Another particleEffect question. Turning on and off?

I am attempting to do something I though was fairly simple. When a key is pressed a sprite moves and a smoke trail comes out its end.

I had set up a function using a if else variable, the particle would start, but when the D key was let up the particle would continue, I added in an echo to test to see if the else section's condition was being reached, and it was. Every time I pressed D and let up the echo would respond to the console.

So after some searching I came up on two items that I tried to duplicate their methods, the first was in this forum trying to do the same thing I am trying to do, but this person was able to do it, but I am not quite sure exactly how:
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=35664

I also looked into the asteroids source on TDN
http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Torque_2D/GenreTutorials/AsteroidsPlayer

The asteroids one looked more like what I wanted to do, when I tried it, it failed with an error Unable to find object: '' attempting to call function 'playEffect'

Here are the different code variations I tried and failed on.

The first was just using a variable

function thruster)
{
	%thruster = new t2dParticleEffect() { scenegraph = SceneWindow2D.getScenegraph(); };
	%thruster.mount(pShip, "0 0", 0, false); // for specific/static un-reusable function
	%thruster.loadEffect("~/data/particles/jet.eff");
if ($playerThruster == True){
	%thruster.playEffect();
} else {
        %thruster.setEffectLifeMode( kill, 0.1 );  //Note I tried this with stopEffect(true, true) with no luck
                                                                       //Echoing would confirm the conditions are met though.
           }
}

The next was an attempt to clone the asteroids/smoke method which results in an error.

//movement section where thruster is called
function pShipRight()
{
   $pShip.moveRight = true;
   $pShip.updateMovement();
   $player.thruster.playEffect();
}


//function
function thruster() 
{
	%thruster = new t2dParticleEffect() { scenegraph = SceneWindow2D.getScenegraph(); };
	%thruster.mount(pShip, "0 0", 0, false); // for specific/static un-reusable function
	%thruster.loadEffect("~/data/particles/jet.eff");
         $player.thruster = %thruster;
}

I really would have liked to use the if/else method, is this not possible when dealing with a particle effect? If that is case where did I go wrong on my second try?
Thank you!