I have two lady locos:

The original 3711

and the Green one 37113

I would like to install smoke units in them, but cannot find any reference to them being designed to take a smoke unit.
I have not opened them up, to confirm, so I thought I would ask here... do any of them take smoke units?

If so I presume they would be the smaller 72270 units.

yes thanks, John. The parts list never list accessories, so even those that take smoke units won't show a smoke unit.

and yes, I am aware that anything can be engineered.

Thanks Francis!

Dale, although Märklin doesn't put smoke generators into their parts list however they do show the smoke generator contact, so no contact for a smoke generator, no smoke generator

John

I understand that the factory decoder in the Lady is rather special, because it was the first one with the new bell motor. I have read that it is hard to get good running characteristics using different decoders, but it can be done.

Since I already have the digital version with the special decoder, I would guess that it does not have an extra function output independent of the lights. I would probably have to add a second single function decoder just to drive the smoke unit, which is probably doable.

Great to know that the smaller smoke unit fits. One can also get the Seuthe smoke unit that has the same size but with two wires.

I find it rather strange that this loco was one of the Märklin 'glory' models, yet was not prepared for a smoke unit.

Hi Dale

The Lady C Loco in the first presentation in the 1987-88 Catalog is described that she is equipped for installation of a smoke unit (Seuthe No 20) in page 7.
The model at the time was not in production.

In the next year catalog 1988-89 page 5 there is no any notice for smoke generator.

The production model (I have one 3611 with production No that refers to 1987) had no any provision for installation of a smoke unit, the same and in the spare parts list as well as in the plan.

They did it with model 37117 several years later.

Any way you can install a smoke generator and believe me is a must for this loco.

There is no need to drill anything because the smoke stack can take a 3.5mm smoke generator from below (may be you have to polish a bit the inside of the stack, with very fine sandpaper, to remove any paint for better contact).

You can solder a wire directly to the smoke generator as well very easily. Is a bit tricky to pas it to the tender but with a thin ESU wire 36 AWG is possible.

The real difficulty is from where to take the power for the smoke generator.

In these locos there is a special decoder PCB, there are no any functions available. (They use different wire color code which is not Märklin or NEM either!!!!)

What I really recommend is to change the decoder as well with a modern one with sound and you shall have the available functions for the smoke etc.

Of course the change of the decoder is not either straightforward or easy but can be done.

There is a PCB for the new decoder available from

http://www.stayathome.ch/Maerklin_KlasseC.htm

There are other solutions as well more difficult to do (make you own custom PCB etc).

Have a look at the fantastic work of Ross Stewart in

http://members.ozemail.c...w/rms/pdf/60905_3611.pdf
http://members.ozemail.c.../pdf/3611_3614_telex.pdf

Even the way that the pick-up shoe is connected to the PCB is special.

But the result with smoke, sound, cabin light.... in this beautiful model is worthy the cost and the effort.

If you decide to proceed we can give you more detailed infos

Regards

Costas

Last year I replaced the original decoder in my 3611 with an ESU V4 LokPilot and it runs very well, so you can upgrade that decoder if you want to.

I agree - you have to wonder why it was not fitted for a smoke unit originally - maybe to save money to pay for that expensive motor? I jumped quickly into the decoder upgrade and didn't even try to add sound or smoke to mine, both of which I now regret.

I don't think that the addition of a smoke unit would be too hard, but I am not sure that there is enough room in the tender for a speaker and a sound decoder. But now that almost all of my locos have sound, it seems pretty lame for one of my most beautiful locos to have a single function to turn on the light. I seem to remember someone saying that they had added sound to that model but I can't find the reference again, so maybe I imagined it!

Hi Dale,

I understand about the special decoder as installer by the factory.

I had no problems with running quality on the old 60905 decoder (it was designed for these motors).

I also did a conversion for my brother last year that used the latest Marklin sound decoder. The result was brilliant, smooth quiet running with good accel/deccel charachteristics.

The Suethe unit would be fine, however I used the marklin unit, and soldered a wire to the contact on the bottom of it. This way you only have one wire to connect to the loco, and the earthing is taken care of by the chassis.

Cheers....

Mike.