The recent thread about Zeke’s K-Line A5 got me to thinking… what would you need to construct a panel with two buttons to control the Whistle and the Bell features?
I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while, just never got around to doing it.
Why would you want to? They come pre-made.
Jim,
Because I’ve had a heck of a time finding a ‘Sound Activation Button’
Brent, you must have sucked at hide and seek! You can’t find anything!!! [;)]
Charles Ro has them for $12.00
Jim,
Thanks for the friendly reminder! LOL!
My wife is constantly teasing me about my lack of finding ability! LOL!
Thanks!
You can also get it direct from Lionel for $13 + shipping.
610-5905-001
http://www.lionel.com/CustomerService/Findex.cfm
You can build one of these, but by the time you acquire all the parts and then put it together, $13 + shipping is a bargain.
Just remember that you need 2 of these if you want a whistle and a bell to sound. The current issue of CTT shows how to hook them up singly or as a pair. The diagrams are on page eleventeen.
Jim
I opened my sound activation button to check it out. It’s got 6 or 8 (it was awhile ago) 3 amp diodes in series jumpered by a normally closed switch. When you push the button you apply dc.
With two buttons you reverse the red and black wires, one gives you whistle the other gives you a bell. The result of applying either a positve or negative DC to the center Rail.
Considering making the circuit board and finding NC push button switches it probably doesn’t pay to make this for yourself. Most trainshops carry them or can get them.
just wondering whats eleventeen, i knew i shouldnt have slept threw school! [:-^] j/k
well i think this is an important thread for new ppl such as myself who dont know how to do this…thanks brent
There was an article in CTT about six or seven years ago about building your own horn/whistle box from parts from Radio Shack, however unless you are putting together three or more the costs out ways the costs of buying them pre-made.
Lee F.
Article/diagarm was in CTT November 1998. Six diodes wired in series with a seperate one wired in parallel with the polarity reversed relative to the otehr six. A double pole double throw switch allows unit to function as both whistle and bell. Buying the off the shelf button is cheaper/easier.
chuck,
I agree that the Lionel horn/whistle button is cheaper and probally the better way to go than building your own. With building your own you have to solder stuff together & make sure your diodes are wired correctly and you can find the right size little box to mount it into, too much work for a model train project. I did this project and don’t recommend anybody else doing it as the box did not work as described in the article, may have bad switch or diodes in the box but my unit didn’t work as described, used all the called for switches(had the exact part number) or diodes from Radio Shack, No substitue parts at all!!! The only thing that I can think of is that I fried it with my 275 watt ZW.
Lee F.
I never tried to replicate the circuit in the mag, especially not the DPDT switch part. I remember that there are two types of DPDT switches used in 110 cicuits, one for furnaces and one for multipoint lighting. They are definitely not interchangable![:)]
Chuck, are you talking about two kinds of 4-terminal switches used in power wiring? If so, they are indeed not interchangable; but neither of them is a DPDT. The so-called “4-way” switch has a specialized function that can be duplicated with a full 6-terminal DPDT switch but is not itself a DPDT. The other common 4-terminal switch is a DPST, which is likely to be used on a 240-volt circuit, not 120 (nor 110), for disconnecting two phases at once.
My father in law wanted to be able to turn on the lights in his garage from two points at the front, one by the side door, and one from inside the house. I found a wiring diagram for multi point switches in an older electrical do-it-yourself wiring where they descriped the switch as a dpdt. When I went to the electrical supply place (this was long before Home-Depot/Lowes) to pick up the parts they sold me the furnace cut off switch. I went back a few hours later and the guy behind the counter asked what I was trying to do and then swapped the cutoff switch for a four way. The only telling difference on the outside of the two switches were the colors of the terminals. The furnace (DPST) had contacts like a pair of side by side SPST, i.e. two brass/two nickel. The “four way” looked like a three way with an extra terminal. This is also the setting where I learned that conduit, junction boxes and seperate wire actually is much easier/saner than romex for complicated circuits.
To get this back to toy trains, the 4-way switch has the same function as the drum and contact fingers of an e-unit: It connects two wires to two other wires in each of two possible ways. In the e-unit, red is connected to yellow and green to blue in one direction; and red is connected to blue and green to yellow in the other direction.
Someone posted to another site that they used a D cell battery to act as the trigger. They wired up a momentary contact switch and connected the set up to the track. If you swapped the polarity of the battery, it triggered the bell. If this “works” couldn’t you use a cheap wall wart power supply like the ones for a portable CD player as the power source (aka like the ones used for a 2 cell AA player) hooked up to a pushbutton switch?