Anyone use NCE Switch It/Switch 8s?

[bigB]

Anyone use these to control their tortoises? Any issues wiring Crossovers?

Thanks!

Brad

 

[kencunningham]

I havent gotten to the point of adding stationary decoders yet, but you may want to take into account that the switch 8 doesnt allow for local control of the turnout. You can set up pust buttons with the switch it, this may or may not be important to you, but i personally would not want to have to address each switch to flip it all the time.

If you crossover is power routing, you only have to make sure both points are set the same way and you will not encounter shorts. I have a double crossover and thats what i have to do, i have found that others have just set them up this way allso. You may allso be interested that you can use one output of the switch it to control 2 tortoise machines. This way you can double up on that crossover and save one output.

 

[bigB]

Thanks for your response.

Im just in the planning phase for my new layout, so I have a couple questions.

I too plan on putting in a double crossover. Are you saying you only need one Switch It to control both sides of the crossover? Also, are you therefore saying that you can use 1 Switch It to control 2 crossovers?

Im using Dcc friendly turnouts and for now I plan on leaving the frogs unpowered.

Thanks,

Brad

 

[kencunningham]

Yes that is correct. If you read up on it at the nce website you will find that they say that you can do it, but it is not guaranteed to work. However, other peps have told me that they are using them that way and they work just fine. I havent power my frogs either, if you are using a loco with all wheel pickup them you shouldnt need to.

 

[Motley]

I have about 24 of the NCE Snap-its, for twin coil machines they work flawlessly.

I have two crossovers that I only use one to control both switches. You should be fine using switch-it with two tortoises, no problem.

 

[bigB]

Cool. Yes, I went to the NCE website and read the manual. That little disclaimer saying theyve powered two turnouts but guarantee it cracks me up. Legaliese...

So, the way I read it youd need two Switch Its to power say a Walthers Double Crossover and just one to control a normal crossover, correct?

 

[bigB]

I have about 24 of the NCE Snap-its, for twin coil machines they work flawlessly.

I have two crossovers that I only use one to control both switches. You should be fine using switch-it with two tortoises, no problem.

Thanks Michael, I appreciate the response.

 

[kencunningham]

One switch it will take care of 4 tortoise machines, which you will need for a double crossover. Remember each switch it has 2 outputs. So you can do 2 single crossovers with one switch it.

 

[hamltnblue]

I had a couple of the switch 8's.
They tended to lose their programming sometimes where there was a short.
I installed a separate bus for them and fed it from an auxiliary booster. That cleared the problem.

 

[Rico]

I use a switch8 to control the mainline turnouts with a digitrax system and Tortoise machines and it works great!
I also have an overhead track panel that shows switch position with LED's and some LED signals at the switch. In some cases 4 LED's wired in line with the Tortoise with no problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VOypDQkfc4&feature=email

 

[calvinhc]

I mainly use the Switch-8 for all my Tortiose switch machines with very good results. Any cross-over has one output powering two switch machines, again with no issues.

It was mentioned that one can power 4 machines, which would be the case for a double (scissors) crossover. NCE's docs state, "We have successfully controlled two Tortoise switch machines with one decoder output when used in a crossover. We can't guarantee this will work in all cases." It is probably safe to say that two Tortioses are no problem, but four might be an issue in some cases.

The only problem I ever had with a Switch-8 was that I once had one that would not program properly. Regardless of which number was selected on the small rotary switch, it only programmed the first output. I contacted NCE by email and they had a couple of questions that I could answer by doing some simple tests. From that, they concluded there may have been a bad solder joint or a bad switch and all I had to do was send it to them with a covering letter mentioning our email correspondence. The either fixed or replaced it and I had a working unit in less than 3 weeks (I'm in Canada, so customs probably delayed the shipping a bit).