It's the one with contacts for frog power routing. I bought one several years ago and never opened it. I thought it was too complicated and looked fragile. I presumed it wouldn't work well or at least wouldn't last. I was completely wrong. My latest layout is circa 1905 with lots of little 4-4-0's and an NCE DCC system. I experienced lots of stalling on the frogs when unpowered so I bit the bullet and finally installed a 220S. It takes considerably longer to install than a 202S, but realistically is less than 30 minutes. The result is clearly worth the trouble. All my frogs (Walthers Cd83 turnouts) are now powered and I have yet to have a loco stall on a frog. - Bill
http://cwhowell2.com/modelrr/modelrr.htm
IIRC, Caboose Industries redesigned the contacts in the last year or two. The older design was reported to be somewhat fragile, especially the contact portion.
I bought one 202S and one 220S to experiment with, and to see how they compared against other means of throwing turnouts on my test layout. I've yet to install them, but I've got a couple of Atlas, Rix, and NJ International switch machines, as well as a Tortoise and Blue Point as comparisons.
I totally agree with power frogs - but then I model 1900. I enjoyed the link to your web site.
Fred W
....modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it's always 1900....
I have several of the "new and improved" 220S and they are still a real pain to assemble and get to working properly. Surely there has to be a better way.
cacole I have several of the "new and improved" 220S and they are still a real pain to assemble and get to working properly. Surely there has to be a better way.
I learned a couple "tricks" along the way. Contact probes must be scraped (cleaned) and tinned before soldering leads - which should be done before assembly. Marking holes for pre-drilling was a pain for me since pencil marks would not show up in my cork road bed. So I put the throw in place, centered everything and pushed an Atlas track nail into the cork. Then carefully lift the device off the nail, and mark the spot with a Sharpie. Then I drilled the 3/8" hole for the contact assembly. Next I did the same thing with the two mounting holes which I pre-drilled to accept #1x 1/2" screws. After pre-drilling the screw holes, I added 2 screws about halfway down because the cork has a tendancy to heal itself. Then I assembled the contact shim and glued the holder down with liquid plastic cement. Allow to dry overnight and assemble the contact probes. This was the biggest pain. Feeding the wires down through and using a small screwdriver to "click" the tab bracket in place. Then the rest is easy. Oh I forgot, if you are using Atlas or Walthers turnouts, you will want to glue the shim plate on the bottom first and let that dry overnight. The adapter tips are tough to snap in but I found that if you get it started, then use the flat side of a pair of pliers (or other tool), while resting the other end of the throw against something solid (my layout), it will snap in with no trouble. You may also have to trim the pin a bit to keep it from digging it to your roadbed. Lots of work, but definitly worth the trouble. - Bill
Any chance you can put some hand drawings or pics to show sequence of assembly? I bought 9 but I have been scratching my head on this now for 2 months.
Thank you.
David