Bill Lane et al --
I prefer Blue Points, but I use Tortoises in remote locations to avoid complex
actuation linkages. I also have several GB tunout motors, which are
essentially
a small permag motor mounted on a PC board. The motor drives a sliding
contact/actuating assembly via a screw-threaded shaft. I really like these,
but
I think they are long gone from the market. Electrically, they are equivalent
to Tortoises, but were a lot cheaper.
I disagree with Brian Jackson. Blue Point and Tortiose turnout linkages are
identical. Blue Points of course require rodding to the fascia, but this is
really simple. I use .049 steel rod with a 5/8" wooden ball drilled and
super-glued onto the end of the rod. If you like, you can buy model airplane
clevises that snap right onto the Blue Point's actuation tabs. A 4-40 threaded
rod, also from the model airplane store, screws into the clevis, then a drilled
and tapped (4-40 thread) ball can be screwed onto the end of the rod that
penetrates the fascia. This is a five-minute job.
The alarming thing, for me, is the high price of these items. Blue Points can
be purchased in bulk. I get mine from Micro Mark in quantities of ten; each
costs a tad under $10 that way. You can get a similar deal on 10 Tortoises,
but
they will still cost you more than $16 each. Both of these drive the points
bar
with a wire thatr protrudes up from beneath the track into a small hole in the
throwbar. As such, both require drilling a hole between the points. As
someone
else pointed out, that means you either have to drill the hole before
installing
the turnout, or else remove the throwbar to drill the hole.
Several options are availabel for hole-drilling. Roger Nulton uses a special
bit that can drill a slot. Essentially, this bit drills a hole, then can be
pushed in a sideways milling mode. My preference had been to drill a 5/8" hole
with an old-fashioned brace and bit, but recently I have switched to two 3/8
holes that overlap to get a skinnier slot.
Actuation pressure can be varied by using different sizes of rod for the
throwbar actuator. Blue Points come with .032" steel rod, which is adequate
for a one-inch track base (e.g., 3/4" plywood plus 1/4" Homasote). Where a
turnout motor needs to be mounted under a double thickness of plywood (the
second thickness would be a splice plate), the next larger diameter wire
works. Tortoises also come with actuator rodding, but I have found that it's
too flimsy. I always replace it with .032" steel rod.
If you find you need stiffer wire or rod for any purpose, keep in mind that
the
stiffness of rod is proportional to the fourth power of the rod diameter.
Thus, a .032" wire is about two and a half times as stiff as a .025" wire of
the same material.
Mention has been made of using a simple dpdt slide switch. I used to use these
everywhere before I converted to DCC. These are really cheap and really
simple. I mounted them beneath the throw bars just like the Tortoises and Blue
Points. I drilled a hole in the tang and super-glued a .025" steel actuation
wire into it to engage the throwbar. Actuation was accomplished by
force-fitting a .049 steel rod into a hole drilled into the plastic body of the
switch. Unfortunately, these do not hold up under DCC. The reason is that the
full 5 or 10 amps provided by a DCC power supply will fry the slide switch if
you have a dead short on a turnout (where most derailments occur!). The
failure
manifests itself by converting the slide switch from "break-before-make" to
"make-before-break," which causes a short circuit every time you throw the
turnout. The momentary short is too transient to affect AC or DC powered
locos,
but a DCC system's primary directive is to protect itself. Therefore,
everything in the affected DCC power district abruptly stops, then restarts.
Those of you who know my layout are aware that my NYW&B is "mature," e.g.,
essentially no new trackage is needed or required. However, I do spend a fair
amount of maintenance time continually replacing each of the 30 or so
slide-switch turnout controllers with Blue Points and Tortoises.
As a final note, every turnout motor beneath my main terminal is an
old-fashioned twin-coil solenoid machine. I got these for about a buck apiece
at swap meets, from people who had converted to Tortoises. Most are Kemtron or
reinforced NJs. Surprisingly, I have not had any failures. But to make sure I
can get at them, my entire terminal area is built like a grand piano top --
hinged along one of the long sides and propped up in the open position with a
diagonal brace. I have had to get to them as recently as a month ago, but this
was only to adjust a failing linkage. Why twin-coil solenoids here? Because
there is not sufficient clearance for the depth of Tortoises, and there would
be
far too many control knobs for Blue Points to have been practical.
Dick Karnes
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