I've been trying to install a 72270 in my Makido without success.

All the other functions of the loco work fine from the mobile
station - light switch on and off, sound effects work, whistle works,
bell works, propulsion works so I believe it's set up for dig.
operatons.

Here's what has got me baffled. There's a brass spring tab in the area
where the smoke unit is installed in the frame of the loco. It
appears that the top of the smoke unit grounds to the stack and the
connection is made at the bottom of the smoke unit at this brass spring tab. Problem is I can't see how the wire coming out of
the smoke unit can make contact with that brass tab. The smoke unit works great when I test it on the track - that is I connect a wire to the upper part of the smoke unit with an alligator clip, connect to the outside rail and touch the wire coming out of the bottom of the smoke unit to the center stud. If I only touch the bottom of the smoke unit to the center stud - not the wire - nothing happens.

Obviously I doing something wrong. Marklin's instructions are vague, to say the least.

Lost in smoke,

Thanks, Joe

Joe

Hi Joe,

Maybe you should check if the function output still works: By using a Volt meter or connecting a light bulb to the brass strip and mass.

Gregor

Gregor, the mass is the loco's body right?

Joe

Hi Joe,

Indeed mass is the loco's body.

If the function output works well (light bulb test on brass strip), and the generator itself works well (you demonstrated that already), then there is something wrong with the contact. Contact on one side is made by the brass strip. This is the most probable cause of your problem. You can check the connection as described by The McLae. On the other side the smoke generator is clamped in the loco's chimney. There should be conductive contact on that side as well. I don't know the Mikado loco, but if the inside of the chimney is heavily painted (should not be the case), then you don't have contact on that side. This is not very likely though, but something to be checked.

BTW, I once got so fed up with the same problem, that I soldered a wire between the brass strip and the smoke generator. The wire was long enough to be able to remove the loc cover, and short enough not to get stuck in the wheels or drive shafts.

Good luck,
Gregor

Hi. Just to add my experiences, I have a BR53 (3102) which has two smoke generators in it. I had a terrible time getting both to work. I repositioned the non-working one, and the other would stop. I lifted the contact wires slightly and experimented with position until I FINALLY got both working. Took about 10 tries. The complication on this lok is that you have to remove the front bogie to take the shell off. I didn't get smart enough to leave it off for trial until about the fifth iteration. They are both working beautifuuly now. Just keep at it.