I have been trying to get a Lionel Mikado to smoke better. I repacked with pink and using jt’s megasteam. It smokes better but I need to run it really really fast or pretty fast with alot of weight-filled hopper cars with washers etc. I read about putting a resistor in line to motor but was wondering if anyone could tell me a specific product or rating I could find at Radio Shack to use. Thanks
Hi trainsfan,
I am in the same situation as you, with a Lionel Berkshire Jr. loco which I would like to get more smoke from. I am awaiting two new resistors from a guy in Colorado (I live in the UK), one is for an MTH smoke unit, the other is a lower resistance rating Lionel smoke resistor. The original one is, I believe, rated at 30 Ohms, the MTH equivalent is rated at 20 and the other Lionel one is 27. I will be trying both, along with taking the idea you mentioned of soldering a resistor inline with the motor to see if that helps. The only problem with doing that of course is that it could reduce the perforamce of the locomotive if it’s not done properly.
Tom
Does this engine have the fan driven smoke unit?
If it does, check the rotation of the fan. Some of these were wired wrong from the factory and the fan was running backwards. Take the 2 wires that go to the smoke unit and reverse them. This will cause the fan to run in the proper rotation and put out way more smoke then it is now!
I’d suggest that rather than using resistors to drop the voltage to the motor, you use diodes to drop it.
The easiest way to do this is go to Radio Shack and get a full wave bridge rectifier. There will be four terminals on it, one marked “+”, one marked “-” and two marked “~”.
Take the leads from the + and - terminal, and connect them together. Then, connect the ~ terminals in series with one of the motor leads.
This will drop a relatively constant 1.5 volts or so to the motor.
If this proves to not be enough, you can add in another diode in the same manner, or alternatively just use a single pair of diodes. To do this, you need to connect the anode of one to the cathode of the other, and the cathode of one to the anode of the other. This setup then also goes in series with the motor lead.
no. this is a puffing unit and one of the worst ones at that. it does not forces enough air to get a good column of smoke pushed out. my suggestion is, replace it with TAS Turbo smoke unit.
You might be able to make it a little better by fiddling with the factory one, but you will never be happy with that unit. With my berk, removing the sleave and cleaning the heating element helped. Also, keeping it close to the pink insulation. Bottom line, the puffing unit does not work well enough though!
This is a big problem with Lionel. Some of Lionel’s other mechanical puffing units are a little better(like the on in my dockside) but still pale in comparison to MTH’s fan driven units with a smoke volume control for those who like a lot of smoke or just a little!
Thanks for everyone’s ideas,- Does it matter which lead to the motor you use for ben10ben’s idea with a rectifier? It looks like there are two wires connected. Thanks again
Either wire of a two-wire motor.
Another way to get finer control of the voltage drop is to use one bridge-rectifier unit wired between one of the ~ terminals and the ±, instead of using both ~ terminals.
Use at least the 4-ampere Radio Shack rectifiers, not the 1.4-ampere ones.