DCC turnouts

[Allegheny2-6-6-6]

In my O/P unless your big into operations and have a good sized operating crew with a CTC machine then controlling your turnouts via you cab control is the only way to go for several reasons. The biggest being simplifying your wiring you run your two bus wires and power your stationary decoders, switch machine, and signal off switch machine. I am also building a new pike which is considerably larger then the old one If you want an indicator LED mounted on the facia thats no problem either. If you run Tortoise swm's you can use the "Hare" and run up to four machines off one decoder. I have about 2 dozen or more Tortoise swm's and I also run what I have found to be a great piece of Engineering. Cypress Engineering's "The Flea" It is a switch machine, turnout and stationary decoder all in one unit and the best part of which you don't need to run anything other then the wires through the roadbed. Everything is miniature and mounts above the table not below and it is easily hidden by ballast etc. They are a bit pricey but as I have stated in other posts when you add up the component prices and factor in the aggravation cost of working under the bench work to install the typical under table swm they are a very good buy. While planning my new layout I already new what and how many turnouts I wanted to run so I would purchase two per week sometime every other week until I got what I needed so as not to take one big hit on my wallet.

Just what you save in wiring and the cost of spdt toggle switches will amaze you. I too run trains alone or with one or maybe two other guys occasionally so controlling as much as possible from the cab make good sense.

[Texas Zepher]

JonMN

I am interested in the DCC turnouts but they are a little more money then I want to spend right now.

Why? see comments to your own comments below.   This thread has some interesting discussion concerning this topic http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/146852.aspx

 Is there a specific turnout made that can be manually switched for now then be able to add the decoder and motor at a later time?

Any turnout can have a DCC control added at a later time.

Next question is, does it make sense to add a panel near the yards with the toggle/push switches? It almost seems to complicated to run that many turnouts from a cab as well as operating the locos at the same time.

Exactly, why does one want to complicate the simple action of flipping a switch to control a turnout with all the falderall of calling up channels on a cab?  The only reason I could see is if there was some major layout-wide routing that was being accomplished, so that the calling up the one route channel re-aligns every turnout simultaniously.  Even then I might put the control of those routes on a computer or panel somewhere rather than wasting my good train controller to do it.

[WSOR 3801]

 Most all turnouts can be turned manually.  The motors and decoders are an add-on option.  For code 83, I would try out the Atlas turnouts.  They are made in nos. 4 (actually 4.5), 6 and 8.  The switch machine is added separately.  The Atlas code 83 switch machine is fairly small, and has a handle on it to manually turn it.  Many accessory decoders will handle turning these. Could also use other machines/motors or ground throws to control these.

I am not sure if you can run the switches from a panel as well as a DCC system.  Haven't felt the need to do that yet.  I think you would need to run the panel switches through the decoder, then out to the switch, otherwise the decoder might get confused as to how the switch is at any given time.  

Most switches in 1:1 scale are hand-thrown.  Many of the power ones are controlled by the dispatcher, with a hand-throw option at each.  Some power ones can be toned up on the radio, which would be like dialing one up on the DCC system,  but there are not that many of these.  All of these still have a hand-throw option, in case something goes wrong.

[nik_n_dad]

 We're trying to get started on building our next (bigger) n-scale layout.  I've been wrestling and thinking about the same topic.

 Our layout is going to be an around-the walls layout with an operating pit and a duckunder to get to it.  It's built in sections so that a) we can get it into (and out of) the basement, and b) so someday when we move, we can extend parts of it.

I've been thinking about how many control panels we'd need- for example, we might want a separate one for the yard, and one for "over there", etc.

We're going to be building the layout with atlas track and will use tortoise motors.  I was planning on building multiple control panels, but after yesterday's discussions at the LHS and here on the site, we're going to add DCC decoders for some (or all) of the turnouts.

We don't have DCC yet- just bought the setup yesterday, so it will be a while until we get to try it.  But the ability to setup routing on the DCC cab seems very cool.  Instead of setting a bunch of turnouts to get to "track 3" in the yard, or to get from an industry to a city, we would have the ability to build routes.  That seemed pretty cool.

 
Just our naieve, mis-informed 2-cents.
 

[JonMN]

I have just started my layout and have a question. I am interested in the DCC turnouts but they are a little more money then I want to spend right now. Is there a specific turnout made that can be manually switched for now then be able to add the decoder and motor at a later time? I plan to use #6s on the main and #4s in the yards, code 83 all around. Next question is, does it make sense to add a panel near the yards with the toggle/push switches? It almost seems to complicated to run that many turnouts from a cab as well as operating the locos at the same time.

Thanks

Jon