I recently was given a Peco 3 way turnout, and its such a great piece of track, I really want to use it, but I have a couple of problems. See this pic of it : now, if if both bars are thrown left, trains go right. bar 1 is right and bar 2 is left, trains go straight, both bars right, trains go left. Simple enough.... The problem happens when, if both bars are thrown right, and I then throw bar 1 left it FORCES bar 2 left as well. While this is a manual throw switch, thats no big deal... I can use little pop ups or a signal to indicate direction easily enough. If I motorise them, however, how would I get the switch motors to reflect that 'forced' position? I can see one of 2 situations... the motor on bar 2 will prevent bar one being thrown left (or leave it 'hanging' mid throw somewhere), of it will force over ok, but the motor will assume the bar to be thrown right, when in fact, its left...... Any clues on how I could motorise this?
Roger - Since they are on separate motors, if you use the Peco ones, throwing bar 1 will take both tracks across. You HAVE to use individually switched (pushbutton/electric pencil) motors - not tortoise or slomo ones, and since the point motor doesn't have a memory so it will operate normally next time. The fun is in WIRING live/electo-frog versions. If yours is an insul/dead-frog version you are fine, I have photos of how to wire live/electro for manual switching. BTW live frogs have two wire trailing out from below. Shortliner(Jack) away up here in the Highlands
Roger - fire me a direct email to Chacmool at lineone dot net and I'll fire you back 2 pictures - a pic is worth a 1000 words so that'll be 2000 I haven't had to type <BG> Jack
