Greetings,
I’ve run into a stickey situation. I am going to replace my atlas switch machines for the Tortoise slow motion machines. Heres the problem: I have a one inch layer of foam and a quarter inch layer of plywood. I need to know if the “connecting hardware” is long enough to go from the machine to the track (there is no roadbed, just ballast poured over it).
You will need to get some slightly heavier music wire from the hobby shop or elsewhere and make your own longer and heavier throw springs to work reliably through that much thickness.
–Randy
I agree, you’ll need to get some piano wire to extend the "linkage, which is simply piano wire.
I bought mine from a local piano supplly store for $1 US for “about” 10’, that is we pulled out a bunch of wire and called it good. The tortoise comes with 0.025" wire, which works fine for most situations. I ended up buying some 0.035" piano wire for longer reaches. I’ve got cork roadbed on 1" foam on 3/4" plywood and the 0.035" wire should do a better job for me.
You’ll need to ream out the hole for the heavier wire in the tortoise, but that’ll be easy.
Mark in Utah
I replace the original wire with .047" music wire for my Tortoise motors, and I have some of them installed under subgrade splices so they’re driving through 1-3/4" of material – 2 layers of 3/4" plywood with 1/4"-thick roadbed on top. With the stiffer wire they work just fine – it’s not a problem.
Good luck,
Andy