I am working on a new layout that requires soddering. I'm having some trouble getting information since everything seems to assume that you know what your doing.
I have several complicated switches (PRR position and B&O CPL style). They have about 10 wires coming off them. I know how to hook them up, but they need resisters. I want to put one resister on the wire coming into the block and then use it to protect the entire signal, instead of resisters on all 10 wires. Is this doable?I'm also trying to hook up some turnouts. They have a red, black and green wire. I know I need a momentary on switch, but i don't know which wire is hot, which is neutral and which is ground if there is one. (Well Iknow ground is prob green.) Also, do these turnouts need resisters?
Green is not necessarily ground. If it were 125vac house wiring, green would be ground, but that doesn't hold true for DC or low voltage AC.
When wiring a switch that has three terminals, whether it is momentary contact or not, you need to know which is the "common" connection. Don't call that "common" connection "ground". That is an incorrect term and will lead to potential shorts and/or other problems.
For DC wiring you have a "+" (positive) and a "-" (negative). You will want to feed power ("+") to the switch. The negative is the return side. Which wire hooks to which terminals depends on the type of switch and it's configuration. Use the schematic that comes with the switch to determine that.
As for the resistors, with out knowing what the schematic is for the block you describe or what the purpose is for each outgoing wire, my first thought is don't try to use one resistor for the whole thing. It probably won't work and potentially could destroy the block or more. But that is a generality. The only sure fire way of knowing what resistors you should or shouldn't use, and on which wires, is to analyze the schematic that came with the block. Be very careful of doing anything along that line until you understand what the schematic is saying.
Best of luck and I hope part of what I said helps.
Woodlandtoots
each wire controlls either 1 or 2 low voltage LED lights.
The Atlas turnouts did not come with directions.
As was said, you can use one resistor to protect multiple LEDS, but that means that if the same number of LEDs are not always lit the current can change, and may cause trouble. Ideally you'd use one resistor per LED.
As far as the Atlas switches, I can't remeber for sure, but I think the black is the common. But you can test it by just putting a momentary jolt across each pair and seeing what happens. Two pairs will do something, one won't. The two wires that don't are not the common. I hope this makes sense, it is a little late!
Jeff But it's a dry heat!
Ok
There are no blocks or anything. The layout is DCC run and all signals are manually operated by the subdivision dispatchers. (Dispatchers line up a run and each sub ends at for passenger trains a stop, for freight trains a halt (absolute stop).)
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR