At a recent train show I was talking with a large display operator who when he heard I was going to use the supplied switch controllers for 10 atlas-o switches he immediately said don’t.
He suggested acme with green/red lights in that they can handle 18volts and not short out the switch motors. I wasn’t aware that I had this issue with the atlas controller. Has anyone had a problem and is the acme the way to go. I am not familiar with that controller. I do agree a red/ green light indicator would be nice but cost can be a consideration. Already spent plenty on the 10 switches. A control panel change would also delay progress. Any feedback appreciated.
RICH
PS. My plan was 18 ga stranded wire with the atlas controller.
I use the supplied controllers for my six atlas switches and have never had a problem. The controllers are momentary, so I can see if someone held the controller down, the motors could easily burn out. I have not heard of the Acme controllers and find the indicator lights appealing. I wonder if the lights would show the correct turnout position if the switch points were moved manually?
I continue to have issues with the turnouts themselves, however. I believe Atlas has a design flaw that can cause the track current to be disrupted within the switch. Others have said that this issue has been resolved, but I continue to experience intermittent problems.
The best way to activate the Atlas switches is to use a capacitive discharge unit. This provides a DC voltage that only lasts about 1/2 second, and will reliably switch the points. If you hold the pushbutton on for a long time, the CD unit keeps the voltage at near zero. The coils therefore cannot be burned up. As for indicator lights, ther are several ways that can be done. The Atlas dwarf signals can be integrated with the switches as indicators, or there are other commercially available solutions, too.
I have had many problems with both the turnouts and the controllers. I have 20 functional switches now and have had 6 of their slide switch’s fail since Nov 2007. Three failures resulted in burned out switch motors. Two others would short the power supply when operated in one direction. All of these switches worked initially and failed with use. I am not familiar with the acme but I doubt it can tell you which way the switch is directed as the switch has no built in feedback mechanism for that purpose.
I have ran numerous Atlas switches for three years and never had a switch machine fail. I drove them with SC-2s. A consideration on using CD units is with the route function via SC-2s in a TMCC environment. Because the CD unit needs to recharge between throws, unless you are running each switch in the route on a different CD unit (a potentially costly solution [:)]) you may have an incomplete switch lining for the route.
IF you are NEVER going to run routes with TMCC on the switches, I would suggest checking out CD units. Just some food for thought.
I was also disappointed with the lack of indicators with Atlas (just one more reason why I switched to FasTrack - lighted indicators!). I used an Atlas #200 snap relay to drive Lionel dwarf signals. The dwarf did not change with a manual throw. It added complexity and time needed to set everything up, but the dwarfs do look pretty neat changing aspect when the switch is thrown.
That is why I ultimately decided against using indicator lights. Have you had any issues with the turnouts developing “dead spots” as trains traveled through them?
Luther, Thanks for the hint about using the CD units with routes! You may have saved me some money!
The mimiatronics CD unit states it will operate up to 10 switch machines. Do you know if that means 10 at once as would be the case with a route? I called Minatronics and the lady that answered the phone didn’t know the answer.
You don’t need a “CD unit” for that. All it takes is a resistor (or lamp) and a capacitor. I have a group of 7 turnouts, of which 5 can be thrown at once. I use two 10000-microfarad capacitors and a number 57 lamp, powered by the 16-volt DC supply that powers all my turnouts. The capacitor recharges fully in about 3 seconds. The recharge current is only about 1/4 ampere, way too small to harm a coil.
You can get the Acme push buttons without the r/g lites. they are mounted on a metal frame and come in different lenghts depending how many buttons you want. Very dependable and easy to wire. I have used them since 1980 without failure of any kind.
I am not familiar with the specific CD unit you mention but I assume the 10 switch capacity describes the number of connection points for a single CD unit and not the ability to support 10 consecutive discharges such as that you would need for a TMCC route function. Hopefully you can confirm with someone that is more familiar with the particular unit.
Bob, I assume that you have 5 or more of these lamp / capacitor units (each connected to one of the five switches) to support the simultaneous throw of the switches? The SC-2 throws the switches about a second apart wh
I noticed a design weakness in the Atlas switches. The interconnectivity of the various areas of the switch (center power rails and common rails) is accomplished through very small wires run underneath the switch and soldered to the rail. I estimate these wire are 18 gauge or smaller. I had a derailment in a yard spur (which was protected by 10A Scott’s Odds n Ends breakers) which caused one of theses wires to burn through. The wire was destroyed in the time it took for the breaker to trip. This caused one of the short sections of the center rail to longer provide power to the loco.
Have you had any shorts or derailments which may have toasted some of these small wires? Can you pull the switches and examine the wiring beneath the switch? I solved the issue by running power (via wires soldered to the Atlas connectors) to each end of the through route of the switch as well as the diverging route (i.e., three power runs total). I did the same for at least one of the common rails at the same points. I never had a problem with power on any of the switches until I pulled up all of the Atlas track [:)]. These wires are small enough and hard enough to get at such that I do not know if I could have repaired them.
Luther, no, the setup I described operates the 7 turnouts from one capacitor (pair). I use the controllers that came with the turnouts; so they all throw simultaneously. Indeed, it wouldn’t work if the turnouts were thrown one at a time a second apart. I used to have individual 5000-microfarad capacitors charged through 100 ohms for each turnout, which is apparently the sort of thing one would have to do for TMCC. I grouped related switches when I put in the DC supply and went to lamps instead of resistors, to reduce the recharge current draw to something the supply could handle when I threw large groups of turnouts.
If anyone is wondering why so many turnouts throw at the same instant, it’s done with diode logic. The ability to do this is a by-product of using DC instead of AC.
That is the same problem I encountered. I have been fixing the issue in the same manner, by making sure that there is a power lead at each of the three sides of the switch. Given their reputation for quality, you would have thought Atlas would have done better. While I remain a fan of their company, I would be hard pressed to use Atlas track in the future. Thanks for the feedback. As my grandfather used to say: “Misery loves company!”