God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified
I was thinking about buying some " matrix " scissors from Micro-Mark to cut the sock off with. This is their part number 81869. They are on page # 86 in the catalog I have. Has anybody tried these, and if you have,did they work ok w/o tearing up the smoke element?
Thanks,
George
I haven't tried those scissors, but I used an exacto knife with the blade facing up, away from the element and cut carefully. It wasn't difficult to do.
Jim
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Shhhucantcme wrote:Hey jim, How have you been? I am wondering if you or anyone knows what wattage the element is. I know from a previous thread from Jim Trumpie that the resistance is about 27 ohms.
Mark, I'm sorry but I don't know the wattage of the element. Mine will start to smoke at 9-10 volts.
Voltage squared, divided by resistance. About 7 watts at 14 volts.
Bob Nelson
Jumijo wrote: I haven't tried those scissors, but I used an exacto knife with the blade facing up, away from the element and cut carefully. It wasn't difficult to do.Jim
OK Boys, I finally got it to work, it only took me 2 DAYS!!!!
Went through the drill 6 times body off/on/pack/repack.......
it really helps if you turn the SWITCH BACK ON!!!!!!
Thank you ALL and especially you Jimmy RedSox...it really works & I Thank You!!!!
I am the monster in your head...And I thought you'd learn by now, It seems you haven't yet.I am the venom in your skin --- Breaking Benjamin
anjdevil2 wrote: OK Boys, I finally got it to work, it only took me 2 DAYS!!!!Went through the drill 6 times body off/on/pack/repack.......it really helps if you turn the SWITCH BACK ON!!!!!!
Now you've done it, you can post the reply the next time to someone asking the question.
lionelsoni wrote: I found these promising words in Wikipedia: "Use in hydroponics"Mineral wool is used for its ability to hold large quantities of water..."Let us know how it works out if you try it!
I found these promising words in Wikipedia:
"Use in hydroponics
"Mineral wool is used for its ability to hold large quantities of water..."
Let us know how it works out if you try it!
I will do that.
For those who want to cut the sock off of the heating element use the scissors on a Swiss Army Knife.
Celebrating 18 years on the CTT Forum.
Buckeye Riveter......... OTTS Charter Member, a Roseyville Raider and a member of the CTT Forum since 2004..
Jelloway Creek, OH - ELV 1,100 - Home of the Baltimore, Ohio & Wabash RR
TCA 09-64284
anjdevil2 wrote:OK Boys, I finally got it to work, it only took me 2 DAYS!!!!Went through the drill 6 times body off/on/pack/repack.......it really helps if you turn the SWITCH BACK ON!!!!!! Thank you ALL and especially you Jimmy RedSox...it really works & I Thank You!!!!
You forgot the World champion part! Good luck with your Polar Express!
Jimmy RedSox
Buckeye Riveter wrote: lionelsoni wrote: I found these promising words in Wikipedia: "Use in hydroponics"Mineral wool is used for its ability to hold large quantities of water..."Let us know how it works out if you try it!I will do that.For those who want to cut the sock off of the heating element use the scissors on a Swiss Army Knife.
Great idea.
Well JT's Mega Steam arrived and I must say the Chief was right...it did seem to make a difference. It smokes better. (not to mention smells great!!) I did repack (..again..) the PE Berk...and had better performance after spending some quality time carefully steel wooling the char off the heater element to try and get it clean. Also great care taken on reassembly to have a nice fluffy pillow of pink to set the element down in. And I made double sure the heater was contacting the insulation. PE smokes nice now...about as good as Jim's video but only at highest throttle settings...less smoke at lower settings. When this element burns out I'm going to experiment with a hotter element. I think for Conventional operators a hotter element is more appropriate. I find myself running at unprototypical speeds ALOT just to make sure there's smoke!!
