Hey all I am building my lay out at this time and I would love to have trains running by summer, ( no senery yet ) but I need help with locating RJ12 connectors and DPDT switches. Basically a good electrical supply location. Believe it or not the guy at Radio shack looked at me like I had 3 heads. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Troy
Try All Electronics. I buy my RJ12 cables there and some of the small toggle switches. Great prices and always fast on delivery. They also have good selection on wire and LED;s.
www.allelectronics.com
Bob
Life is what happens while you are making other plans!
The LEDs from All Electronics are cheap, but they are also too dim for my liking. If you look at them head on, they are OK, but from the side they are way too dim. The light doesn't fill the bulb.
The DPDT switches from Radio Shack are good, but they are expensive.
I purchase LEDs and DPDT switches from Miniatronics. The DPDT switches are inexpensive and the LEDs are great, very bright, and resistors are included in each package.
The homemade cable can be made with telephone wire, but it needs to be flipped when mounted into the plastic clip when used on DCC systems. The clip is a 6-wire clip, RJ-11 6P6C, but some systems, like NCE, only use 4-conductor wire. I use Radio Shack 26 gauge stranded 4-conductor telephone wire, a flat cable which is necessary when mounting into the RJ-11 6P6C clip. The rounded cable won't work with the clips.
Hope that helps.
Rich
Alton Junction
Try Mouser
http://www.mouser.com/?cm_mmc=google-_-ppc-_-brand&gclid=COyjwLep_aUCFULNKgod0x_UoA
Everything you will ever need for electronics. Great service, resonable prices.
Larry
http://www.youtube.com/user/ClinchValleySD40
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52481330@N05/
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/500/page/1/ppuser/8745/sl/c
Where do you live? Although most of the electronics market has indeed moved online, there are still a few brick-and-mortar places where you can go to pick up all kinds of doo-dads and widgets (technical terms) for your modeling pleasure. Maybe someone who lives nearby can recommend one.
If you go online, you'd might as well order a bunch of stuff all at once to save on shipping. I buy 100-foot rolls of #22 wire, in many different colors. Shrink tubing (for insulating connections) is important when you're installing decoders or even just doing structure lighting. I like terminal blocks for making connections beneath the layout. I buy power supplies for my lighting online, too.
EMD645 Believe it or not the guy at Radio shack looked at me like I had 3 heads.
What? You don't want to watch movies on a 3-inch screen, or drive RC giant-wheel pickup trucks as fast as they can go? Well, you do have 3 heads to Radio $hack types.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Allelectronics has whatever you need from loconet wire (6 conductor or 4 conductor) , toggle switches, barrier strips, modular telephone connectors and led's. Their web address is allelectronics.com . Their prices are much better than RS even with the cost of shipping . When I place an order it takes a week to get here to the east coast. Worth the wait.
Mouser, Digikey, and All Electronics, and you can get about anything, quickly, and at a decent price.
Jeff But it's a dry heat!
Vail and Southwestern RR Mouser, Digikey, and All Electronics, and you can get about anything, quickly, and at a decent price.
And at Miniatronics you can get the best quality.