Newbi questions

[Anonymous]

Greetings and salutations; I have been a railfan for many years and I just now am able to work on my first layout. A standard 4X8 in N scale. I have been using kato track as like I said I am new to all of this. However, in planning for DCC operations in the information I have gathered I have learned that with kato track switches you must set them to non powered operation. Is there a way to wire around this problem so that the switches do not have to be thrown by me getting up and going over and throwing them myself. Can I creat a seperate wired panel for this? Can anyone help in this regard. Thanks[:)]

[ereimer]

i'm not familiar with the kato turnouts specifically but i THINK you're talking about 2 seperate issues.

the part of the switch you want to be unpowered is the frog (the little area where all the rails join) this is so when the wheels go over this area you won't get electrical shorts due to the wheels touching 2 rails with different polarities .

this has nothing to do with using a switch machine to 'power' the turnout , which can be done from a remote control panel if you want

i hope this helps a bit

[egmurphy]

Here are links to a couple of posts that talked about this "power routing" option with Kato turnouts and DCC. Hope this can help clear things up:

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=-1&TOPIC_ID=30157&REPLY_ID=299492#299492

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=-1&TOPIC_ID=30218&REPLY_ID=299498#299498


Regards

Ed

[SpaceMouse]

Also, there is a DCC clinic just starting up on the other forum:

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=36389

[howmus]

Alan Gartner's site explains (in detail) almost everything there is to know about DCC and switches. I think you will find the answers to what you are looking for here: http://www.wiringfordcc.com/switches.htm

[Anonymous]

Thanks I really appreciate it