Barrett Hill Touch Toggles and Direct Base System

[rrinker]

pustays

Randy,

I have to admit that the electrical systems are the weakest areas of my model railroading experience and have a tendency to solve problems by simply mimicing the work or illustrations of others and sometimes by brute force effort until I find a solution.

The picture below shows how I wired the signals on my previous layout.  That fourth wire is the lead going back to a power supply.  Are positions 2-7 powered by the direct base power supply or do I need a separate power supply to power the lamps?  My signals have a green lead, a red lead and a white which I've always assumed is the common.  Do I need to connect a 2nd power supply that will be used to power the signals and switches that is separate from the Berett Hill power supply?

Thanks,

 

Steve 

 

 Picture didn't post, but you would wire them EXACTLY the same. You could replace your two wires from the toggle switch with the two wires from the Direct Base and be done. Don't overthink things. 

 Pins 2-7 on the Tortoise are simply switch contacts, there is no power.

                  --Randy

 

[Dannyboy6]

I made a mock up of one iteration for our NMRA Division meetings, but I was only trying to light a green or red SMD for a (homemade) siding dwarf (both in the same signal head). I wired the touch toggle and red/green SMDs to 4 & 5 on the tortoise, works fine to power the switch machine and the SMDs. I have not tried to wire a RYG signal yet.

[pustays]

Randy,

I have to admit that the electrical systems are the weakest areas of my model railroading experience and have a tendency to solve problems by simply mimicing the work or illustrations of others and sometimes by brute force effort until I find a solution.

The picture below shows how I wired the signals on my previous layout.  That fourth wire is the lead going back to a power supply.  Are positions 2-7 powered by the direct base power supply or do I need a separate power supply to power the lamps?  My signals have a green lead, a red lead and a white which I've always assumed is the common.  Do I need to connect a 2nd power supply that will be used to power the signals and switches that is separate from the Berett Hill power supply?

Thanks,

 

Steve 

[R2Rod]

I use Barrett Hill Touch Toggles and Direct Base System on a portion of my layout and I use bipolar LEDs for signals. They are wired in series with the wire going to pin one on the Tortoise.

[rrinker]

 I don;t see why the additional contacts on the Tortoise would work any differently. The Direct base connects to pins 1 and 8 on the Tortoise to drive the motor and there's no other connections to pins 2-3-4 or 5-6-7 for the SPDT contacts, leaving them free for frog power and/or signals. Though your description of how you previously wired them seems to leave out a wire - if you hook the signals to pins 6 and 7, and a power supply common to pin 5, there's another side of the power supply that has to go to the common side of the signals, otherwise it would never work regardless of how you activated the Tortoise motor.

                           --Randy

 

[pustays]

I've recently purchased and begun the installation of Barrett Hill Touch Toggles and Direct Base System for my layout (reviewed in the Nov. issue of Model Railroader) .

The installation of the touch toggles and connection to my Tortoise slow motion is really easy and requires so much less work than using traditional DPDT switches to control the turnouts.

My question is how to connect and control signal lamps using the system.  In the past I've connected signal leads to position 6 and 7 on the tortoise and then led a lead a common from position 5 back to a power supply dedicated specifically for signals on my layout.  That same setup does not seem to work here.

Any ideas would be helpful.  I'd love to hear from anyone else using the Touch Toggles and Base system.

Thanks