I have a switching layout with Peco turnouts. I need a system to tell me which turnouts are in which position. There are no switch machines at the moment but I think I will need them to use their contacts for bright LEDs on some kind of panel. Any ideas where to begin or which switch machines to buy? It is a shelf layout so bullfrog type of manual control is also possible.
Any thoughts or ideas will be appreciated.
Anything along the lines of the Bullfrog controls, or the levers that Humpyard has should be operable by feel as the position of the knob is either in or out, or with the levers, front or back within the frame.
–Randy
Thanks Randy. That makes sense. Since there are 25 turnouts, I will still need a visual confirmation of the route selected. Thats why I suggested LEDs on a track plan or ???
Bruce,
It sounds like what you need is some way of moving the turnout points in conjunction with a DPDT switch. If you want to power the turnouts, Tortoise is one possible answer, but pricy. Another power option is the Peco switch motors mated with the Peco PL-15 accessory switch. I am not personally familiar with the Peco products so I don’t know for certain they would accomplish your objective. Hopefully someone with that knowledge will chime in.
Non powered choices would include the BluePoint turnout actuators. These use a push/pull linkage and incorporate a DPDT switch. Cheapest might be a DPDT slide switch. Drill a hole in the sliding “peg” and run a piece of piano wire through a tube to the turnout. This would require straight paths from the switch to the turnout and probably not too long a run, either.
Since it is a shelf layout, rather than a central panel could the slide switches be mounted on the top edge of the shelf directly outboard of the turnouts? The LED’s could be located next to the slide switches and/or on a central panel.
While I do have quite an invetsment in Tortoises and still use then in certain spots, many of my recent installas have been of the DIY manual mechanisms that utilize a standard household 3-way switch and receptacle box, connected to a push-pull knob.
All the knobs are IN towards the layout when in Normal position and OUT away from the layout when in Reverse. I accomplish this by building in cheap plastic bell cranks designed for the radio control crowd when the positioning of the points doesn’t fall naturally so that it is IN when Normal.
This would require memorization of what controls which route, but is aided by the fact that each knob is connected to the turnout immediately behind it on the layout.
These controls are cheap, as parts to install one fall in the $5 range, i.e. the switch, its box, plus a wood dowel, threaded rod and a knob for the control handle. You do have to have some basic skills in wood and metal working. They do switch the frog polarity, which is good, but can be hooked up without wiring if that’s not an issue.
I helped out in building a layout for someone who was vision-impaired some years ago. We placed small green LEDs in the roadbed itself at each turnout in the straight and diverging routes. He used power-routing turnouts, so we powered the LEDs from the track itself (with a resistor), exactly as seen in the December 1997 Model Railroader article on building the Wisconsin Central (page 114). We did this a few months before the article appeared, but it’s the same idea.
We just drilled a hole and pushed the LEDs up from below, holding them in place with a dab of glue on the leads on the underside of the subroadbed. When not powered, they were pretty unnoticeable.
But with the power on, one could easily look down the layout and see green indicators at each turnout to show how things were aligned. It really worked great and helped him much more than a separate panel would have.
These could easily be powered from Tortoise or other switch machine or toggle switch contacts as well, but the track power with power-routing turnouts was really easy. It’s not prototypical at all to have a light glowing in the ballast, but it was a lifesaver for him, extending the time he was able to operate by years.
Thanks to all!. After considering everything said here I have decided on the following. I will post a LARGE track plan on the wall behind the layout. Then, I will feel my way around until I become familiar with the lay of the land. I will place makeshift structures along the tracks to pin point the trains locale. Since it is a switching layout, this should work with no large scale modificatuins. If it works, OK. If not you will see more posts.
Thanks to Fred Headin NMRA exec.