Lionel smoke unit problem (pulsing)

[jmkk]

 Ran the my new Lionel S-2 last night.  Ran it a half hour in each direction with smoke unit off to break it in. Removed it from track, lubed it again, turned smoke unit on, added smoke fluid and put it back on the track.  Nice little switcher, it made through the cut down O-22 in my yard no problem. Smoke unit worked fine, continues stream of smoke. This morning a small problem came up, the smoke unit is pulsing ( right from the get go ).  Its not a constant stream of smoke like the first time it was on the track. Its a on -off -on- off cycle, with about a one second interval's between puffs of smoke. I can hear the fan pulsing. My Lionel U-36B did this in neutral when I ran conventional, but it stopped doing this when I started running TMCC. A side note Iam running TMCC with the S-2. The only other changes I made were assigning a new number and setting the stall. 

 

Jason

[Anonymous]

The only other changes I made were assigning a new number and setting the stall. 

Try resetting to factory default. If the problem goes away, then try setting the new number, then run the engine, if no problem, set the stall, run the engine, if the problem goes away then you are golden, if this reoccurs I would call Lionel to see if this is the expected behavior (that is what I would do).

[ben10ben]

You may or may not know this, but the smoke unit on-off on the TMCC board is really just a generic setting that can control any number of functions, one of them being a Mars light that normally flashes on and off.

My guess is that when you reprogrammed, you inadvertantly reprogrammed it to think that the smoke unit is a mars light. This can happen easily if, after you puch in the desired engine number and hit "set" on the remote, you then try to use an "aux" command followed by a number before putting the run/prog switch back to run. 

To correct this, set the prog/run switch to program and press the following keys

[ENG] [x][x](desired number) [set] [ENG] [x][x](number just entered) [AUX1] [ 8 ]. Then, turn off the track power, flip the switch back to run, and everything should work correctly. 

[Anonymous]

what ben said will probably fix your problem. if not check this, if your smoke unit has an overheat sensor that shuts it off when there is no fluid make sure it is not too close to the heating resistor. I had this problem with a TAS unit and repositioning the sensor (thyristor) fixed the problem.

[jmkk]

 That was it Ben. Works great now, no more pulsing. I still cant figure out how I did it (Probally being careless, rushing and my big fat fingers) Thanks for the help.

 Jason