Anybody use these? How they wire? Momentary or not? I have the standard Atlas 3-wire turnouts with common ground(s). Did a search here first & found NOTHING but like the compact size. (ps: found an incomplete description pic here)
Could you take a photo of the other side? With that, we can maybe figure it out. I remember seeing ads for these in old Model Railroader magazines.
All I remember is, when I was a kid there was this coyote who had a lot of trouble with their products. The red and green buttons indicate something designed for operating switches; those colors were the Lionel Way to do things. And yes, Atlas switch machines have been around since the Bronze Age. So I think the odds are in your favor it was designed for them. And that instruction sheet at the link pretty well confirms it. I don't remember any other type of remote switch motors back then but Lionel and Atlas. Whether the springs are still springy I have no idea.
Momentary contact. I operated on a layout years ago that had rows of these things on the control panel.
lol oh yea think his name was Wile E .... Thx Rick for the cheeeep price might just try 'em & sorry "TB' mod, will remember 'where' next time. Beep Beep!
Here's a pic of the back side, looks like crimp-type slide-on conx instead of screws. Def NOT surface mount either recessed or raised 'bove board, single hole for wires, blocked on each side? May just use this for momentary track power on reverse loop/yard/roundhouse parking (helps avoid 4-yr-old high-speed accidents) Unheard of Ebay FREE SHIPPING? What a deal Beep Beep!
Yep, just simple momentary contact switches it look like. Common wire to center strip and a wire on each side to actuate the switch/turnout. Your wiring adaptation for a youthful locomotive engineer may have merit.
Each button pushes its contact to make momentary contact with the common center connector Each black wire from each track switch goes to a buss connected to one terminal of whatever power supply you're using. Each red wire from each track switch connects to the terminal at each red button and each green wire from each track switch connects to the terminal at each green button. Red and green in pairs of corresponding buttons, of course. The other terminal from the power supply connects to the common center strip on the Acme unit, as Hardcoaler indicated. I am assuming the buttons make momentary contact with the center strip. I can't imagine it being any other way. You may want to check it out with an ohmmeter to be sure. Doug
Thx Doug! Having purchased two "8-position flush panels" am thinking will mount 1 vertically for more than 8 "left/right" turnouts, usually combining switch pairs & disregarding 'color', and with the other 2 rows of 8 buttons could momentary power up to 16 yard/roundhouse/siding tracks . . and all within a compact 6 1/2" X 2" control unit BUT attaching so many 26g wires & "cab/block control" will still be problematic. Dedicate one reversible Atlas "selector" to power all? (lol sorry am pondering OUT-LOUD) OMG "Acme" again? I saw this, thought interesting, use for roundhouse power? ACME 12 Position Rotary Switch
Ah! Searching "how to" is AMAZING found this: Instructions for Acme Switch Control Panels WITHOUT Lights (ps: huh? are CustonLine switches wired differently not center 'neg' (view link) The reason I ask is it only functions -> one-way ->)?
The diagram for "Customline" type switches is misleading because it shows the common terminal at the end instead of in the middle. However, if you trace the diagram lines to the Acme control, it's the same. Common to one power supply terminal, red to red, green to green. and common strip to the other power supply terminal. This doesn't represent Atlas Customline switches, anyway. Atlas Customline switches don't have any kind of switch machine. They are meant to be used with an under table or other type of machine of the modeler's choice. Doug
This thread would not be complete without a look at Acme's enduring ad that graced Model Railroader magazine pages for many years. This is from the January 1973 MR.
Wow! thanks for finding that ad, Dan. I knew I had seen it before and was meaning to look in MRs but was going to look in much earlier issues. Doug
Ah '73 was high-school years and 'round the time when mom moved away from Toms River, NJ to Florida. Well, having paid $10 for two "308"s (+ship) will let know if indeed "The Finest, Most Complete" thang ever made. Also have my eye on a $20 label maker been road-testing the 4X8 track extension which is almost ready to go!
ACME's' 8-position momentary controllers (2) arrived today and, being single pole with no separate and/or individual common ground connections, upon testing am happy to report that it works well as intended with a firm button push unlike the nambie-pam, unreliable slip-slide action that single Atlas units are prone to instead. Suppose time will tell. Having 2 (may order another) will use one for 8 turnout switching and the other will handle 16 tracks of momentary block control (ie: remember the 4-yr-old "engineer" with turntable, roundhouse, yard siding parking, reverse-loop etc .) When connected only to the reverse-loop "+" I noticed reverse track/roundhouse directional control works as normal but if on a single insulated yard/siding block then BOTH directional controls (cab & reverse) must AGREE to get power to the track-section in question . . Having not yet tested when conx to normal block power don't know if momentary reverse-loop will work at all (but suspect NOT?) Does this behavior 'ave anything tado with the newer engines having "AC" motors? I have two IDENTICAL "dcc ready" diesels ('cept for 'decals/livery') and, if on same track, they run in opposite directions is there a switch setting inside that governs that?
Actually the motors are still DC. The DCC decoder in the loco rectifies the AC to DC for the motors and the lights. If you want the loco to always run the opposite way you can change one of the CV's in the decoder to reverse it. Using something like JMRI's DecoderPro is the easy way and some throttles or Command Stations are capable of doing it. If you only want to do it when the engine is in a consist again some throttles/command stations can do that as you setup the consist. Sumner
So is it AC to track, not DC (or am I still missing something here)? Am reading your webpage VERY COOL might try it as the linked prices at bottom have either stayed steady or actually dropped . . . Is your procedure still considered "state-of-the-art"? While not "hardware" proficient your directions seem quite simple am more "software" oriented -> hehe have any here ever intercepted/modified a satellite TV signal with a smartcard reader?
All HO/N scale locomotives have DC motors, AFAIK. DC locomotives' motors get DC power directly from the rails through the wheels. The polarity of that DC voltage determines direction, and the amount of voltage on the rails determines how fast the loco will travel. DCC-equipped locomotives include a circuit board (decoder) with circuitry that receives the (AC) DCC signal through the rails from the command station. A decoder inside the DCC locomotive decodes the AC track signal to determine how fast, which direction, etc. it should travel, and sends a corresponding DC voltage to the DC motor to make that happen. "DCC-Ready" refers to a DC locomotive that has a simple circuit board for routing track power directly to the motor and lights. That simple circuit board is designed to be easily replaced with a DCC decoder designed specifically for that model or series of locomotives. These are called "drop-in" decoders. Sometimes a DCC-ready loco's original circuit board has a socket with a shorting plug installed to route the track power to the motor/lights, and you simply replace that shorting plug with a compatible DCC decoder. All that said, the DC motor power produced by the DCC decoder is actually an AC waveform with a variable "duty-cycle" (ratio of forward/reverse-polarity pulse widths) that contains the desired DC voltage and polarity (direction) for the DC motor. The DC motor simply ignores (it cannot "hear") the AC portion of the power from the decoder. DCC allows different commands (speed, lights, sounds, etc.) to be sent to different locomotives on the track, so you can run multiple locomotives on the same track, at different speeds and directions. Each DCC locomotive is programmed (configured) with an address to which only it will respond. But perhaps you were referring to modern (1:1 scale) locomotives having AC traction motors? (They used to use DC traction motors, powered by a DC generator spun by the diesel engine.) AC motor/power technology provides better control of wheel slip on the rails, thus transferring more of the available power to the rails for better efficiency and control, while also reducing wheel and rail wear.
