Problem with one of my loco's smoke unit.

[REI]

Can anobody give me tips on how I can make my locomotive's smoke unit smoke more? As I've said before I have several New Bright battery-operated G-scale trains and two of my New Brights (one of them was manufactured in 1986 and the other 1989). The 1986 one works fine but the 1989 one is smoking very little. They are made to smoke whenever the whistle sounds repeately. Thanks in advance......

[two tone]

I can only think of a couple of things  1, unit may be on its way out IE only part of it working.  2 bad solder joint or component on cicuit board wearing out. Hope this helps if you have manual and a knowledge of electrics you may be able check this out

[REI]

Well, the story is, originally it was manufactured with it. I bought the locomotive on eBay in June 2005, and when I received it, everything worked well except for the smoke, which at the time didn't smoke at all. It wasn't until I relizied that this model had smoke, then I opened it up via the cab and boiler to investigate if it even had a smoke unit and there it was. So, I added lots of house hold oil and blew on the oil resevoir and in little time LOTS OF SMOKE started to emit from the stack. It wasn't until recently that the smoke has really died down, and I oil it regularly and its not the connections to the circuit board either because I have it apart now and they are connected fine. I still don't know what to do........

[two tone]

 Ok all I can say to that is, talk to the maker or get it looked at by a good service engineer  Sorry I can not be of more help

[altterrain]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the fact that these cheaply made toy trains managed to stay smoking this long is a bit of a miracle. There will be not parts available for these. Even if there were the parts would probably cost more than replacing the whole locomotive. Also the use of a household oil is not best. It is probably a thicker weight than most smoke fluids and possibly toxic. LGB or Aristocraft both make a quality smoke fluid.

 -Brian 

[REI]

Too bad that I can only use household oil since there is no place here in this cursed Kendall, Fl that sells real smoke fluid soley intended for that use. As for the battery trains, I know that mine are very durable and realistic. I don't think an electric train could last 21 years as my #3 Silver Rail Express has without having some flaws or a major breakdown over the years.

[MTCarpenter]

Too bad that I can only use household oil since there is no place here in this cursed Kendall, Fl that sells real smoke fluid soley intended for that use.

Ridge Road Station is one of many places on the Net to find it.  Although it might look pricey for the product and the shipping, a large bottle like this should last quite a long time.  And as far as I know, it's got a pretty long shelf life.  If anything, I'd offer that using household oil is counter productive and could be "gumming up the works" so to say.  LGB and Aristo (I have Aristo and only use Aristo in it) are fomulated to burn cleaner without leaving as much residue as household oil would.  Just my 2 cents....

http://www.ridgeroadstation.com/istar.asp?a=6&id=20550010!205&csurl=%2FiStar%2Easp%3Fa%3D29%26

Where is Kendall near in Florida?  I'm having a hard time finding it on Google.

[REI]

Too bad that I can only use household oil since there is no place here in this cursed Kendall, Fl that sells real smoke fluid soley intended for that use.

Where is Kendall near in Florida?  I'm having a hard time finding it on Google.

It's a suburb of Miami. Thanks for the link, New Bright indicates that you should use house hold oil,i.e. 3 in 1 oil. Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't LGB smoke oil intended for LGB smoke units only? That's what the seller told me when I bought my traditional LGB starter set at a hobby store.

[MTCarpenter]

It's a suburb of Miami. Thanks for the link, New Bright indicates that you should use house hold oil,i.e. 3 in 1 oil. Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't LGB smoke oil intended for LGB smoke units only? That's what the seller told me when I bought my traditional LGB starter set at a hobby store.

Gotcha on the location. 

And my apologies on the oil.  The way I was reading the thread (and I might have missed something) was that you were NOT supposed to use 3 in 1 oil but that's all you had.  If the manufacturer calls for that, then that's what you should keep using.  My bad.

I had an issue with using LGB smoke oil in my Aristo, so I won't ever do that again.  I use only Aristo in Aristo.  Can't speak for others about that, but the propaganda that the companies put out say that you should only use the brand in the brand and not swap them.

[REI]

It's okay, don't worry 'bout it. Now 'bout the smoke unit, I'm very sad to announce that it didn't make it and had to be removed, now it's a non-smoking engine. I don't think its the house hold oil, 'cause I use it in two of my other engines that do smoke and they smoke fine with that oil. I think that the degenerate that sold it to me on eBay gave me an engine with a defunct smoke unit. By the way, I'm pretty sure I will be moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma soon and leave Miami, Fl, where I was born and lived my whole life. How is the railroad world over there? Here in Miami there's nothing related to steam trains.