I am pretty new to the hobby but have tried many things in a short period of time. My turnout evolution is as follows - started with bachmann ez-track DCC turnouts. Most of my layout has them. Then learned of Pico turnouts and tortoise machines so the 2nd half of my turnouts are these. As I've added locos and things to my track the bachmann turnouts rarely work anymore. Bachmann says they don't know why, Digitrax says they don't know why. And I called a well known retailer that specializes in dcc to see if they knew why and they did not know. I've tried adifferent digitrax system and all kinds of troubleshooting. Anyway, I finally came to the realization that I was going to need an alternative way to switch all the bachmann turnouts that were not working as it was making my enjoyment of the layout non-existent. That's when I stumbled upon servos. I bought a bunch of stuff from Tam Valley Depot to convert about 15 turnouts to being servo controlled. I was not able to use an under table solution as there is no easy way to get a throw arm up through a bachmann ez-track turnout. So I had to keep everything above the table which I thought was going to be ugly. Well, to my surprise the idea I came up with to use servos is virtually hidden, and the motion and quietness of the servos has mae these bachmann turnouts the smoothest operating on my layout! My whole layout is on 2" of foam. So next to each turnout I dug out a little rectangular hole to put the servo in. Then I simply drilled a hole in the rr tie that slides on the turnout and connected that to the servo arm with a short piece of piano wire with a 90 degree bend on each end. Like a real wide "n". So I cover it up with some grass or bushes or whatever and its totally hidden except for the arm which I paint to look rusty. Not scale but hardly noticable. In concocting this I thought about all the ways to use servos, including using them to move an arm exactly how a tortoise does it. I think Tam Valley makes a mount to do this. The throws are adjustable so you can make the servo work exactly how you need it to for whatever the application is. What really impresses me is that they are silent and SLOW. All you see is the tracks move very slowly. No motor/gear noise like a tortoise or flipping like a solenoid type. Its really cool. I read another thread when i first stumbled upon servos that said something about servo life. I have been doing RC for 25 years and know that what a servo sees in 1 flight of a plane or rc car race will be more use (and abuse) than a table mounted servo would see in 2 years. And servos for rc applications usually live for years being a abused day in and day out. I would estimate they will never die being used in such a simple environment as throwing a turnout. So, anybody tried them? What do you think?
We are building timesaver switching puzzles at our club, to test turnouts and switch machines on. One of them will be RC servo's throwing Fastrack #8 code 70 turnouts, and another Tortoise throwing the same. When we get these done, we will all get to see the benifits and pitfalls of each system. We are doing this for HO and N, so 4 timesavers will be made just for this test. As for me, I would have just voted for tried and true Tortoise machines, but the smaller space requirements and higher torque of the servos is worth considering.
I have considered servos, as I am an avid RC'er but the added advantage of the switches inside the tortoise to switch power to the frog and such is invaluable. I agree, an RC servo will outlast anything on the market currently.
They cost like $4.50. My frogs are not powered but in my brief read through the instructions it looks like their decoder has provisions for this and indicator led's.
I've started using servos to switch my points. I have the Team Digital SMC4 and the Tam Valley Singlet. I've wrote a couple of Blogs about them: Servo Motor Turnout Control Singlet Servo Decoder I like the price,size and ease of installation. I think the biggest drawback is devising a method to switch the frog polarity. Some of the servo control boards have integrated relays, which seems like it'd be the way to go. For the SMC4 I made by only relay board, which put price of outfitting a turnout for servo control close to what outfitting a turnout for Tortoise control would be. I also have one outfitted with a micro switch and it works well, I just need to buy stronger servos that can handle the extra force required to throw the micro switch.
