DPDT switches on Tortoise

[relation]

How are you railroaders useing the auxillary switches on your tortoises? I have several tortoises and I'm not useing them at all but beings that they are there I should be useing them for something but I'm not real good with electric things so if you guys could give me some ideas and maybe some drawings for the simple guys like me on how to wire them for panel lights or signals etc.

[TBat55]

For panel lights, just put lights in series with the motor leads. Torti (?) are always powered and don't need much current. I also like the way the control panel lights come on as the motor runs.
I use the aux switches for power routing to the frog. The DPDTs make contact AFTER the point rails move, not BEFORE, to prevent short circuits.
I think I may need the aux sw for signals, but block occupancy detectors are separate.

[cwclark]

although Tortoise machines are excellent under the table turnout machines, their built in DP/DT switch is unreliable...I don't use them at all ..they have a wiper to make or break the switch and if it gets too loose, then the circuit won't work and you just did a lot of wiring in vein...your best bet is to put in train detection circuits on a separate power source...there is a way you can fix the problem by going into the machine and rotating the screw but opening up the machine voids the warranty ...a thing I don't like to do...at $12-$17 a piece, I like the warrenty to remain in effect for the entire duration...Chuck

[Anonymous]

I have almost 100 Tortise machines in use and have found they're very reliable. I use the contacts for a variety of things including frog power and turnout direction signal lights. Another member of my operating group has over 125 in use with no problems. Far as I'm concerned, Tortise is a good, reliable, albeit a bit expensive (good deals can be found if you shop around), switch machine.

[rrinker]

One pole of the switch I use to power the frogs of my turnouts. The other pole will eventually feed position information to my signal and control system. For panel indicators I just put LEDs in series with the motor, at 12V power, the resistance of the Tortoise motor limits the LED current to a nice safe 10-12ma with no additional resistors required.

--Randy