# Good Smoking Pacific



## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

After planting a bunch of new stuff in the railroad I ran my Pacific that I put a MTH smoke unit in, works great.


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

Too wet here to plant anything Jerry. Does that smoke unit have a separate power feed for the fan?


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## Naptowneng (Jun 14, 2010)

Looks real good Jerry, I like smoke and may consider selected mods for a few locos

Jerry


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Jerry, looks great, which smoke unit did you use? Got a part number? What voltage do you run the smoke unit at?

-Jim


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

It's a MTH smoke unit from the Hudson I guess. My Challenger has two holes. Separate wire for the fan, I put a voltage unit on it to lower the voltage some to the fan. Other wires go back to the motor. It's an old Pacific, no circuit board. MTH does not have any, I guess. Ray Manley was trying to get some O gauge ones to put in, might check with him, not sure he ever got any.


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## Naptowneng (Jun 14, 2010)

For a nice general discussion there is Greg's page on smoke units

http://www.elmassian.com/trains/dcc-battery-rc-electronics/smoke-units

And George with a nice comparison and lots of information

http://www.girr.org/girr/tips/tips3/smoke_tips.html

Jerry


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## chucka (Mar 20, 2013)

*MTH smoke unit*

Jerry,

I like the look of the smoke from the pacific with the MTH unit. In fact i have installed a USAT Hudson smoke units in one of my locos, but wanted to try the MTH unit. I contacted www.brasseurelectrictrains.com asking about the MTH smoke unit for the hudson (#AA-0000032) and they did not have it and said it may take 8 weeks to get one. They did stock quite a few MTH smoke units. So i recorded the numbers of the units they showed on line as having in stock and then spent time on the MTH site connecting units to their individual locomotives.

I ended up ordering the unit with number AA-0000017, which is for their 4-8-8-2 cab forward. The unit arrived a couple of weeks ago and it is a unit with heater and a fan and both are connected to a circuit board (which was included). The board has a two pin connector for input. I have yet to attempt a test of this unit. I have read previously (maybe from Greg's site) that the MTH Hudson unit uses 5 volts for the fan and 9 volts for the heater. I was thinking of applying 9 volts to the board. Before I do that does anyone have any experience with this unit and can offer some insights?

Chuck


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

Now that is what we all expect when a company says their steam engine has smoke. Heck, my American Flyer trains had great smoke 60 years ago. Why only MTH has the interest in making a great smoker is a shame. Jerry, how much cutting of the boiler or smoke box did you have to do to get it installed?


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

Chuck, you have any pictures of that MTH unit?

Randy, it was not too hard to install. Had to trim inside the smokebox some as I recall. I think I had the boiler shell off also to run the wires.


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## chucka (Mar 20, 2013)

Jerry,

I do have a photo that I took and sent to my email and I have a file location and adjusted the pixels to 600x800, but the "add image" button above asks for the URL (?), so I have not figured out how to add the photo. But, here is what I experimented with tonight-----using a magnifying glass, I noticed the input terminals were marked "AC". Then I located the component which is the rectifier and it was marked with inputs and the + and - outputs. So I connected two wires to the points on the board where the + and - outputs from the rectifer terminated. I then put some JT's Mega-Steam smoke fluid in the unit and connected 9 volts to the attached wires. The fan started and in short order the smoke came billowing out of the unit. It worked great and blows away the USAT unit I recently installed in one of my steamers.  Since the input to this board is AC, I am guessing this must be for their O gauge 3 rail steamers? At any rate I think I have found the smoke unit I want to use going forward. I run battery and will adjust the voltage to 9 volts since that worked well. The unit can probably take higher voltages since the electronics on the board should control the proper voltage for both the fan and the heater (again another guess and maybe worth a further experiment).

Chuck


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## chucka (Mar 20, 2013)

*Let the enlightenment continue*

Well, I think I have the posting photo challenge figured out and here is the photo of the MTH unit I mentioned in the earlier post. Also in my previous post about the unit I showed my lack of electronic component and circuit knowledge as well. I disassembled my accucraft caboose to see about installing battery control and realized that the circuit in there for track power used a rectifier (bridge?) as well to control voltage. So the MTH smoke unit is not for AC powered locos, but just has the board to regulate the voltage to the fan and the unit. So, connecting the smoke unit directly to an Airwire G3 decoder (in my case) or to onboard battery voltage should work perfectly fine.

Chuck


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Chuck, Do you think that running 19v DC directly to the board would burn it up? 

Thanks,
Jim


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## chucka (Mar 20, 2013)

Jim,

As you can probably tell from my earlier posts, I am not real savvy when it comes to electronics and just kinda feeling my way through. Since I believe I may have determined that the MTH smoke unit with the board is set to operate off of track power, I checked the MTH website to see what recommended transformers they listed for their locomotives. I found they list transformers as appropriate that have a maximum output voltage of 20 volts and also some with a maximum of 24 volts. Now, i don't think any of the locomotives would be run at 20 or 24 volts, but if they were listed among the recommended power supplies, I would think the components within the locomotive would be rated accordingly.
Again, this is merely a calculated guess on my part, but maybe someone much more knowledgeable about electronics and circuits that convert track power to a controlled output can jump in and lend credence to these guesses

Chuck


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

You might check with Ray Manley, he's a real expert on MTH trains. I know he was modifying the O scale units to run in G, so should know.
http://www.gscaletrainforum.com/


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks Chuck and Jerry. No one seems to have these in stock but when they do I'll give it a go with 19v DC and see if she blows  I'll report back what I find but it could be a few months or longer for the units to get back in stock. I'm on the waiting list for both Ray and Brasseur.


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## chucka (Mar 20, 2013)

Jim,

I liked the results so much myself that I tried to order 3 more from Brasseur, so I am on that waiting list as well. Also, since I run battery, I use 14.8 volt Li-Ion batteries. I hooked one of my battery packs directly to the inputs on the PCB and the unit worked like a charm------no meltdown or burn-out. So, again another guess, I believe the circuit will regulate the input voltage to what the heating element and the fan require and you should be fine with applying the 19 volts.

The only other problem I have now is the locomotive that I had converted to the USA trains Hudson smoke unit recently, smokes like a real wimp and is now on the list for future disassembly and smoke unit replacement again.

Chuck


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks for the info Chuck! Your post probably prompted some others to order the units also, probably why they got blown out.

I ordered some voltage regulators just in case, they're the adjustable type, pretty sweet if they work. So I can try some different voltages. I'll definitely keep it under 20v.


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