Operating Tortoise Motors from Two Sides of a Layout

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
21

Maxman,

Yes if you want/need DCC control as well, than the Switchit is a good way to go.

But, it is not that much, if any faster or easier to install/wire.

You will need just as many, or more, wires and connections between your Switchit and your various remote stations as I need with the relays. My relays then require just a few short jumper wires at the relay location.

So time wise, there will be little or no difference in the install.

Time is money, equipment price is money…

I also use the relays for signaling and power routing. Switchit does not help there.

Sheldon

22

Rich,

You are correct, your plan works fine, if you are ok with its limitations.

I really like the pushbutton, one button per “route”, track diagram thing. It is much more user friendly for visiting operators. My layout will be designed to operate solo, or by a crew of 8-12.

Sheldon

23

Yeah, I guess that we need to hear back from the OP as to whether these turnouts are part of a ladder or route or just simply single turnouts to divergent tracks.

Rich

24

First let me thank all of you for pitching in with answers to my questions.

I understand all the answers fairly well, even the more complex electrical diagram I think I can tackle. Nevertheless, Rich, I appreciate the simplified drawing, especially with the bi-color LEDs added. (But are resisters really needed? I thought that was not necessary with tortoises and has not been a problem so far on the current setup.)

Clearly, I can do what I want to do, namely, control a single turnout from two switches.

I should make a few points clear. This is just a starting out switching layout with only seven turnouts. It is not a ladder only sidings and two crossovers. I want to tackle this issue now because I am sure I will need to control some turnouts from more than one location in the around-the-room layout I will be starting soon. For example, I plan on putting a wye in leading to the switching peninsula that I will want to control from both sides of the peninsula.

I prefer to stick with toggle or move to momentary switches rather than use DCC to throw the turnouts. I do not plan on having a centralized dispatcher and I throwing turnouts from a throttle I find cumbersome.

The reason I am considering momentary switches is to avoid the problem of having toggles out of alignment. Up is normal and down is reverse on the layout. With momentary switches I believe there is no issue of the switches being out of alignment, correct?

What I do not know about momentary switches is if I have to hold the button down while the tortoise moves or if I only need push it, release it, and the tortoise will throw the turnout, which way would it work?

Again, I appreciate all your help. Before I make any changes to the layout, I will try this out on my workbench first and document everything.

25

JPD

Ok, that helps a lot.

Yes, the push buttons eliminate the “out of alignment” issue. The push buttons can be in the track diagram to identify the route.

Using my relay circuit, or the latching relay circuit offered by others, you need only push the button and release it, the Tortoise will complete its cycle.

Some advantages and disadvantages to consider.

The latching relays will leave the turnouts in their last position during layout start up.

My relay circuit will return all turnouts to “normal” on layout start up. You pick.

Both can be used with lighted pushbuttons that can be in a track diagram, or with separate buttons and LED’s.

Should you want more info on my circuit, such as how to wire a wye with only three buttons, let me know. Actually, I can post that drawing later when I get home.

Sheldon

26

If you wire LEDs off of the Tortoise’s internal switches, then resistors would not be needed. But, in my diagram I wired the LEDs off of the power tabs on the Tortoise, so depending upon the voltage from the power supply, resistors would be recommended to prevent burnout of the LEDs.

Press and release.

If you use DPDTs to throw the points in your setup, the toggles will be misaligned in situations where the points are thrown from different locations on the layout. Obviously, that is not a problem with momentary switches.

Rich

27

I see I should have read the MRH link before responding as it makes clear the momentary switches must be pushed and held unless a latching or similar device is used.

28

And yes, my relay circuit also includes a latching effect, so again, just push and release.

Sheldon

29

No the circuit board does not replace the relay. I built a circuit board for the relay to attach to as well as a edge connector for the tortoise. It also has a set of screw terminals to make wiring everything super easy. I don’t have a picture of said board at the moment.

