The lititure for this device says that it can control signals as well as 8 turnout devices. Does that mean at the same time, or does it mean that if you use it for turnout devices it reduces the number of signals you can control ? I guess what I want to know is if the output terminals from the SE8C either control one set of signals or 1 turnout device, therefore the more turnout devices you use it for the less signals it can control or vise versa.
If it can indeed control up to 8 turnout devices and still control the full complement of signals, would people not be better off purchasing this then say two DS54’s ? It would be cheaper to purchase the SE8C and even if you did not want signalling now you would be setup for the future.
Is my assumption correct that if you want have signalling and control turnouts, you don’t need any other digitrax electronics other than the SE8C ? You don’t need DS54’s with SE8C’s correct ?
Is there any advantages to the DS54’s over the SE8C when using for turnout devices ?
That’s all at the same time, unless you use semaphore signals, which use the same 8 outputs to drive Tortoise machines to operate said semaphores.
There’s also more to the SE8C - it has 16 inputs, 8 to be used for local control buttons for the turnouts, and 8 to accept inputs from block detectors.
The SE8C is designed to provide everything you need (except the signal heads, block deteros, and switch motors) for 8 interlocking ‘plants’ which typically have 4 signal heads - 2 on the point side controlling the normal and diverging route, and one each on the frog side of each route. A block detector hooked up to the turnout and adjacent trackage provides the detection required to prevent throwing the turnout under a train. ANd the switch motor output naturally drives the turnout. It’s a heck of a device for $100 (street price).
The only other thing you’d need to totally detect and signal the layout are some BDL168 block detectors for all the intermediate blocks.
There is one advantage of the DS54 for turnout control - you cna wire the Tortoise contacts to the inputs of the DS54 to provide position feedback, if you feel you really need it. You could also use the SE8C to control the Tortoise but hook up an input device liek the CML Tower Controller or the LocoIO to the contacts and use that for feedback.