Greg@mnrr
Section Hand
Forum:
My Milwaukee Northern Railroad uses approximately 25+ Tortoise switch machines. I use DPDT micro-switches mounted on the layout's fascia to operate the switch machines. I ran a buss wire line, like that for DCC, to provide power along the mainline from which I tap off of to power the individual switch machines.
Yesterday, I was running some trains and lost power to all the Tortoise machines. The electrical breaker in power pack that provides the electrical source for the machines was kicking in and out. I checked the physical wiring for the machines and could not locate the source of the problem.
I started to disconnect each Tortoise machine from the main power buss line. I used card connector boards to wire the control power and signals to the machines' contacts (rather than soldering directly to the machines' contacts), which makes the disconnection of the wiring from the machines an easy, but lengthy process. As I disconnected each machine, I tested the system by attempting to operate one switch machine still connected to determine if that machine was the source of my problems.
I found the cause of the short merely by accident. A wire on one of the DPDT switches was loose and was making contact with another tab on the micro-switch. In my favor, the scenery above this micro-switch has not been installed, so a visual inspection was easy to perform. Had the scenery been completed, I may have never found the loose wire as quickly as I did.
My future layout will also use Tortoise machines, but I will wire them in power districts, like DCC, to enable me to find shorts by isolating the power districts. This will reduce trouble shooting time and single out the problem to one group of machines. I will wire one leg of the common wiring to a bank of SPST switches to form the power districts. By simply turning off power to each district, one by one, I will quickly locate and shorts or wiring problems.
Hope this provides some new advice on wiring Tortoise switch machines.
Thanks.
Greg
My Milwaukee Northern Railroad uses approximately 25+ Tortoise switch machines. I use DPDT micro-switches mounted on the layout's fascia to operate the switch machines. I ran a buss wire line, like that for DCC, to provide power along the mainline from which I tap off of to power the individual switch machines.
Yesterday, I was running some trains and lost power to all the Tortoise machines. The electrical breaker in power pack that provides the electrical source for the machines was kicking in and out. I checked the physical wiring for the machines and could not locate the source of the problem.
I started to disconnect each Tortoise machine from the main power buss line. I used card connector boards to wire the control power and signals to the machines' contacts (rather than soldering directly to the machines' contacts), which makes the disconnection of the wiring from the machines an easy, but lengthy process. As I disconnected each machine, I tested the system by attempting to operate one switch machine still connected to determine if that machine was the source of my problems.
I found the cause of the short merely by accident. A wire on one of the DPDT switches was loose and was making contact with another tab on the micro-switch. In my favor, the scenery above this micro-switch has not been installed, so a visual inspection was easy to perform. Had the scenery been completed, I may have never found the loose wire as quickly as I did.
My future layout will also use Tortoise machines, but I will wire them in power districts, like DCC, to enable me to find shorts by isolating the power districts. This will reduce trouble shooting time and single out the problem to one group of machines. I will wire one leg of the common wiring to a bank of SPST switches to form the power districts. By simply turning off power to each district, one by one, I will quickly locate and shorts or wiring problems.
Hope this provides some new advice on wiring Tortoise switch machines.
Thanks.
Greg