Roland
When I had my berk apart several months ago, I checked the ceramic resistor out under a magnifying glass (not too much run time yet). I did not write it down, but I thought it said 27ohm and 3W. I took that to mean 3 watts. Would this be correct, since you would expect a 3 watt resistor to get red hot with 6-7 watts running thru it?
Bobby
Hey guys it's been a while since I have posted
You are correct with the 3 watts & 27 ohms
You would think it would get really hot but as we all know it does not.
There is some hit and miss with the repacking as we have all read in here. Even mine took a few times and finally a combination of pink insulation and tiki torch fibers at the top layer.
Jt smoke and a slue of others didn't make that much of a difference for me.
What has really worked for me since I like to run at slower speeds to enjoy the train ( As I tell my kids if we wanted speed we would have bought a slot car track ) was changing the heating element. On the cw80 transformer you need to run it at about the 70 or higher mark to produce enough voltage ( not watts ) to get it to heat enough. We all know that at this speed the smoke disipates too much so that it is barely visible.
I changed to a 3 watt 21 ohm element and now get great smoke at between 25 and 40. You can peak it to 50 as I have done a few times but be carefull I do not know how far you can go. I suppose at 3 bucks for the resistor you could easily figure it out. :-)
The other factor is how many cars you run and what it takes volt wise to get them all moving. This includes all the sounds and car lights.
Here is what I run
I have all 7 add on cars I run two tenders one just the whistle tender that came with the set and a train sounds tender that I latched up also. The train sound tender is right behind the loco and a coupler was purchased for the whistle tender for about a buck at my local lionel shop. it mounts to the draw bar easily but what I did was cut the draw bar down and drilled my own hole so that it didn't look so silly in length.
I also have a miniatronics red lamp in my observation car that I installed to replace the red jewel which feeds off the inner lighting. Also a miniatronics fire flicker unit that has a red 1.5 micro bulb that I burried in the artificial flame in the hobo car. It also is fed off the inner car lights.
I guess what I am trying to say here is that the resistor I am useing now may not be the one for every body.
Play around a little with the values that work for you. Just remeber that the more cars you are trying to pull the more voltage you will need to move it but you still will not have the race car speed as when you are only pulling the 3 cars that came with the set.
Hope this helps a little.
mark
ok so I goofed. I re read my post after posting Dahh !
When I said add on cars -7
What I should have said was I have the loco, 2 tenders, the original 3 cars, and the 4 add ons making it the grand total of the 10 possible cars.
Hey bob,
I am not much of an electronice wizard.
And perhaps as I tried to explain I was a bit confusing. Hell I used to call a resistor a diode LOL
I did not have a resistor in line. I was just refering to the #'s on the original Heating element in the PE and may have called things the wrong names.
Mine also said 3 watts and 27 ohms.
What I did was I went to a local electronics shop and showed them what I had and what i wanted to do. They gave me what I am usung today, a 3 watt 21 ohm unit and it worked for me. I saw some that were 18,19, and 20 also. You say the 21 is unusual ! I didn't Know that so I guess I was lucky they had one. Who knows, maybe the 20 would have worked.
I would think one ohm would not make that much a difference, but again not being knowledgable, perhaps I would have burnt the house down :-)
Earlier on in these posts a guy named Jim Trumpie was also talking about I believe an mth smoke heating element that was about 18 ohm's or so. But I did not want to hunt around to find one of those to try.
This is all still confusing to me, but now I have something that works for me and it all started because I found these threads
Thanks to everyones input.
Mark, good reporting...! What electronics shop did you find the heater elements at? Was it a radio shack? Do you have a item name and part number? I agree with you that while you may have a good smoker at lower voltages if you pile on a bunch of cars and have to raise the voltage you may burn the element. I would not be averse to replacing the element more frequently so I could get good smoke at lower voltages. I still have my stock element and this morning was pulling 14 PW freight cars with the PE Berk w/trainsounds tender, and it was smoking great, but that's because I had the throttle pegged alot going up hills and around curves pulling all those cars. I normally pull 5 of the polar express cars and it's so easy for the Loco I really don't get terrific smoke...but I do get some and that's way better than none!
