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turnouts

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  • Member since
    July 2006
  • 3,312 posts
Posted by locoi1sa on Monday, September 14, 2009 3:06 PM

 Best two links on the WWW.

http://www.wiringfordcc.com/switches.htm

 http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/nswmn2/DCC.htm

     Read and enjoy.

       Pete

 I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!

 I started with nothing and still have most of it left!

  • Member since
    February 2005
  • From: Vancouver Island, BC
  • 23,330 posts
Posted by selector on Monday, September 14, 2009 2:14 PM

If the wires are kept to the same rails, and you have a switch to throw in a gapped section of rails, and all of the rails are powered via a DCC system, you will have no problems.  The decoders don't care about polarity, just shorts.

The trick is to make sure your switch is wired correctly to an electrically isolated section of rails, and that no metal wheels are bridging either of the gaps that isolate the section you wish to reverse when throwing the switch.

If you have no gapped tracks, then you don't really need the switch.

What are you going to do with the reversing switch?

Are you meaning a railroad switch....to turn trains onto another track, or do you mean an electrical switch?  We use the term "turnout" for the device that routes trains onto another track.

-Crandell

  • Member since
    November 2007
  • 36 posts
turnouts
Posted by eneg on Monday, September 14, 2009 2:04 PM

 i use dcc control.my question: if i wire all the track on my layout with the same polerity, will throwing

the switch change the polearity,and cause a short. i have read about insulated or non insulated turnouts

i dont know the difference. how do i tell the difference

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