the top chamber from 2 holes. The wick sits in the well that the smoke fluid collects in.

Here is one of my hybrid smoke elements.

See more at http://www.tuveson.com/hybrid-...id_smoke_element.htm

It can also be used in the Gilbert smoke units.

Carl

 

 

These units look similar to the ones used in the "Franklin" style locomotives. Does anyone recall what the proper ohms rating is for the Frontiersman  (and I think also the 21155 Docksider)?

EDIT: I just checked the Lionel website and I see that the replacement smoke element for the current crop of Docksiders is part #691RS18OHM . It's my guess that this element will work in the Gilbert Docksider and Frontiersman units. Can anyone confirm this? Are these similar to the replacement elements that Doug Peck (Portlines) offers?

 

The Lionel heating element shown in the first photo is designed to operate in contact with a rectangular patch of fiberglass material, which serves as a wick.  The fiberglass wick in the Lionel smoke unit is stuffed into the bottom of a cube-shaped casting where the smoke fluid collects.  The postwar Gilbert AF locomotive smoke units I have worked on have two separate chambers, a lower chamber that serves as a reservoir for the fluid and an upper chamber where the heating element is.  The two chambers are separated by a wall in the casting that has two holes to allow for passage of an angel hair fiberglass wick.  The heating element (Nichrome wire), is wound around the angel hair wick, with enough windings to produce between 30 and 50 ohms resistance.  I tend to keep the resistance in my rebuilds on the low end of this range to produce more smoke output at lower speeds and voltage.  I understand the late production smoke units had a different casting design which eliminated the wall separating the reservoir chamber from the heating element chamber, although I don't own an engine with this design and have never taken one apart.

Trying to use the Lionel ceramic core heating element would create two difficulties in the Gilbert smoke unit, in my opinion.  First, I *think* the Lionel 16 ohm heating element may be designed to operate at a lower voltage.  My Lionel Flyer Big Boy has this type of heating element and is connected to a circuit board, which implies that the smoke unit is probably not seeing full track voltage.  I admit I haven't checked the voltage across the smoke unit terminals to see what voltage it operates at, but a 16 ohm element would consume considerably more power (and thus generate considerably more heat) than a 35 ohm element at 18 volts.  I'm skeptical that a 16 ohm element would last very long if operated on straight track voltage up to 16 or 18 volts.  The second problem I could see with trying to adapt the Lionel 16 ohm ceramic element to a postwar Gilbert smoke unit casting is that the Lionel element is designed to be embedded into a wick material containing smoke fluid.  In the Gilbert smoke unit design, the majority of the wick material is separated from the heating element chamber.  I don't know how you would create the necessary contact between heating element and wick given the wall separating the two (unless you removed the cast-in wall using a Dremel or a milling machine).  It might work without modifying the casting if one used one of the late production Gilbert smoke unit castings that do not have the wall.

 

Scott Griggs

Louisville, KY

Ironically, given the fail rate of the newer O-gauge smoke units, I was wondering if I could replace Lionel units with AF . I particularly enjoy Lionel's blinking cab light smoke unit error.

Speaking of ironic, isn't that a shame charging $10 to ship a $2 part!

Rich

I picked up a couple of the MTH 18 Ohm elements on eBay. I paid just over $11 for the pair shipped. I may try to experiment with a derelict Franklin engine sitting in a box in my basement.

The Frontiersman smoke units are always kind of a PITA to service since you pretty much have to grind off the lip in the front of the chamber to pull out the disc that holds the ends of the element leads.

If anyone has any more creative ways to service one of these units I'd like to hear about it. In any event, I'll post my results (success or failure) after I attempt the operation.

Has anyone tried using the PW  AF  design (nichrome wire wrapped around the wick) in a PW Lionel?   That may be my next 'experiment'.   AF engines always seemed to smoke much better than the Lionel.

 

The late ACG AF S smoke units eliminated the lower chamber and put the wick and heating area in one chamber, with a small cardboard box around the heating element to keep it away from the rest of the wick material. This eliminated the bottom plate, bottom plate gasket, and 4 screws. It simplified the assembly process too. The heating element now runs from front to rear of the engine instead of side-to-side. These units might adapt easily to the modern heating elements.