Where did Duncan want you to put the snubbers? Was the Octo powered off the local track bus or did you have a seperate power supply?
My stuff all ran off the track output of my Zephyr, which was the command station. Track power came from a booster configured DB150, so no way was any interference on the track bus getting into the servo controls. The pictures I posted were at the back wall of the room, I just had those two jumpered together and a wire stretched down to the floor where the Zephyr was. Later on after I finished the yard on the leg of the layotu to the left of that section, I put in some fascia and connected up a bunch more. At that point I ran an actual power bus along behind the fascia to supply power and DCC to 4 more along that side. Which is about as far as I got until ripping it all down to move, mainly because every time I went in the train room, I was running trains rather than working on the construction.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Used Tortoises do come up on eBay periodically if you are patient. I have acquired more than 30 for well under $10.00 each. Most of them have a jumble of clipped wires hanging off of the contacts but that just takes a few minutes with a soldering iron to correct. Here is one current listing:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Circuitron-800-6000-Tortoise-Slow-Motion-Switch-Machines-10-EX-/291340350270?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item43d53cf33e
Interesting point made by David Bedard re servos.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Quote from the Octo III (current version) manual:
Note: When considering where to mount the board it is better to have long servo
leads than long control leads due to noise issues. Also do not bundle control wires
together - keep them separated by a 1/4” or more to avoid crosstalk
The 90 degree thing is, well, not exactly common knowledge, but common knowledge for anyone who understands electricty and electronics. Especially where one signal is relatively strong and the other is relatively weak, such as this case, running wires parallel is just asking for the strong source to induce enough voltage into the lower power signal to overwhelm or corrupt it. Cross at 90 degrees minimizes induced currents. Same precaustions should be taken crossing detection lines and the DCC bus, although many of the remote transformer detectors like RR-CirKits use twisted pair wire from the transformer back to the detector, which helps a lot with crosstalk. Still wouldn;t bundle it along the DCC power bus though.
Have not had any issues at all with mine. But then there is a caution in the instructions - if you have to make something longer, by using extension cords or just longer server cords, you have a choice - longer cable to the fascia buttons, or longer cable to the servo. Always extend the servo side, not the control side. ANd of course cross high current wires at as close to 90 degrees as possible, do not run parallel. Standard mixed signal wiring practices, same should be done with signal and detection wires vs the DCC bus.
I'm going to have to go with servos as well.
I used Tortoise's for my present layout before servos came out. On the N scale layout at our club, we have decided to use servos. They are cheaper per tunout and are easy to align remotely with the remote aligner board. We started with a singlett to see how things worked, then went with one Quad LN, then the Octo III. The pre-made cables make the wiring much easier. You can get the micro 9G servos off eBay for around $2.50 each. Cables in different lengths are available as well. We also got a servo tester too. Very handy. We are probably going to continue using the Octo III's because DCC control can be added to them later. There are several different ways to wire up the control switches, with or without LEDs, however, you will have to search the diagrams out on the Tam Valley web site in all of their servo control board documents. But all of their manuals are available for downloading on line.
The following link shows an alternate method of mounting and connecting the servo to a turnout. This is what our club is using.
http://waynes-trains.com/site/NeatStuff/ServoMounting/ServoLink.html
By the way, you need to center the servos electricaly before mounting them to the layout. They generally don't come centered, so you don't really know the position they are at.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
Maybe if you can find used Tortoises. Even at the current 12 pack price, the price per turnout is significantly more than the Octopus controller, the buttons with lights, and the relays that give you the same contacts. Best price I could find for 12 packs, which seems to be a good $20 less than everyone else, which is suspicious, but I'll go with it, makes it $13.40 per Tortoise. Buying the servos from Tam Valley along with the electronics makes it $12.95 per turnout. If I look for a cheaper source of servos, it comes down to $11.87 per turnout. The servos are TINY, a fraction of the size of a Tortoise - you could even have one in the ceiling of one of your stations and not see it, to control track above.
And plenty robust - servos are made for fighting the forces of a plane or helicopter in flight. Moving HO scale points, with practucally no resistence to motion, and only the slight vibration of a train rolling overhead, is like nothing.
LIONS are CHEAP. They do not spend a penny more than what is needed. The zookeeper is a great fellow, he brings tasty wildebeests every day, but money for the layout, yes, I can get some, but not a whole heck of alot.
STILL: Go with the Tortoise! It is worth the money. It is one of the places where you cannot go cheaply on your layout. Tortoi are so forgiving on wiring and installation that they more than make up the extra cost of the device.
HERE is how to wire Tortoise machines.
With the extra contacts on the Tortoise, you will save money on extra relays and wiring needs.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
What you want is a ready to use option, like something from Tam Valley
http://www.tamvalleydepot.com/home.html
Servos need a circuit to drive them. TVD has several options, depends on what you want to do. I have many of the Singlets - I buy just the basic controller, the servos I get on eBay, but for your first one you might want to just get it all packaged together. The Singlet costs the same as a Tortoise but that's INCLUDING the pushbuttons, LEDs, and a DCC decoder. If you don;t need DCC control, the Octopus is probably what you want, much cheaper per turnout (especially once you get the servos from ebay at less than $3 each), and it can use toggles or pushbuttons. Hookup instructions can be viewed on the site and come with each unit. There's nothing to it, really - there is power in to the unit, two wires from a power supply, and the servo just plugs in, it has a 3 wire cable with a plug on the end. There's no soldering required. All my Signlets except the first one actually were the 'kits' - to assemble these you need to attach the two pushbuttons and the two LEDs, which takes me a whole 5 minutes and saves a couple of bucks for each one. There are also quantity discounts - so I would buy one to experiment with and if you decide this is the way to go, buy a bunch at a time for the discount.
If you look at the Singlet, or the pushbutton fascia controllers for the Octopus, you'll see they have LEDs, which are actually bicolor LEDs and can be set to display however you want - green for the selected route and red for the opposite route, green for the selected route and off for the other, yellow for the selected route and off for the other - any combination.
Here you can see how I made a temporary fascia panel for two of them on my previous layout, and drew the track schematic lined up with the LEDs. I had them set to green indicating the selected route and red indicating the blocked route. The screw in the middle mounts the unit, and on the opposite side you can see the black tips of the pushbuttons. On a solid piece of fascia like masonite it will be a lot nicer - this is just a scrap of cardboard I tore off the nearest box!
and here's all there is to the wiring. The red and white wires connected to the blue terminals are the power feeds to the Singlet units. The black, red, adn white cables are the servo connections.
(not associated with Tam Valley other than as a very satisified customer)
Edit: the 10 and 11 written above each control is the DCC address I gave them
I'm trying to get a handle on the electronics and wiring for a layout.
It seems that using servos motors may be a more economical way to go vs. using tortoise motors for switches.
Before starting a layout I would like to get a clearer understanding of electronics on a layout, It is my intent to buy a turnout, servo motor, leds' and some sort of DPDT/SPST switch and experiment with these before trying them on a layout.
Is there a schematic that would grapically show me how to wire a servo to leds which would indicate green for mainline and red for siding in combination with a single switch of some sort? It could be a single green/red led or two separate ones.
Thanks you for your help