Thoughts on Legacy Smoke Unit Fan Motor Failures..

My Neil Young PRR AA units were oddballs right out of the box, they worked but I had to constantly blow into the tops of the holes to get the air bubbles out.

There have been a number of different failures of smoke units, I sent some to Jon Z. at Lionel for his evaluation, he found some required excessive current and other issues.

 

I agree that many can be cleaned up and reused, however I find it easier to replace them with the MTH fan motor.  I haven't had any issues with the MTH motors, and they've been used in a number of replacements for my stuff as well as other folks.

 

I believe that Lionel was changing manufacturers of the motor to resolve the issues, but maybe they're just beating the current manufacturer into submission.  In any case, I don't think this was just an overfilling issue, and I'm pretty sure that Lionel is addressing the issue.

What's the MTH number on those motors? I've tried to use MTH web site and it's never worked for me. Is there an MTH parts site other than MTH? I have emailed MTH various times, etc. and no response. I guess I could call them, but then I wouldn't be able to complain

Time to bring manufacturing elsewhere.

The standard MTH motor is BE-0000041, that's the one I keep lots of stock of.

 

Yes the motor squeal has driven me nuts. But another failure mode has been when smoke fluid has been added the gasket swells up, hitting the impeller fan.

I trimmed the gasket back a bit and everything works fine.

 

 

Actually I disagree with 10 drops .The legacy smoke units eat smoke fluid like a kid eats candy on Easter Sunday. My visionline challenger makes short work of 10 drops of fluid . It needs 30drops .

another thing I remember jon saying is the motor might spin but if the torque is not correct the board will set the flashing light code.

I believe they just measure current, I don't think they've advanced to measuring torque.   We did have a little discussion on measuring back-EMF of the smoke motors, but it's not currently done by the Legacy boards.

jojofry: My comments were aimed more at the Legacy diesel smoke units vice the steam smoke unit. My Milwaukee S-3 is a larger unit (although divided into two separate chambers). My observations cover recent production units like the past two years at most....

I can verify the diesel smoke units are definitely smaller than before.

My 2 cents worth:

 

I have one Legacy and one Vision engine that have smoke unit "buzz" and one is a steamer (UP 9000) and the other is the original Vision GE Evo. The latter was my only completely dependable, problem-free Vision Line engine until it developed an annoying squeal when the smoke unit fires up. I put that down to overfilling with smoke fluid (and the model sitting on the display shelf for some months), which I understand can affect the bearings/impeller but I'll gladly be corrected if I am wrong. I'm loathe to open this engine up although it is long out of warranty. I have got some Megasmoke "Eliminator" and I will try that before I think of trying to service the fan motor as I understand that this product can help clear up minor fan issues.

 

The steamer could probably benefit from the treatment Eric Siegel posted a video about but again taking it apart is pretty daunting. 

After taking enough of them apart, you lose the apprehension when you break out the screwdrivers.

 

I don't know about the 9000, I don't have one of those, but the Milwaukee Road S-3 Northern is said to be a real nightmare to take apart. According to multiple posts on the forum, all kinds of things are in the way, including the cab figures. I've never had too much trouble opening up a Lionel engine, but some of my brass Weaver and 3rd Rail engines have been, shall we say, more than challenging. Getting the smoke unit out of a 3rd Rail 4-12-2 isn't fun.

The s-3 isn't hard at all .. The Santa Fe 2-10-10-2 is fun !

 

Just another reason why I run my only Legacy diesel with the smoke switched "off." But diesel locomotives spewing unprototypical white smoke doesn't do it for me anyway. It just doesn't look right.

I have a VL Hudson, the whistle steam smoke works now and then. I ran the engine for about 30 minutes yesterday and the whistle steam smoke started working and was working a few minutes ago  but nothing like the trains I see posted on this forum . If I add a few drops of fluid when the engine is cold, it will take the whistle steam 15-20 minutes to start smoking if it starts at all. It is a hit and miss sort of thing, I have quit worrying about it. Yes I do the blowing to pop the bubble.

 

Brent

I think it depends on the design of the piping out from the smoke unit.  My PRR Atlantic gets more smoke from the whistle than the main stack!  OTOH, the PRR T1 Duplex has a much more anemic smoke stream from the whistle.  Both have a full sized smoke unit to provide the "steam".  My K4 also gets a good strength whistle smoke.

 

 

It really bothers me when VL engines don't work as advertised or as I have seen other people's do in videos. Regrading anaemic smoke production, it should not take 15-20 minutes to get any smoke unit properly heated. I wonder about cranking up the voltage to the tracks, which is something suggested on another thread, or whether the AC regulator that controls power to the smoke unit is defective or the unit's PCB is. I think that generally whistle smoke units are meant to heat up fast but hold at a reduced temperature when the feature is not in use. There's plenty of scope in that for the settings/electronics to go wrong.

The smoking whistle on the visionline  hudson is tuff to get the fluid down in there once you figure it out it smokes great. I remove the whistle I hold my finger over the smoking hole and then I put about 8 drops in there seems a lot but it's not.. Then I use a tube like a wd40 tube and blow it down into the unit and them it's works great and I usually get several runs before I have to refill. Note some will come out the main hole but it works .