Witht he high cost of Tortoises, I've been looking into using servos, as in RC car/plane servos, to operate my turnouts. Over the weekend I noticed Tam Valley Depot was having a try-it special offer, get one Singlet decoder and servo for the price of the servo alone. So I ordered one. Saturday. It was waiting in my mail when I got home from work today. Fast service.
Naturally, I took it right upstairs so I could connect it to my Digitrax Zephyr and play. I was much impressed.
First, it came with a micro servo. My only real RC experience if with 1/8 scale RC cars some 20+ years ago. When they say 'micro' they mean micro - the longest dimension is about the diameter of a quarter. My old RC car servos look like an O scale loco next to a Z scale one. Yet it seems to have plenty of power, I think it can handle COde 83 all-rail (non-hinged points) HO turnouts. I don't have a way to actually install the servo controlling a turnout at the moment so that test will have to wait.
Programming is super easy and well explained in the instructions. To set a DCC address, you hold both buttons until the LEDs flash alternately, then whatever switch address you sned a command to next will be stored as the decoder address.
By default, the servo doesn't move very far when toggled between positions. But each endpoint is individually adustable with the buttons. THis means you don't have to precisely align things when installing the servo under the turnout. You simpyl follow the directions and asjust both endpoints such that the point rail is firmly held against the stock rail. You want to be sure the spring wire or whatever you use for a linkage has enough give in it that the servo can complete its travel. They are not stall motors, and they do not like to be stalled part way through a cycle - then can overheat, or overheat the controller board. You can also adjust how fast the servo moves - from an "any day now" crawl to almost as fast as a snap-action switch motor
The control unit contains 2 yellow LEDs which indicate turnout position, as well as two nice quality pushbuttons for manual operation and programming. There are also two solder pads which allow you to attach any number of normally-open pushbuttons in parallel for control from multiple locations. The pushbuttons act as a toggle, slipping the servo between the two positions. You can also use a single toggle switch, even an SPST will work, but only one toggle can be used.
If you don't want to DCC control your turnouts, you can connect a 9-12V AC or DC supply to the Singlet and use the pushbuttons, although the Octopus driver would probably be more cost-effective.
Besides the various products and manuals, there are also videos showing the programming on the Tam Valley web site at http://www.tamvalleydepot.com/home.html
Note: I have no connection to Tam Valley other than an impressed customer.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I ordered the Singlet & a servo a couple of days ago. I didn't realize it already comes with a servo. That makes it an even better deal than I thought. I've been considering ordering a servo decoder for a couple of months now and this is a great deal to try it out.
For those who haven't checked it out, you can order one Singlet DCC Servo Decoder from Tam Valley Depot for $4.50 + shipping.
Greg Amer
The Industrial Lead
I got my Singlet Servo Decoder and had it installed and running in less than 10 minutes. I mounted it with double sided foam tape. I powered it with a feed to the DCC track bus.
It made quite a bit of buzz when I first installed it, but I figured out that I only had to adjust the servo throw range. It's a nice little unit. I'll probably buy a quad servo decoder for standard installations, because I don't really need to have the buttons and leds that are featured on the Singlet.
I posted a short video of my install.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBrAD2iFj38