Hi baggio,

90 seconds sounds too short time to me but I run my steamers in analogue mode only
which I think uses lower voltage in the smoke unit.

After a smoke fluid dose is opened it also begins to evaporate so my Märklin 50ml dose
didn't last very long. So I bought 1000ml bottle



MOBA PETERSDORF

Cheers
Åke

Since I model Era II I have mostly steam locos. I really like the smoking effect and rarely buy a loco that doesn't have the option of installing a smoke unit.

Since I enjoy this feature so much I try and get the most smoke I can from each unit and have come to the following conclusions.

You need to use smoke fluid made for the Seuthe units. (German Made like Seuthe,Piko, MA etc) I have the best results with the fluids that are also designed for cleaning. Living in the USA, most of the smoke fluids available are designed for American toy trains like Lionel and American Flyer. These fluids are like a thin oil and will clog up the small tube used in the Seuthe units. Don't use this!

Don't use the Seuthe units designed for "Digital" operation. These don't smoke nearly as well as the "Analog" versions. Luckily, the new decoders work well with the regular #10 and #20 units.

Seuthe must have some tolerance variances when making the smoke units. The reason I say this is that, I have exchanged units in the same loco and some units just smoke better than others. This seems to occur with the #20 units somewhat more that the #10 units but I haven't done any serious testing to confirm this. It just "seems" to be this way.

I give you two examples. They are both older Marklin engines. The first being 3308 BR 85 (2-10-2T) that was converted to digital some time ago using a 9050 decoder. This engine has Telex couplers also added. Since the 9050 only supports one function, this was wired to control the Telex feature. The lights and the smoke unit (#10) are wired to receive track power all the time. This smoke unit works well and puts out good amount of smoke. I try and keep it filled with fluid but am not always diligent about it and it does go for times without any fluid. It still works as well as when I first installed it and this loco get a lot of usage as it's one of my favorites. This leads me to believe that the amount of voltage used during digital operation is not enough to burn out the smoke units.

The second example is a 3318 BR 18 (4-6-2) that I rather recently converted to sound with a Marklin 60945 steam decoder I purchased from Gordon Scholz here on the forum. ( Thanks again!) This loco uses the #20 smaller style tapered smoke units. This loco smokes as well if not better that any of my other loco smoke units. This leads me conclude that they all a little different and some are just better smokers that others.

Lastly, the longest I've been able to get my units to smoke are approximately 4 minutes. IIRC the last time I tried timing how long the smoke would last I was aiming for 5 minutes and I couldn't get any to last that long.

I hope that this helpful info to any"Smoke-aholics" like me.

Chuck

Edited by user 09 March 2016 13:07:21(UTC)  | Reason: grammer correction

I want to thank everyone who answered my question: much appreciated.

Frankly, I think smoke is a bit of a gimmick, nice to look at when friends come over, but very expensive to operate on a regualar basis.

My REAL love is Italian electric locos anyway, which are very nice to operate, even without a decoder and sound. And, did I mention, FAST?

I just wish Marklin made more of them.

It's not available in Finland so I bought one from Germany.
Moba Petersdorf has worldwide shipping.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/12-99EUR...49ba9:g:-yAAAOxyaTxTRtt5

Cheers

Åke

scholz.com@comcast.net

Tell him Chuck says HI!

Thank you all for your feedback.

As for me, I have decided NOT to use the smoke feature because I think it is unsafe, at least in small areas,
like my basement where I would end up inhaling it.

Pity.

It's also a pity that the loco is so slooooow.

I dont run the smoke on any of my HO steamers, or my Dad's Lionel set at xmas. The smoke bothers my asthma. If I want smoke, I will run one of my 2 g scale live steamers on my garden railway, one is a coal burner and makes the proper smell of smoke and its timed with the pistons perfectly! :) And outdoors, the products of combustion are quickly dispensed and I stay upwind of the smoke plume when firing up. Mike