Newbie Question about wiring Kato Unitrak Turnouts

[Anonymous]

I purchased 8 used "N" scale Kato Unitrack Turnouts. They come with the lead wires and the plug, but no switch or instructions. What voltage do these take, and can I use a Center off SPDT instead of Kato's switches which are $8 each.

Thanks, Dave

[Anonymous]

Go to the hobby shop. Switches are $6.00 at my not so local LHS. Then there's an adapter you plug em into that goes to your AC terminals on your transformer. It's all plug and play.


m

[mls1621]

Dave,

The advantage of the Kato switches is that they plug together, and the plugs are the power buss for all of the switches. The adapter, mentioned in the previous post plugs at one end of the chain and the leads that you have plug to the individual switches to control the turnouts.

The few dollars you might save by using SPDT switches will be offset by the amount of time spent wiring each one individually and then mounting them.

You have to weigh the alternatives, but I think you'd be better off going with the Kato units.

[Anonymous]

Kato switch machines are uniquely designed. If you want to replace their own switches you will need center DPDT not SPDT, with polarity reversed for throwing the switch.

Although the points made in favor of the Kato swiches are accurate as far as they go, I ended up replacing my Kato (HO) switches due to unreliability and premature failures.

[tomytuna]

Hi rails.....i've just started using Kato and i like their turnouts...but can you tell me what kind of premature failure you had?....Thanks Tom

[Anonymous]

Hi Tom, I've been travelling (its what pays for my trains), sorry for the late response. I had a sort of modular set-up for which a full-blown permanent control panel was not practical. I purchased 8 of the Kato switch controllers. 3 of them failed (i.e. stoped operating) within 100 operations. And believe me, electrics are the strong point of my model railroading. I replaced them with medium-quality DPDT center-off sprung switches that have worked as flawlessly as expected through at this point thousands of operations. I know others who have experienced multiple early failures with the Kato controllers.