Hello,

I have two locations on my railroad that have wye’s to turn locomotives. those of you that have been to my railroad know about the need to duck under, or raise a lift out section to complete the turning operation. what I would like to do is to use the cheap servos available on eBay and elsewhere to throw these turnouts, preferably by selecting the route desired via pushbutton on fascia board.

what do you recommend for support equipment to perform this function. I will need to tune servo throw distance, I do not have DCC, but do use Air wire. if that is of any help. basically need to align two of the three servos every time I push a button, regardless of the turnouts prior position.

lets see your low cost PNP solutions.

AL P.

Hi Al,

If your only purpose for the wyes are for locomotive turning, perhaps you could just use springs.

With a very clean ballast at the points (like 1/2 crushed stone), I have tremendous reliability on my spring switches. I’ve used piano wire, coat hanger wire, and most recently LGB small manual drives. If you only run diesels or non-pony steamers, you can even double up the LGB drives (one on each side of points) for ultimate reliability.

This, of course, works best with larger switches like #6 or lgb R5.

This is probably most easily accomplished using the LGB system and their turnout motors. These can be adapted to other manufacturer’s turnouts. The entire “wye operation” could be automated to run itself using reed switches and magnets.

At York a couple of years ago, Cliff showed a servo controlled turnout motor he was working on.

I can help you build a simple diode matrix that will send power to the correct turnouts for a given route with one push button. You will need some switch motors. You Could probably adapt Aristo motors (which I have that I could sell cheap) to your track with a little work. The Aristos will also function as spring switches, but knowing your RR and your attention to detail the Aristo motors will look wrong. Probably an under-deck tortise machine from O scale would work.

No need to get all fancy with digital electronics unless you want to just for fun. I had this system in-place on my indoor RR for several years. It worked great, but when I re-built for operations I went with manual throws.

Hi Al, about using air switches from Sunset Valley. The switches are made to fit most brands. It takes 30PSI. If you do not have a compressor , try this suggestion to use a 2 gal garden sprayer pumped up to 40 PSI.

I have found them very easy to install and last for ever.

Don

Servos can be problematic, since you need to set the limits electrically, and store those values in the controller.

I use servos in Z scale, and it was a bit of a struggle. Also, if they are not exactly set, then they can be running and drawing current when you want them quiescent. In large scale you won’t have the problems I encountered in Z scale where the servo broke points from too much pressure when incorrectly adjusted.

Also servos are not normally well weatherproofed. I’m very happy with pneumatics, and you can get nice toggle switches that switch the air. A single air line feeds the air motor. Operating pressure is usually 40 psi, so you would want a large container at 40, or better yet, a small regulator and an air accumulator at a much higher pressure, for longer operation without recharging. I have a 5 gallon portable one that goes over 100 psi that is inexpensive (from auto parts store)

Greg

Thanks to all for the ideas so far. this is an indoor installation. I have looked at the tam valley offerings but not sure they will do exactly what I want. these are all hand laid code 250 turnouts by the way, currently with high level switch stands which I intend to keep, but eliminate the latching feature.

keep those ideas coming.

AL P.

I use the tam valley controllers on my Z, they are the ones I settled on. You have pushbuttons, red and green LEDs that can be programmed for how they display and an optional relay for powering the frog or lights or whatever.

Greg

Or, you could go with choke cables to move the points. Yes, the operator would have to set each turnout, but its a tried a true method of throwing inaccessible turnouts.