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Using lights to show polarity on track blocks

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  • Member since
    February 2007
  • From: Christiana, TN
  • 2,134 posts
Posted by CSX Robert on Monday, September 20, 2021 4:40 PM

Ablebakercharlie
The best and easiest solution is to use a bi-color LED.   I have 12v bi-color LED's and I can solder them right in and be good to go.   It really is the most elegant solution and I am being silly for not accepting it as such.

Just remember that green does not mean go!

  • Member since
    March 2021
  • From: Vermont
  • 135 posts
Posted by Ablebakercharlie on Monday, September 20, 2021 4:43 PM

CSX Robert

 

 
 

 

Just remember that green does not mean go!

 

 

Laugh

  • Member since
    September 2004
  • From: Dearborn Station
  • 24,281 posts
Posted by richhotrain on Monday, September 20, 2021 5:30 PM

Ablebakercharlie
 
Thank you Mel and CSX Robert,

Yes, polarity mismatch would have been a mutch better title for my question.  

If I was more experienced I probably would have used that title.  But if I was more experienced I probably wouldn't have asked the question in the first place.

The easiest solution is to use a bi-color LED as I have 12v bi-color LED's and I can solder them right in and be good to go.   Maybe I am being silly for not originally being happy with accepting two different colors to mean the same thing.  I still have to decide if that is going to annoy me if I put them on the control panel.

The most elegant is surely Mel's and he has suggested to me a way to go about that.  

But I had to ask it there was another solution.    It would have gnawed at me if I didn't.  

Hopefully we can put this thread to rest.  I am a satisfied customer. 

Charles, thanks for bringing this issue back to the forum so that everyone who is interested can benefit from the discussion. Glad to hear that you are satisfied with the results.

Rich

Alton Junction

  • Member since
    January 2017
  • From: Southern Florida Gulf Coast
  • 18,255 posts
Posted by SeeYou190 on Monday, September 20, 2021 6:25 PM

richhotrain
I have followed this thread with interest, but I have not contributed since I am not a DC guy. So, when I saw your PM comment, I was disappointed that a solution to your issue might not become public. I do understand how you felt about the nature of the responses that you were getting.

I am a DC guy, and I am staying out of this one.

-Kevin

Living the dream.

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Monday, September 20, 2021 8:42 PM

CSX Robert
Just remember that green does not mean go!

It doesn't in piping, either -- green means open, red closed, without any regard for whether the valve is normally closed or normally open.

This came up as an issue in the wake of Three Mile Island where the semantics of emergency response were confused.  One response in ITU group R10 was to provide repeaters for the remote valves that displayed 'correct' position as red and green (or yellow for transition) with blink modulation for more information, independent of the flow circuit meaning.  Note that all the aspects were achievable with one bicolor LED per valve...

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