This method will also work if you use a flexible radio-control cable when you can't position the toggle perpendicular to the turnout. It's a clever technique that Phil Brooks figured out. You can add another bead or use a smaller bead. Then adjust the throw so the points will rest snugly against the rail when the toggle is moved. In this way you center the rails with the DPDT in the center-off position. The purpose of the bead is to adjust for the amount of throw needed. Here you see the end of the rod where it connects to the vertical spring wire that runs from the turnout down through a brass tube. The author, Phil Brooks, called his method TATeR: Toggle Actuated Turnout Rig. A 3rd experiment in manual turnout controlĪn article in the Jan-Feb 2009 issue of N Scale Railroading inspired Bill Payne to try the author's approach. We also thought the small handles on the slide switches could be disguised in the scenery by surrounding them with Woodland Scenics ground cover clumps or we could conceal them in battery boxes that could be lifted up when it was necessary to use the turnout. The important thing is that we now know it works. We'll refine the method when we install the turnouts. We drilled a #56 hole and probably could have made the hole slightly smaller. There is also some leeway in the size of wire and the size of the hole that is drilled. As we are building the HO turnouts by hand, it would be possible to narrow the gap slightly if we needed to in order to ensure the points firmly engage against each rail. Our experiments were restricted to HO gauge track. S and O scale might work with larger slide switches, but we did not try to do this. An N gauge turnout would probably need a "Z" bend in a springier wire. We found that there is just enough throw to move the points from one rail to the other on an HO scale turnout. We had to gouge a small channel in the pine beneath the wire to allow free movement. We drilled a small hole sideways through the actuating lever and bent a length of fairly stiff brass wire to go from the lever to the throwbar. The main purpose of this experiment was to see if there was enough throw in the micro switch. As there is only one set of contacts you could choose to use them to power the turnout frog or to power a relay. It could be slightly oversize to allow final positioning of the micro switch installed in its own Twist Ties plate (or a piece of styrene). In practice, a hole would be drilled beside the turnout's throw bar that was large enough to clear the contacts.
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