This allows me to easily attach as many pushbutton as necessary to a single board. It is also setup to either allow LED’s in Series with the tortoise but also provides a way to install LED’s in parallel to the tortoise for position indication.

I’ll see if I can post a picture of it when I get home. total cost of the board and components is about $7. The main reason I made this board was so that I could have all matching controls throughout the layout. I have all mainline turnouts on Stationary decoders (Digitrax DS-64’s) but I also wanted my none mainline turnouts to have have matching controls (IE no toggle switches, just push buttons).

30

Since I have already confessed to being anal about the position of the toggles on 3-way (and 4-way) wall switches, I can hardly fault you for disdaining the misalignment of DPDT toggles. However, since the LED next to a DPDT on the fascia or control panel is visual confirmation, I see no reason to transition away from DPDTs to momentary push buttons if you otherwise like DPDTs to control the movement of point rails.

Rich

31

The only problem with momentary switches and Tortoises is that without some other circuitry, you have to remember to hold the button down until the Tortoise moves all the way. Unless you are in larger than HO scale and using non-hinged turnouts (where the point rails pivot - like Atlas, Peco, and most any other commercial turnout), you don’t have to worry about the points moving if the Tortoise has no power.

However, to use pushbuttons, you will need to use the Tortoise contacts for the LEDs. Otherwise, LEDs in series with the Tortoise motor (no resistors needed) or parallel to the Tortoise (Rich’s diagram - resistors needed) will of course go out as soon as you let go of the button.

With this simple circuit, you can still use LEDs in series with the Tortoise, with momentary pushbuttons to trigger the movement:

http://www.circuitous.ca/556Stall08.html

(the featured circuit where you cna order boards from Ronb control 4 tortoises, but the second schematic down is the basic component - once IC, 2 resistors, one capacitor, and a pair of pushbuttons. The big circuit is just 4 of them grouped together)

–Randy

32

But why would anyone even consider using push buttons without a holding circuit?

The two relay circuits offered are cheap and easy, provide constant holding power to the motor.

My circuit can power lights without using extra wires or aux contacts.

And again, it allows lighted pushbuttons right in the track diagram that display the route.

Sheldon

33

So can that circuit. The 556 chip is 53 cents in single unit quantities, 2 resistors are 5 cents if you pay way too much, and the capacitor shouldn’t be more than 5 or 10 cents. Rob always comes up with interesting alternative ways to use certain chips - the 556 is dual 555 timers in one package, but they have fairly high current drive capability, and are easily (the turnout circuit is SIMPLER than using them as timers) made to do things besides time delays.

You’d have to ask a friend of mine, he initially put pushbuttons on all his Tortoises in one section of his layout. I think it was because he didn;t have any toggles handy. ANd it wasn;t for multiple location control, there was just one set of buttons per Tortoise. I questioned him on it too, since I was the one wiring most of them up, but he was happy with that setup. He also had some old SS Limited screw drive type machines he reused, and didn’t want to wire up cutout contacts to stop them at the end of the throw.

Eventually I guess it worked out, as he replaced most direct pushbutton (btw he ran an AC aux power line, and each Tortoise had a pair of diodes - actually TWO pair of diodes since he ran 2 LEDs from the contacts to indicate route, with bicolor LEDs in each one, so one was red, one green, then they flipped, hence the need for diodes with LEDs) with DS64 stationary decoders so he could automate operation, but retained the pushbuttons for local control without having to use the DCC throttle - an awkward task in every brand of DCC system, I love running trains on DCC but I can’t figure out why someone would want to go through that, especially with a layout that was more than an oval and a siding or two. So while initially the pushbittons were a pain, in the end he didn’t have to rip out the pushbuttons and install a toggle and fill in the extra hole in the fascia.

34

Randy, you misunderstand.

I power my lights not with contacts or the Tortoise power, I use the holding circuit hot on the pushbutton to light the light. If the relay for that route is held on, the light is on.

