im building my layout on 3/8 plywood with 1 inch form insulation board on top my question is this how do you mount the switch machine to the switch to stay secure to the form insulation board
My standard is thin plywood with 9mm foam. I don’t mount the switch machines to the foam, I mount them on brackets attached to the benchwork at the fascia line. They drive the points through linkages under the subgrade. My latest design calls for a vertical wire like the drive wire of a tortoise, connected to the switch actuator and to a counterweight by monofilament fishing line. The counterweight holds the points in their normal position (determined by track pattern and operation) and the machine or manual actuator pulls the points to the reverse position. Screw eye guides can be used to carry the fishing line around corners.
Three advantages to mounting things just inside the fascia line:
- Nothing cluttering up the top of the layout adjacent to the turnout.
- Plenty of adjustment ‘give’ in the linkage.
- All of the electricals are where they can be easily reached for troubleshooting or repair.
The last is the most important. Switch machines (or anything else with moving parts) wil eventually fail. You don’t have to be old, stiff and arthritic to want to avoid working upward under the layout with a hot soldering tool. OTOH, getting the point linkage out of sight simplifies scenery and makes complex puzzle palaces of exotic specialwork not only possible, but easy.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with hand-laid puzzle palaces of specialwork)
I’m a little confused by your question. If you are mounting under table switch machines you would be mounting them to the 3/8 in. plywood, not the foam. Screws, caulk , velcro or double face tape would hold the switch machine to the plywood. It would help to know what type of turnouts and machines you intend to use.
i use either peco or walthers and i understand mounting switch machine to my plywood but will the linkage be long enough and what would the best switch machine to use it seem that everyone talks aboujt the tortoise thanks for the response
I use the Tortoise mounted to Luan, then the linkage wire goes through that and one inch of foam plus the roadbed. You will need to buy heavier wire than what the Tortoise comes with and cut it to the length you need for your application. I use anywhere from .032 to .047 dia music or piano wire. The wire that comes with the Tortoise is .025 dia and is too short for anything but 1/2 inch plywood.
No matter the answers anyone gives you, you should always test something new yourself before deciding what you want to do from then on.
Peco turnouts have a built-in spring. If you want to use Tortoise machines, you need to remove the spring before you install the turnout. You can use Peco machines for Peco turnouts. These are twin-coil machines, and they mount directly to the underside of the turnout. So, you need to cut a hole in the roadbed and subroadbed to accomodate the Peco machines, but other than that they need no additional “mounting.” You can’t use Peco machines for any other brand of turnout, because they depend on the spring to hold the points in place after you remove power from the coils.