I was referring to those that were available from Joe's last week

Hi, Glen:

In fact, I have asked Mike to just move one cable on the mother board from one spot to another, as suggested in post no. 22 above. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I will report in due course on the success or failure of the open heart surgery.

Have a good weekend everyone. Here in Toronto today is 1 Celsius, but at least it's sunny

That shouldn't be needed - put the loco on the track and it should re-register with the controller, updating the icons and everything else. mfx was designed to handle that.

Hi!
The recommended unit, Märklin 72270, is Seuthe No. 20 in a Märklin box. There is no difference except for the series variation.

The output voltage of an MS2 will be at the lower end for a controllable smoke generator. Don't blame the smoke generator, blame Märklin for using so many different track voltages.

I have this loco waiting for pickup, but can one do that reprogramming on a MS2? If so, how?

No, Dimi, this is not a matter of reprogramming the loco. The change requires hardware change on the "motherboard" (if that is what it's called).

Take a look at the complete discussion that precedes that post of mine AND my posts that followed (in the same topic).

The smoke unit recommended by Marklin had to be changed to another smoke unit and now it works fine.

The smoke fluid does not last an awful lot, but seeing the loco smoke is VERY nice when you run the loco and you show it to a friend with the sound effects.

Mike did not have my MS1 when he did what he did. However, F1 was free at the time for this loco.

My 36243 arrived!!!
The Marklin dealer in Stuttgart has sent ESU 51990 smoke fluid and 72270. Are these compatible?
Also can I use ESU 51990 with other AC backmann engines? Please help as I'm in an urgency to watch my first mfx smoke:)
Regards
Madhu

Thank you Jay!! I appreciate the quick response!! You made my day!
Have a pleasant weekend and I'll have a smoky one:)
Madhu

I have been reliably informed that Marklin oil/Seuthe oil should not be used in ESU loks.

Mike

magdu, Kiwi Alan suggests it should be OK and I would think so too. I don't think you'll do any harm by trying it. Just put 1ml in or a drop at first to see what happens, it should do no harm.
I can imagine why the ESU loks work best with their smoke oil, probably an additive to make it darker maybe, and more revenue for them, but that it's ok for M as well
Also I don't believe the dealer would send you something that doesn't work !

Keep us informed and ........

Best of luck

I've started using only km1 smoke fluid in any of my locomotives with the seuthe smoke generators. Marklin (seuthe), esu, etc all contain oil that leaves that nasty film behind. The km1 stuff doesn't contain it so it "burns" clean, produces way more smoke and doesn't smell nearly as bad.

You might want to be careful of any locomotives that need the oil though for lubrication (eg maybe the esu ones do because of the live stream effects with the air pumps on their models).

I always read six drops in the glorious Märklin instructions, but they never tell me how to get six drops. I bought Seuthe smoke fluid. Tried dripping the smoke fluid in with a nail, but size of drops varies a lot. Yes, Märklin are famous for the usefulness of their instructions.

I was really grateful when I bought my first smoke generator in a Seuthe package. Instructions said 0.2 ml and a small syringe was also included. This worked fine for me.
Good instructions, good accessories.
The Seuthe generators are cheaper without accessories, but IMHO it's worth buying one with accessories to get the syringe.

Not for my KM-1 1 Gauge Br01 it isn't. I normally put 2 full syringes in, and I have done 3 without any ill effects. This lasts for about 15 minutes. No wonder Glen (NZMarklinist) suggested I should get the Seuthe smoke fluid in the 1 litre bottles (I see Joes-Modellbahn have them).

Just had a chance to get this one out yesterday and give it a run... OMG such an amazing loco (my first with full sound!)
However I don't hear anything when I press the function that is meant to correspond with 'brakes squealing off'
Is there something I need to be doing to make that sound function operate??

You don't hear a squeal when you turn squealing off.
Don't turn it off, turn sound on, drive fast, brake hard - and you should here the squealing.

Thanks! Yeah sorry, I just thought since this topic kinda turned into the switching of functions I could sneak it in here

I understand what that means now, I wonder why you wouldn't want the glorious extra running sounds!

Hello all,
This is my third attempt in fixing the smoke unit on my 36243 and I failed terribly. The following pics say what I'm trying to do. Also the smoke contact gets bent inwards and I doubt if the smoke unit wire is able to close circuit at all.
First I tried installing 72270 with its contact wire bent. Then I straightened the contact wire as the onboard metal contact piece was getting bent too much.
As soon as I fix the smoke unit, I could hear a short circuit sound and the MS2 switches to "STOP" mode. What am I doing wrong? Please help
Regards
Madhu

Thank you Chuck. I'll try it soon. I also recently bought the above BR 64:) (Marklin 39644)


In this thread we discussed "Smoke unit can not be switched off on 36243". I had asked a question if it is safe for smoke unit to run without liquid?

Anders, shop owner of Hobbycenter.se in Gothenberg, answered this way. I found this answer quite convincing. What do you think?

"Smoke liquid acts as a conductor inside the smoke unit. The moment it evaporates completely, the circuit breaks and it will not damage the smoke unit"

So can we conclude that "it is safe to run 36243 without smoke fluid"?

I can't comment in reference to the 36243 as I don't own that particular engine but I kinda doubt that the smoke unit stops working when the unit runs out of fluid. When I have a engine that I done a conversion to digital or sound, I'll test the smoke unit by placing my finger on top of the empty smoke unit while the function is activated. The center tube in the smoke unit will get hot to the touch very quickly. If the smoke unit needed fluid to complete the circuit
it shouldn't get hot, but in fact it does. I think that the units can be activated without fluid in them and be OK. The design of the Seuthe units currently being recommended by Marklin for digital is the old design originally designed for analog operation. In analog operation the unit works all the time but varies the smoke output with the amount of voltage applied to the track to run the locomotive. Granted, in analog operation when the engine was stopped or operating slowly the voltage to the track would be low enough to not harm the unit. But remember these units were originally designed for children playing with toy trains. I would think it would not be uncommon for a child to run the engine at higher speeds to flat out full throttle. (12 to 16-18 volts) Add to that a child is not going to be diligent to add more smoke fluid exactly when the unit run out of fluid. Also, when they would run out of fluid completely (the bottle was empty), did that mean that they couldn't run their engine at all until they went back to the hobby shop or toy store to get more? Not very likely scenarios to my way of thinking. Keep in mind that the older Marklin were build like tanks and made to run for many, many years with minimum maintenance. (lightly oiled, brushes & tires) If the Seuthe smoke units didn't hold up to the use (abuse) I doubt if Marklin would have even have used them to start with.

I have almost all steam locos in my collection and any that can be made to smoke do. I use the smoke feature most of the time when I run them and don't stop to reload the fluid or turn off the function when they stop smoking (out of fluid). I personally have never had a smoke unit burn out. Maybe I've just been lucky but i really doubt it.

I say don't worry about the unit just run your loco and enjoy it.

Chuck