A Slow Turtle
by admin on Mar.14, 2009, under Bench Work
Yes, I am using Tortoise switch machines by Circuitron to control my turnouts. I was somewhat worried that I would have trouble getting them to work through 3.75″ of stuff on top of my benchwork (3/4″ plywood, and 3″ of foam sheathing). But, they work great. It just takes a little more time to adjust them properly and you might want to consider using .039 control wire. Besides, the .025 wire that comes with the Tortoise switch machine is way to short for my application anyway.
Here you can see a couple of the tortoise switch machines mounted below the benchwork. In this yard I have been working on, there are 11 turnouts and a matching number of switch machines. It took me a few days to get these all installed and working, but I should have years of trouble free operation. These things are rock solid.
Now, controlling these from DCC becomes a whole other issue. There are several choices to make and in a future post I will detail how I am going to do it.
