Who has the best deal on Tortoise switch machines on-line? Also, what LEDs do you recommend using with them?
- Jeff
The best I’ve seen was Train World. It was a while ago, but you could get them in the $12-$13 range in lots of a dozen.
Hi Jeff and here is the best, without a dedicated search on the Tortoise slow motion units that I have seen and they can be found in the August 2006 issue of Model Railroader on page 22 and are being offered from a company called;
“Circuitron”
211 RocBaar Dr.
Romeoville, IL. 60446-1163
No telephone number, no website or not even a e-mail address listed? I’d ask around about this company to see if anyone here has dealt with them and were happy or not with their purchase.
They are listing single units for $18.95 (OUCH!) but they list also in batches of six and twelve packs and they are selling them for a six pack @ $110.00 and for the twelve pack, they are asking $210.00 and I am sure that does not include shipping and handling. Opps, they state $7.00 for shipping and handling.
Good luck and I will keep my eye out for even a better price for such a great but high cost machine.Remember when they were like $7.50 or even less? I am attempting to design a system that will have all swicthes that could be thrown by hand using wire or some other manner. If it works it sure will save on cost and I swear that I read somewhere where someone did this method with great results.
Take care, Mark in Nevada
Circuitron is the make and 18bucks for one? Where did you get that number from? I have NEVER paid more that 14 for one. Many different places have them I would look around at different places online. Caboose hobbies usually has good prices but I haven’t had the need to buy any recently so I don’t know what they are going for these days.
$18.95 is MSRP. The penalty we pay for a 100% made in the USA item. You can usually buy at a discount, just like nearly everything else we buy.
Empire Northern as the best prices I’ve seen, $11.99 each or $143.88 for the 12 pack.
–Randy
jlsmith7017 - Please contact me of f-list. I can help.
I wouldn’t have posted this, but I saw no PM or email address for you.
Renegade1c, Page 22 is where I got their price for one unit. August 2006 MR.
I did see an ad from the company saying how sorry they are because they had to raise the prices. That was a few months ago in a MR.
Jonathan
Try eBay. I’ve even bought USED ones there. Got about a dozen once for about $4 each. Upon arrival, they looked just awful, and I figured I’d blown the $50 or so.
One didn’t work. The other 11 worked just fine, including the relays, and still work fine a couple of years later.
I’m not sure about the earlier response about paying more for something made in the USA. I think it’s more about the quality – wherever it’s made.
List price for a package of 6 is $110.00
Dealers typically receive 40% off list. Add shipping and overhead then decide how much you want your LHS to loose selling them to you at $12 a piece.
Yep, Tim at Empire Northern has the best prices I’ve seen. He is also very good to deal with and knows his stuff! He has worked for many years in electronics and has decoders that he has developed with NCE (which is located just a couple blocks from his store). I will be needing about 3 dozen Tortiose machines soon and will get them from him.
Check it out here: http://www.empirenorthernmodels.com/Circuitron%20Page.htm
His home page: http://www.empirenorthernmodels.com/index.htm
I’ve purchased a bunch of DCC stuff from Tim, and received top notch service. I can’t recommend him enough. Actually I haven’t gotten poor service from anyone, yet.
The OP also asked about LEDS. Depends on what you want - a single LED that changes color, or two separate LEDs. Either way works, and they can be placed in series with the motor leads of the Tortoise with no resistors required - the motor itself provided proper resistence to limit current to the LEDs. No need to use either set of contacts to light panel indicators. There’s a few sellers on eBay with large quantities of ordinary red, green and yellow LEDs at very good prices. That’s probably going to be the best deal as far as getting LEDS. They also have the 2-lead bicolor LEDs you’d use if you just wanted a single LED that’s green when the Tortoise faces one way, and red the other.
–Randy