MTH Smoke unit

[Chipdiego]

Hello All,

I want to do some customizing. I stumbled across a video of a MTH smoker chuffing in time with the sound of the locomotive and fell in love. I want to install the Smoke unit into my Aristocraft Locos but I can't seem to find the site to buy one. If anyone could shoot me the link of where to buy and give me some suggestion about install I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Scott

[Greg Elmassian]

You need to buy directly from MTH... you can do online if you find the part number.... finding the part number is a bit of work, but you find the model of loco you want (there are several different sizes of smoke units)... then ONE of that model loco will have a parts list... then you get the part number, then you can order that part.

Some important things to know:

1. They are often out of stock
2. Sometimes MTH limits the units to replacements only
3. The chuffing is done by the MTH DCS decoder board,  the smoke unit has NO ability to chuff by itself.
4. Likewise, the smoke unit heating control is not on the smoke unit, it's again in the MTH DCS decoder board.

To be clear, you get a smoke unit with 4 wires, 2 wires go directly to a fan, the other 2 go directly to a resistor. You need electronics to control this.

You might want to visit my web site and search for "smoke units" in the search box, to get more info.

Greg

[Chipdiego]

Thanks for the Help Greg,

I seem to have trouble finding a part list or part number though,

Also, do you have any experience installing and MTH smoker in an AristoCraft engine?

Regards

Scott

 

[Greg Elmassian]

You need to go to my site, and look at the smoke units, I'm sure I gave a part number and dimensions.

Nope, have not used mine, but you need something to drive it. I know what it takes, but you are asking an open ended question with tons of answers. I'd like to only answer what you need to know.

Are you running DC track power, or r/c battery, or DCC or what?

Let's start there... (and again, you need some electronics to drive an MTH smoke unit)

Greg

 

[Chipdiego]

We run our Locos with R/C batter power, I imagine the battery will be able to handle it. I hunt around your site and see what I find.

Thanks Alot

Scott

[Greg Elmassian]

OK. to repeat, you need some electronics, to change fan speed and make it chuff, and you need electronics to change and regulate the power to the heater... if you don't it will burn up.

In DCC it would be a good idea to use a Zimo decoder.

In DC, you might be able to use the same, as most DCC decoders will operate on DC... this would be the best way, about $190 ...

There is no R/C system that will control the MTH for you.

 

Greg