Three quick questions: (1) I who is (was?) David Smith. He seems to have written a lot of good stuff that has mostly disappeared from the web, unfortunately. (2) Why did his stuff go away? (Has he passed away? I hope not!) (3) I've been able to locate the first two parts of Clinic 4 ("Working with Rokuhan Switches") at: http://web.archive.org/web/20120209135058/http://jamesriverbranch.net/clinic_4.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20120213191915/http://jamesriverbranch.net/clinic_4a.htm Parts 3 and 4, however, are not available, nor were any of the associated images (in any of the four parts) captured. Does anyone happen to have a copy of Clinic 4, ideally with images, or if not, at least parts 3 and 4? In particular, I'm interested in his approach to controlling Rokuhan switches with two push buttons rather than a DPDT momentary center off toggle switch. I've got a couple of Rokuhan's toggle boxes, but I'm thinking of adding more turnouts and I'd like to have something more compact and more meaningfully organized than a long row of Rokuhan switch boxes. Hence the interest in Mr. Smith's articles. Thanks very much.
Tito, David K. Smith is one of the more knowledgeable and interesting people in model railroading and a strong supporter of Z scale, witness his James River site, which is currently off-line. As far as I know, David is doing well. But as many of us who have passed into the second half of our lives, he has had a need to focus on other priorities and has needed to set his model railroading activities aside for a while. As far as your question, that's fairly easy. You need to wire a switch to reverse polarity to the turnout. I actually use a 3PDT switch. I like having the extra contacts to control indicator LEDs. My circuit looks like this: Hope this helps, Mark
It's been noted "on another network" by David himself that he has removed all of his material from the Internet. I hope all works out well for him.
Most pages can still be seen here http://web.archive.org/web/20131017023054/http://jamesriverbranch.net/index.htm
Self Centering Switch? Mark Does the 3PDT switch have to be self centering, and if so, how do you wire the LEDs so that they stay stay on and are not just lit momentarily? Rob Pearce (aka ViperBugloss)
Wiring Rokuhan Turnouts (from DKS clinics) There was a time when one could get switches which had some poles momentary and some not. Too rare, too expensive. I use a switch that is full momentary and use the 3rd pole to control a latch circuit. The latch could be made from relays or transistors, but the easiest and cheapest way is to use an integrated circuit, specifically a 7474 flip flop with a set and clear. I use the set pin for Normal, the clear pin for Divergent. Connect a two wire red/green LED with an appropriate series resistor across the Q and Q/ outputs. The 7474 will do 2 turnouts per chip and the additional cost is less than $1 per turnout with parts from Radio Shack, or the UK equivalent. I can post a schematic tonight if there is interest. Why go to all the trouble? The 7474 is handy for a lot of model railroad functions: latching in block detection, 3 color (G-Y-R) signals, and such. So I built a number of these boards and use them around the layout. Mark
Mark I would be interested in a schematic, but it would have to be simple! I used to work as a computer programmer. Computer programmers are now given the fancy name of software engineer, but I am no engineer of any description. However, I can manage some basic soldering. I hope that we are not straying too far from the original topic. Thank you, Rob Pearce (aka ViperBugloss)
Well, for what it's worth and as the original poster, I'm enjoying the conversation here (and I'm also interested in Mark's schematics but hadn't gotten around to saying so). This is great stuff!
