NYO&W Camelback

[Anonymous]

After years of letters and begging I finally got a Lionel Engine with the O&W herald on it. This with MTH's 6 car O&W set makes for a nice consist. It runs well sounds great, BUT doesn't smoke well. It is a Command Control engine but I don't have Command Control. I'm running one of Lionel’s older 90 watt transformers I've talked to Lionel Service and they tell me the smoke unit is really set up for a constant 18 volts (command control) not the variable voltage I am providing through a conventional transformer. In other words buy command control or deal with really anemic smoke! This is the first time I've posted and I'm looking for ideas, suggestion etc. Worse comes to worse, maybe I'll invest in the Command Control.

[lionelsoni]

If you're not going up to 18 volts in normal operation, you could reduce the voltage to the motor only, by putting back-to-back diodes in series with it. Then you would be turning the transformer voltage up higher for the same speed, making more voltage available to the smoke generator.

A convenient way to get diodes for this purpose is to use packaged bridge rectifiers, like the $2 4-ampere 50-volt Radio Shack 276-1146. Connect the + and - terminals together and wire the ~ terminals of each bridge in series with the motor and the other bridges. (Use the connected-together + or - terminals and either of the ~ terminals for a smaller voltage step.)