It was a rainy day, so we took a trip to the LHS, I needed some more roadbed to fini***he yard. Onthe off chance they might actually have some, I asked if they had any NCE Switch-It stationary decoders. Turns out they had 3 in stock, and I could get them for a price that equalled any of the mail-order places I’ve checked with. So I took two. Hooked one up to two different crossovers on the back side of my layout, that previously had no turnout control (besides GHA reaching under and moving the Tortoises). As fast I was able to solder the wires to the Tortoise, I had both crossovers under control from my DT400. Next step was to fire up my laptop and create a control panel with the PanelPro component of JMRI (parent of DecoderPro). In a couple of minutes (aligning graphics with a touchpad laptop is NOT easy!) I had a pair of CTC style levers with green and yellow indicators, and handles that ‘move’. Which in turn controlled the crossovers. Or I could issue a switch command from the DT400 and the levers would move and the lights would change. Great fun - now I have to do the layout work for the actual control panel and get all this stuff mounted so I don’t have wires hanging all over the place. And hook up the third crossover and one remaining siding to the second Switch-It. Not bad, $20 and I’m controlling 4 Tortoise motors. Very economical, and I have three optons for control - the handheld throttle, the computer CTC panel, or pushbuttons connected to the Switch-It.
–Randy