A tortoise is a switch machine. The peco I believe you’re talking about is a turnout. 2 different items.
If you use a tortoise to switch any turnout through 1 1/2 of foam, I recommend a slightly thicker piano wire for control to compensate for the extra length.
I believe the Peco are spring loaded so that will have to be overcome also. The heavier wire is a must. Also the Tortoise uses so little power that a bi-color LED can be installed without resistors. Just put it in line between the toggle and the tortoise and you are good to go…
In the long run, it would be best to eliminate the spring in the Peco turnout so less force is needed to move the points and excess wear to the parts can be avoided. Regardless, I’ve never found the factory-supplied Tortoise wire to be sufficiently thick (stiff) to reliably move the points. You need to replace it with a thicker wire, but not as thick as would be needed with the springs kept in the turnout.
Peco do make switch machines, but these are solinide (sorry about spelling) switch machines. these require a capacitor discharge to work best. They are designed to fit under the peco turnouts (in HO) an need a clearance of about 1/2 - 3/4 inch.
They are cheaper than the tortise motors (at least in Australia) but unless you also place some card or styrne between the motot and turnout, there will be a large noticable hole. Peco also hasa switch motor with an extended pole, bt i\I haven’t used them.
I’m now switching (no pun intended) to tortise, but will have to look at removing the internal springs in the peco turnouts. (in another forum thread it wasmentioned that you might e able to lesson the tension of the spring - but I haven’t looked into this yet as I’ve just moved house and I’m still to re-set up my layout).
There is no need to leave any springs in. The tortoise machines maintain pressure in the direction that they are held. If you force it back the opposite direction and let go it will simply return. Excellent solution for the price. I also use the switch 8 instructions for the torti’s and secure them with hot glue. Much easier and faster than trying to screw them down.
They are both switch machine, on Peco turnouts if you use a switch machine it is required that you remove the spring clip no big deal it pops right off. For my money the Tortoise is a better choice. It is a stall motor type as opposed to peco which is a twin coil type. The twin coil machines are cheaper for a reason and do not seem to have the longevity of a stall motor machine. It was smart of you to make the turnouts removable so easily. just simply mark the center of the trow bar which has a hole in the center of it and drill a 1/2" hole replace the wire that comes with the Tortoise with one of at least .038 thick and make it extra long. It will A: be easier to feed up through the hole and B: give you the extra length you need to compensate for the foam. What I do is mount a small piece of 1/4" plywood 1-1/2" x 3-1/2" mount the tortoise to it with 4 #4 wood screws and after you feed it up through the hole if you have a friend hole it in place or even if you work along have your screw gun and a couple of drywall screw handy screw the drywall screws down through the foam and into the plywood. You can put a little construction adhesive on the wood also if you choose. Trust me it’s a lot easier then trying to screw those four little screws up into the bench work while working upside down.
I pretty much agree with all the advice so far. I have a number of Peco machines on my layout. I’ve been happy with their performance.
You do need a rather large opening for the machine, at least an inch or so deep. I use 2-inch foam with no plywood, so I simply cut all the way through. I tell myself that if necessary, I could replace the machine from underneath without having to remove the turnout. Fortunately, I haven’t had to test that theory. I do use a capacitive discharge circuit, which I did find to be not only nice, but necessary.
The Peco machines are twin-coil (solenoid) devices. So, they take a momentary contact to throw them. Tortoises are stall-motor devices, and they take a constant contact to keep them in place. So, you use a different kind of toggle for each. The standard Tortoise machine has electrical contacts which may be used to drive indicator LEDs, or you can piggy-back the LEDs on the drive lines, because the power is always there. Standard Peco machines do not have this capability, so you need another way to drive the LEDs. Peco makes an add-on unit to give you this capability. To me, this add-on is kind of overpriced for what you get, and actually brings the price of the Peco unit up pretty close to that of a Tortoise.
My top consists of two layers of 3/4" foam ( that’s all that was available at the time) on 1/8" ply so it wouldn’t be difficult to get 1 1/2 inch depth for the machine. Do you think that would be sufficient? Also would you know the length of the extended pin for underneath mounting?
No doubt we all look for what works well and is easy to install. My impression is that the Peco is easier than the Tortoise. Would you agree with that?
Thank you for your reply and everyone else as well !!!
My plan is to get a Tortoise and a Peco, try them both and then decide what’s right for my layout. I’ve got more track and turnouts to lay in the future so they won’t go to waste.
An inch and a half should be plenty of room. As I recall, the extended pin is only about an inch long, so an underneath mount would still require some work. You probably don’t want to do that anyway.
The beauty of the Peco machine is its mounting. It attaches directly to the underside of the turnout. This completely hides the machine, unlike the standard mounting of Atlas motors off to the side. It also provides rock-solid connection and alignment of the Peco machine to the turnout.
I’ve never installed a Tortoise, so I can’t comment on relative difficulty. I think I will use a few of them on the next phase of my layout construction. Many modellers are very pro-Tortoise, so I have to see what the fuss is all about.
It is a nice looking assembly which provides a toggle switch to run a switch machine, as well as a set of contacts. The twin-coil output works as a momentary contact, while the LED outputs stay on all the time. This would eliminate the need for the extra Peco attachment to provide indicator lights at your control panel, and puts the contacts at the panel where you want them rather than underneath the turnout. (Of course, if you want to put turnout position indicators on the layout, then the Peco unit would be more convenient.) I’ve never tried these, but I’m thinking of picking up a couple of them to see how they work.
Thanks for your reply and all of the details. As a result I’m definitely going to order a couple of Peco switch machines, a CD circuit and the other accesories needed. The electronic switch really looks intriging so this would be a good time to try it also.
I will try a Tortoise also, but it looks like it will be easier to mount the Peco especially with the electronic switch.