Stepping Down Voltage to Lionel Fan Smoke Unit

What smoke unit did you use...or what is the resistor value in it?

Sorry, it's a modified Lionel 610-8057-200M with a 27 Ohm resistor that I bought from BoxCar Bill a few years ago.

1 amp is probably ok then, but the diodes will dissapate about .7 watts each. They will get pretty warm. Why not try using one diode in series with the power to the resistor alone which will drop the 18 vac down to around 12 vac effective.

Is this Williams conventional?

Most 27 ohm resistors don't produce much smoke because they are not hot enough.

What kind of "batting" are you using?

Soo Line posted:

Is this Williams conventional?

Most 27 ohm resistors don't produce much smoke because they are not hot enough.

What kind of "batting" are you using?

Yes, it is a conventional Williams unit, I removed the suethe smoke unit to install this fan driven unit.  It came with batting already, I'm assuming it's Lionel.

When I bought the unit from Bill he asked me if I wanted smoke or a lot of smoke so of coarse I said a lot of smoke!  My receipt just say's "modified 27 Ohm smoke unit" so that could mean it was a modified 27 Ohm unit or it was modified using a 27 Ohm resistor, I'm not sure what resistors the original units came with.   Here's a couple of pics of the identical unit that caught on fire because I let it run dry, this is after it was cleaned up.

Paul

When it worked well.....we're you pleased with the smoke output?

If so, the batting could be poor quality.  You will read many accounts here on the forum (myself included) who change out the batting Lionel puts in many of it's smoke units.  They char and burn easily.

The often preferred smoke unit batting/wicking is a Lionel product  available on their web site.

Good quality product.  Of course you must make sure you keep the unit "fed" and not dry while on.

Dave

Soo Line posted:

When it worked well.....we're you pleased with the smoke output?

If so, the batting could be poor quality.  You will read many accounts here on the forum (myself included) who change out the batting Lionel puts in many of it's smoke units.  They char and burn easily.

The often preferred smoke unit batting/wicking is a Lionel product  available on their web site.

Good quality product.  Of course you must make sure you keep the unit "fed" and not dry while on.

Dave

The smoke output was awesome!  I do have some Lionel wick type batting that I'll try and see how that works.  I used to use pink insulation back in the day for my postwar locomotives with success, not sure how safe it was....

Paul

I've used a variety of products experimentally for smoke units.  I have found some braided wick that works as well as the MTH wick on eBay, and I also keep the MTH and the Lionel in stock.  I've used some of the pipe insulation fiberglass in mechanical smoke units, those don't lend themselves to smoke wick that you have to pack, having a pad works better, at least for me.