# Lionel 610-8057-200 Fan Driven Smoke Unit Question...



## Jeff T (Dec 27, 2011)

As posted previously I am having issues with one of my smoke units. After a pretty good internet and youtube search I do have a few questions. I read in many places that the unit can "burn" out. After reading plenty of pages I could never figure out what burns out? Is it the whole unit, the smoke resistor???

I found the Lionel video on youtube on how to get more smoke out of these early units and will fool with that tonight.

But again, what is burnt out???

Thanks!!


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## T-Man (May 16, 2008)

The resistor. With no fluid the wire overheats and burns out.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

The fan driven ones can fail in other ways as well, a common complaint is that smoke fluid from overfilling leaks down and gums up the fan.


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## Jeff T (Dec 27, 2011)

OK, here's I stand now. Took off the shell and opened up the smoke unit, oops, it doesn't look pretty. 










So I took out the wicking material and that really ticked me off. I had the unit serviced 5 years ago and the Lionel dealer did not replace the wicking material they just flipped it over. Thanks. 

This is the bottom side.










Cleaned off the resistor, added new wicking, tiki torch wick, and modded the intake hole to 1/4" per the Lionel Service video. 

Put it back together and it smokes better. It takes a while to get going though. When you hit the boost it really goes so I'll leave it for now as you can see it better in the daylight.

How hot should the resistor get? I have a small temp gun and I got a reading of about 180F.

And yes the fan is spinning!


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Not sure how hot the resistor gets max, 180 seems a bit cool to me to get smoke. I've never put the heat gun on one, sounds like a good idea. 

I use Tiki torch material to pack smoke units, much cheaper than buying the overpriced Lionel wick.


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## Jeff T (Dec 27, 2011)

Might be a good time to pick up a few resistors...


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## BigAl56 (Dec 14, 2011)

.....and learn how to put the camera into Macro Mode.  Press the flower button.


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## Jeff T (Dec 27, 2011)

areizman said:


> .....and learn how to put the camera into Macro Mode.  Press the flower button.


It was!!!


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