Snap switch booster

[Anonymous]

Been out of the hobby for 10 yrs, at present I am building a 15X24 layout in the basement, memory is coming back on a lot of things. What I cant seem to find is a booster for the snap switches I am going to use in the yards. I seem to recall the ones I had before were made by BK Enterpreses. But cant find them or anybody else that has boosters. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks Carl ([e-mail])

[rrinker]

Circuitron has one, called 'The Snapper"

[cacole]

You're looking for a capacitive discharge circuit. If you use Google to search under the term 'model railroad electronics' you can find several inexpensive do-it-yourself circuits that use commonly available components, or companies that sell assembled units.

[challenger3802]

If you fancy building your own CDU - which is easily completed in one afternoon (I know I did one last weekend!) - this site has a circuit with readily available parts and works first time (at least mine did).

http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/CDPSU.html

Ian

[rrinker]

I built one years ago to use with an N scale layout I had. It came from the Kalmbach "Practical Electronic Projects for Model Railroaders" book, but essentially it was the same as the one on Rob's site under "Current blocking type ", the top schematic.

These types of circuits are GREAT for first-time electronic projects, as the components used are fairly robust and not too easily destroyed by ham-handed soldering. Plus they are extremely useful once built.

I wholeheartedly recommend using Rob's circuits, he does a good job of designing these things. I'm using his Tortoise control circuit with 556 timers on my layout, and when I get around to doing signals I will use his PT-5 occupancy detectors as well.

--Randy

[jkeaton]

Peter J. Thorne's book also has a couple of excellent, easy to build circuits for switch machine power supplies.

Jim

[ldc2]

Most of the DCC accessory controllers (I'm thinking of NCE's "Snap-It") INCLUDE a capacitive booster built in especially designed for Snap-switches. They also have another version for Tortoises.

Larry

[Anonymous]

I just hooked up my Circuitron Snapper to my Atlas UTT machines. Works great, and has the added advantage of not recharging the circuit until the switch is released, so you can't accidentally burn out the machines if you have a heavy thumb.

[edstrains02]

Help. Does anyone know if and how well the Circuitron Snapper works with Rix switches. I am running DCC but plan to power my switches of a seperate power pack. thanks....

[rrinker]

No reason why not, the Rix machines are twin-coil type.

--Randy