Hey everyone,

Since I model Swiss Railways, I don't often get a chance to play with smoke units! I have a few 7226 in my three german steamers, however I have two Italian locs (37557 and 37034) which I just bought the 72270 units for

The 7226's worked great, but I'm struggling with the 72270. In both locomotives the units are heating up, but not really putting out smoke. Further experimentation has proven that if I fill the living heck out of them, they will smoke like crazy but only for 20-30 seconds

Does anyone know a remedy for this? After that 20 seconds of smoke both units for sure had a lot of fluid left, so that shouldn't be the problem.

Could it be the base tank isn't generating enough heat for the fluid within?

Both locos are doing the same thing so I'm hesitant to say any one unit is defective.

Thanks for any advice in advance!

If all is correct with the 72270 (or Seuthe 20)they usually smoke up more furiously than the 7226 variety, but do not tend to do so as long, cause they burn the fluid faster. You should only put 2ml of M or Seu smoke fluid in either unit, too much over whelmes them and it doesn't heat up, or takes forever to get going.
With the Seuthe units a syringe is supplied with graduations, just the bottom 2 (2ml) is enough.
(or you could buy one from a Chemist maybe ?)
The unit should be a nice tight fit in the Smoke stack, squeeze it a little between your fingures or pliers if not, to make it out of round slightly and a tight fit, obviously the top part of 72270 !
All the Loks I've fitted 72270's to have had a clean machined finish in the smoke stack where the unit fits into, conversely, I usually use a small piece of rolled up 1200 grit sand paper in the stack prior to fitting a 7226 as there's usually some paint in there.
As Nev mentioned the contact is CRITICAL, see the Lok instruction book re this

Thanks for the input- some more notes:

- 2ml wouldn't really even get them smoking, it took a lot to put them to work.

- The contact idea is interesting, but if the unit is already heating is it safe to assume the contact if fine? They fit in their snugly, but I didn't sand the stacks.

- Perhaps they are getting too much voltage from the decoder? Only problem is when they stop there is still plenty of fluid in the boiler. Or conversely, maybe there still wasn't enough? Meaning the fluid in the base needs more heat?

Its hard to troubleshoot as two locomotives are doing the exact same thing, so I don't have a working baseline to go off of.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Hi,

There are 2 types of smoke generators, for analog or digital, they work on a different voltage.
With an ESU locpilot Version 4, the smoke unit mentioned is purely for "ESU smoke units"

All depending on the lokpilot you are using, ther are different programming procedures.

Usually the previous lokpilots prior to Version 4 you set the light on 15 or 31.

Not operating a CS2, look for heat settings such as when loco is running or stationary.

John

AFAIK all smoke units are made by Seuthe and are hit and miss as far as operation. I have used well over a hundred of these units and have noted the phenomenon you have observed even in the 7226 units. AFAIK, there is nothing to be done. You have a somewhat defective unit, and maybe can get some satisfaction from your dealer. These units are very small and probably have a certain amount of reject rate. I have been able to return these no questions asked to my dealer who presumably sends them back for replacement. For Seuthe this is probably just a cost of doing business.


I'm sure the reason Maerklin does not include these as installed units is that they don't want to get involved in all the hassles these units can have!

There are several issues to Seuthe smokeunits.
Although I had about a couple of units being faulty right from the start otherwise i never had any problems with them,
Ground connection occurs through your chimney and your tongue in analog mode is your rede wire or from the pickup shoe.
I don't think it is the screw that secures your housing and hence activates your smoke unit, I rather suspect it is the inside of the chimeny and the outside of the smoke unit not having proper contact.
the tongue, I solder some solder on top of it to give it a good contact base and also the contact of the bottom of the smokeunit could be cleaned.
the third point I like to make is the position of tungue and the bottom contact of the unit if this doesn't sit properly on top of it again you will find no proper contact has been achieved.
I agree with you, the overall construction how a contact is made is pretty flimsy and so is the contact of the smoke unit.
there are others available with 2 wires attached to it but than you have the trouble opening the loco without restrictions and it isn't my choice.

If we go into digital there is another problem in the pipeline. smoke units you've used for your analog locos, converted digital your smoke unit works with the 6021, MS1 but it will not work with an ECoS and I assume it goes tyhe same for a CS2.
So all your old smokeunits are no longer usable
the voltage on the ECoS records 13.9 V and I think this is not enough to get them hot enough.

Unless I've missed some information somewhere along the line how to make them operational with an ECoS I'm afraid it looks like on the surface I have to replace them all.

John