Lionel Dwarf Signal with fastrack

[CBT]

I need some help, I may buy the Lionel #148 Dwarf Signal, but i need to know if I can use it with Lione Fastrack. And, if I can, how i will wire it?

           Thanks,

                  Chris

                    

[8ntruck]

Yup.  You can use it with Fastrack. 

One way to wire it up would be to use a SPDT relay and a Fastrack accessory activation track.  There are probably other methods as well, but this is the one that popped to my mind first.

The accessory activation track has one of the outside rails insulated from the other. 

For your dwarf signal, you would run power to the common connection of the SPDT relay, then the green light to the normaly closed contact and the red light to the normally open conatct.  The ground of the dwarf signal would go to the non-insulated rail.  Then, you would run power to the relay coil, the other side of the relay coil to the insluated rail on the accessory activation track.

It works like this - with no train the power goes throught the normally closed contact, through the green light, lighting it, then to ground.  When the train is on the accessory activation track, the wheels and axles will act as a switch, energizing the relay, which opens the normally closed contact,making the green light go out, and closing the normally open contact, lighting the red light.

You might check on line to see if somebody has posted the instructions for a dwarf signal.  The newer ones should come with instructions on how to wire them to Fastrack.

Good luck.

[CBT]

Well, didn't expect that much information. Thank you very much and I have my answer. 

  Thanks

     Chris

[lionelsoni]

There is a simpler way to do it, that doesn't need the relay.  You can operate the signal directly from the insulated control rail:

Connect both of the signal's white wires to the control rail.  Connect the green lamp's red wire to the outside rails other than the control rail.  Connect the red lamp's red wire to the center rail, or to an accessory voltage if you like.  Finally, connect another lamp in parallel with the red lamp.  Use a lamp large enough (or enough smaller lamps) so that the red signal is dark when there is no train on the control rail.  Hide this lamp somewhere (under the layout?).

The red lamp is on and the green lamp is off when the train is on the control rail.  Otherwise, both lamps are lit dimly in series.  So the extra lamp wired in parallel with the red lamp drops its voltage almost to nothing, dimming it out and brightening the green.  This circuit was described at least 70 years ago by Albert Kalmbach (of Kalmbach Publishing fame), but using a resistor.  A lamp works better, because, when the signal is red, it draws much less current than a suitable resistor does.