22 May 2011

More Photos of Track, Turnouts and Servos

As promised here are more photos I took this morning. Few close-ups of turnout throwbars with the actuating spring wire plus shots from below the plywood of servos mounted using the Motrak Models brackets. As you can see in the first picture below I had to solder a PCB tie to the throwbar of the first turnout out of the staging yard since in that exact place there's one of the L-shaped metal girder and it would be very difficult to do the hole for the spring wire. So, I mounted the servo on the side of the turnout and used the tie to move the throwbar. Even if it's not really nice to see I'm planning to have a highway overpass there -to visually separate the section from the hidden staging- and hopefully this will help to hide this tie.

I taped the plastic ties to the foam in order not to lose them before placing under the rails

Servos and brackets fixed below the plywood

To answer a comment from Tom I have to say TVD servos and decoders along with the Motrak Model's brackets are great products. I have no experience with other methods to move turnouts so my feedback could be biased, however I found really easy to mount the servos using those brackets and programming the DCC decoder is really straightforward. In addition the new Quad Servo Decoders you can buy now from TVD are much better than one of the first version I bought one year ago. The new one features adjustable moving speed for each servo output, fascia panels with bi-color LEDs and use the same three-wire cables as the servos for easier cabling. Worth of note is the fact that each Quad Servo Decoder can drive up to six servo using the four outputs. This means, for example, you can drive two servos with one output to move two turnout at the same time. I did this on the two crossovers I have on the first layout section so I could drive all turnouts with just one and a half Quad Servo Decoder.
Overall, I think, TVD's Quad Servo Decoders with Motrak Model's mounting brackets are a really good and easy choice to drive turnouts both manually and via DCC commands.

Finally few more pictures of the first Quad Servo Decoder mounted below the plywood of the first section; the PowerCab USB interface and the AutoSwitch board to automatically switch on and off the programming track when in programming mode and one of the new Quad Servo Decoders connected to the DCC power bus.


See you soon...

4 comments:

Zardoz said...

hello,

Subject very interesting, I will install this system on my layout. It's less expensive than the tortoise and very quiet ...

greetings

pascal

Tom Conboy said...

Looking good!

Tom

Jerry said...

Thanks for the photos...I have a single TVD servo waiting for installation, but as its a completly new approach for me, I have been saving up time and patience before I take this on! Your photos help me to make the investment of time (and the absolutely drudgery of solenoids!).

Thanks!

ricky4208 said...

Jerry, happy to know this was of some help.

Thanks for your comment.