Roland, it was not Radio Shack.
It is an actual electronics shop here in MIch.
I did not save the package since I new what it was for future purchases. I will try to get a manufaturer name and part # for you but it may be some time. I know they are closed the day after X-mas and I am not sure of my scheduleing yet for the holiday week.
Perhaps the safest thing to say is just that the power dissipated is the voltage multiplied by the current; and, for a resistive load like a heater, is the square of the (RMS) voltage divided by the resistance.
Rather than have to load the locomotive with more train than you might otherwise want to pull just to get the voltage up on the smoke generator, you could accomplish the same thing by putting something (like rectifier diodes) in series with the motor circuit.
Bob,
That is exactly what I ended up doing to my berk. I added two sets of diodes (1N4004) on one of the motor leads and did a complete repack of the smoke unit. Smokes great now. The pulling power is down with less voltage going to the motor, but I don't pull that many cars anyway.
lionelsoni wrote:Rather than have to load the locomotive with more train than you might otherwise want to pull just to get the voltage up on the smoke generator, you could accomplish the same thing by putting something (like rectifier diodes) in series with the motor circuit.
Yes Bob, of course you're right and I had thought of this after reading it mentioned somewhere on the forum...Only problem is you'd end up limiting the max voltage available to the motor and I find I need the maximum voltage I can get to start on hills or pull long consists.
I agree that you wouldn't want to drop the voltage in a case like you describe, Roland. However, someone who has the extra voltage to be able to load the locomotive just to get more smoke can accomplish the same thing by dropping the motor voltage.
Bobby, if the 1N4004 works, great. But let me warn others that it is rated only at 1 ampere, which may not be enough for many locomotives. It also has a much higher voltage rating than needed, 200 volts, which of course causes no problem. But it's useful to know that any of that series, 1N4001 (50 volts) to 1N4007 (1000 volts), will work just as well in a toy train.
lionelsoni wrote: Bobby, if the 1N4004 works, great. But let me warn others that it is rated only at 1 ampere, which may not be enough for many locomotives. It also has a much higher voltage rating than needed, 200 volts, which of course causes no problem. But it's useful to know that any of that series, 1N4001 (50 volts) to 1N4007 (1000 volts), will work just as well in a toy train.
Yes, your quite rite Bob. I don't run much of a consist. And I'm probably loading those diodes to their max with the little I do run. What would be a comprible 3 amp diode?
lionelsoni wrote: I agree that you wouldn't want to drop the voltage in a case like you describe, Roland. However, someone who has the extra voltage to be able to load the locomotive just to get more smoke can accomplish the same thing by dropping the motor voltage.
Right again Bob, except by hi-balling the trains or adding cars I get more smoke without having to touch a solder iron or play with any diodes. (or voiding the warranty for that matter) I figure if I do any soldering for more smoke, I want to preserve the pulling capacity of the loco if I can (by using the hotter element). I'll concede this isn't without safety concerns.
Bobby, I generally use these 3- and 6-ampere, 50-volt diodes from Radio Shack:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062577&cp=2032058.2032230.2032269&parentPage=family
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062591&cp=2032058.2032230.2032269&parentPage=family
I bought the PE for X mas. we also got more track. I have been intreagued with the smoke. But left wanting more. I did the fiberglass mod mentioned here. but still want more. When I see video's on youtube of other lionel trains with massive amounts of smoke. I think from what I am reading is those engines may have a fan smoke unit. Is this the case? how do I get massive amounts of smoke instead of just the puff puff puff. I get now. Also The smoke seems very transparent. How do I get the white smoke that lingers? Can I upgrade my engines smoke unit.
I want smoke like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZPzl1KvLgE&NR=1
That's a fan driven unit for sure...more smoke than I would need/want inside the living room...but sure looks great doesn't it?
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