Lionel still makes the 027 switches were you have to do all that fancy wiring stuff. Remove installation, cut, solder, ect. What if the average person with a 4x8 layout only because its fun and has 027, wants to do all that? Probably, he wont have a solderer or anything else needed to convert the switches to be operated by a sc-1 or 2. Lionel should make a new 027 switch that can be a plug and play for tmcc. (Im sure Brianel will be all over this topic[;)][(-D])
Grayson
The only modification of the O-27 switch that I’ve seen is for constant voltage support. If you rae running in a true TMCC Command environment with constant high voltage to the rails, no modification is required. Wire up the swicth to an SC-1 (ugh) an SC-2 or an ASC and your done. You can even wire in the console control in parallel. The only time you might want to consider modding an O-27 switch is if you want to have constant voltage (aka not track power) support for conventional operation.
But why does lionels say you have to modify it for constant voltage to be used by TMCC?
Lionel recommends a full 18 volts at the track for TMCC. If you don’t run at 18 volts (I use 14) this isn’t an issue. Sustained higher voltage over time will cause premature failure of equipment. This is noted in the main TMCC manual with recommendations on ways to reduce voltage or swap components (like higher wattage lightbulbs) to avoid problems.
Re the O-27 switch specificaly, they may not consider this a normal device to be associated with TMCC equipped trains. Why they did not include a external power plug on the O-42 is a different story. They also don’t offer other size switches in the O-27 product line. This may be an historical prejudice over the O-27 product line as only suitable for starter sets. The fact that O-27 profile is actually more realistic seems to have been overlooked/ignored.
The new FastTrack switches have built in regulators.
You do realize that there arent really that many TMCC Locomotives that can run on 027 right. I realize they do exist, but arent that prevalent that I know of. I could be wrong though, that does happen from time to time. LOL
Simply disconnecting the coil common from the center rail and bringing it out to an accessory voltage is not really enough. Lionel made this difficult to do with the O27 turnouts apparently to reduce the danger of burning out the coils by parking a train on a control rail. You can still do it, by putting the e-unit into neutral with the voltage up; but it is less likely.
When you modify an O27 turnout for accessory voltage or, equivalently, run it on TMCC, you should do something to protect the coils. Adding the electrical switch that the 022 has would be difficult. The best solution I know is to use a capacitive-discharge circuit.