I will post the other drawing that shows that when I get home.

Once the control power hot and neutral are at a panel, it only takes one wire per button to activate and indicate status.

Sheldon

35

This schematic will control all three routes of a wye with only three push buttons.

Push the button for the desired route, all the turnouts will move as required to complete that route.

And the button of the selected route will light up.

Like any of these push button circuits, it can be repeated on multiple control panels as needed.

With some very minor changes in how the turnouts and lights are hooked up, and the possible additon of extra buttons, this same circuit can control any track arrangement with three routes, like a double crossover or two opposite hand crossovers in sequence like this diagram I posted earlier:

With all these circuits all turnouts reset to “normal” at power up and all turnouts necessary for the correct route change as required with the push of one button.

The goal is a better, easier user interface for the operator.

This drawing shows LED indicator lites in parallel with the relay coils. These LED’s do not require any additional wires between the relay/switch machine location and the remote panels withthe push buttons. that wire, and the control power ground, are already at the push button panel.

If the route is selected, the coil is on, holding the switch motor in position, and lighting the LED.

When a different route is selected, that relay drops out, the polarity to the switch motor changes, the LED goes out, the relay for the new route is energized and sealed in, that LED lites, and the turnouts move as needed.

All with one button and a minimum number of wires.

Example - to control the wye, each three button control panel with lighted buttons would only require 5 wires from the relay board.

All the other wiring is jumpers at the relays, and feed

36

That circuit from Rob Paisley functions almost identically to your relay. Push one button can line more than one Tortoise, or you can do the crossover thing with one button on each straight route and one button to make it cross - multiple buttons for each throw direction, and they don’t have to be in pairs. There are multiple ways to connect LEDs, be they discrete or part of an illuminated pushbutton. It’s pretty universal, either directly indicating a turnout position or if the drives are used to run multiple Tortoises, indicate a route instead.

Small enough to hide dozens right behind the fascia control panel, only 2 wires run under the layout to the Tortoise motor terminals. Contacts on the Tortoise are not used for anything.

–Randy

37

Agreed, assuming you have local and central panels like I do, if you mount his boards at one of the control panels, you can save at least one of two long runs to light the indicator lights.

But, located near the turnout, his circuit will still require long runs just for the lights in addition to the pushbutton wires, wires that I don’t need.

But for me it still gets back to the need for track power routing, frog power, and signal logic which are all turnout position driven, and the first two require high current switching.

And so if I still need to drive a relay with his circuit for those things, why not just use the relays? That was my conclusion 25 years ago, and no product or circuit since has offered any reason to do otherwise in my case.

And as we have discussed before, decentralizing the components is the key to minimizing and managing the wiring.

Again, I mount the relays near the track and turnouts they serve, and only need the power circuit and on

38

I’ll add another vote for the Switchit solution, although the OP wants to go in different direction. There’s also the Switch-8, which handles 8 tiurnouts…

But one feature of the Switchit which hasn’t been mentioned is that it can handle powering 2 turnouts at once on each of the two circuits. This makes it especially useful if you have places where you want to use it as a route control, i.e. to open up a track at bothe ends. In cases like this, the expense of the Switchit can be written off against 4 turnouts.

I think the Switch-8 does the same thing, i.e. can actually control 16 turnouts when used for route controlling… I use mine to control my double-ended staging yard, which I activate via NCE’s Macro feature. I just can’t remember exactly how I wired mine to confirm that.

39

Very few (hmm, are there ANY so limited?) stationary decoders can’t handle 2 Tortoises on one ouput. It’s when you get into some of the copies of the Tortoise that draw 2-3x the current that you run into issues driving one, let alone two, off a single output.

–Randy

40

there’s no reason a toggle switch can’t control 2 or more turnouts. we frequently use a single toggle to control two Tortoise machines controlling a crossover. you just need to match the polarity of Tortoise machines