traffic lights

[MisterBeasley]

I use the Walthers controller with the Walthers lights.  The controller is on sale right now at Walthers.  Save 12 bucks!

What kind of traffic lights are you using?  After buying the Walthers ones, I bought a controller (FK148) from Bakatronics.  The Walthers traffic lights bring down 4 wires for each face on the single-face and double-face lights, and I'd assume just two sets of wires for the 4-face model.  So, there's one for each color and a single common wire for the face.  These are LEDs, so polarity is important, and that's why the Bakatronics unit didn't work for me.  Their circuit uses a common cathode, and the Walthers lights are common anode, so they wouldn't work together.  So, I bought the Walthers controller, and I'm very happy with it.

The Walthers controller is advertised to run 2 intersections, which I interpret as 8 faces.  On my layout, the traffic lights control 3-way intersections, not 4, so I've got 3 intersections running for a total of 9 faces.  So far, so good, but if I were to add another controlled intersection I'd need another unit.

[dano99a]

If your using DCC, namely Digitrax, and have an older computer laying around that you don't use you can get the components needed to change the lights based on block occupancy . It takes the following:

Digitrax BD4 or BDL16 (occupancy detectors, 4 blocks or 16)

Digitrax SEC8 (Signal decoders, this is what drives and powers the lights)

Digitrax PR3 (USB interface for your PC)

Layout software like JMRI for a mac, I know there are PC versions out there too. (This provides the logic behind when to change the luights to red/yellow/green based on occupancy)

It's not cheap to do, I will be honest, but if you can afford it and have the time to connect it all up, it totally automates it so all you have to do from there is just focus on running your trains..  :)

[hobo9941]

I have the Walthers traffic light controller, and it's pretty neat. It cycles the lights, just like the real thing. There is even the short pause, where the lights are red both ways for a second, before it turns green for the other direction.

[cacole]

I use a traffic light controller from a Vellmann kit, made in Belgium and sold by All Electronics as their catalog number MK-131, priced at $9.00 each.

I simply traced the wiring and soldered leads to the board instead of the kit's 5mm LEDs.

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/MK-131/TRAFFIC-LED-LIGHT-KIT/1.html

[gandydancer19]

Walthers makes a traffic light controller.

[wirta1]

i was installing some traffic lights on my layout and was wondering if there is some device that would change the lights automatically so i would not have to change them by hand.