tortoise switch machine info needed

At 20ma (miliamps) each, (0.020 amps) 35 Tortoises will require 700ma. A 1 amp 12 vdc wallwart will be more than adequate.

Dale.

Fred E. Lux wrote:

Fred, Tortoii draw 20 ma max; 35 of them is 700 ma. I'd get a couple of 8 or 9 volt DC output wall warts - here's a source & example:

Wire them in series so the total output is around 18 volts - with a center tap. Run the 18 volts to the outside terminals of your DPDT control switches (SPST works fine here too), and the center terminal to one motor terminal (1 or 8) of each Tortoise. Next, run one wire from the other Tortoise motor terminal to the center pole of the control switch to be related to that turnout. You can put a bi-color LED (or separate red and green LEDs in anti-parallel) in series with the motor and switch if you want for an indicator.

If the 9 volts throws the Tortoise too quickly, experiment with various resistors in series with the control lead.

I am installing Tortoise motors at the club I belong to. I am using Radio Shack 1000 miliwatt 15 volt DC transformer/wall wart. I have 27 motors on one wart. I do not have any LEDs or lights attached to this, as this is a temporary set up while the computer electronics are being installed.

.......Fred

There is a couple things that you may need to know. You will need two power supplies one to provide Positive voltages and one to provide negative voltages. You can hook up the out puts of the two power supplies per the Tortoise instruction sheet. Tortoise switch motors are a stall type devise in other words the power is applied constantly so you are drawing the 20 mil amps constantly. To activate numerous turnouts in a chain to direct them you would need a diode matrix.

Hope this info is helpful.

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 16:40:24 UTC, "Jerry Barnes" wrote: 2000

You do not need two power supplies to control a tortoise although it is a perfectly acceptable solution. You can use a unipolar supply with a DPDT switch to control the direction. With two supplies you can use an SPDT switch.

You can connect a bipolar LED in series with the tortoise motor to give you the direction indication. This allows you to use a lower current supply since no extra current is required for the LED.

You might consider using DCC accessory decoders like the North Coast Engineering SWITCH-IT or the CVP's AD4. Then, you won't need any additional power supplies. It uses the "always on" power from the DCC bus (if you can afford to "lose" the 1 amp from your other DCC needs). You'll also be able to control from your DCC unit or by computer as well as by external switches. And, as someone else mentioned, you can put LEDs in series to give you position indication.

I haven't done this yet, but it's the direction I plan to go. I'm expecting that some day I'll want to have some computer control in parallel with my manual control to run the trains. This will set the stage for that.

Vince

"Fred E. Lux" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

Some stall-motor wiring options at the followng link.

Do consider less expensive and physically smaller devices - Roto-Motor, or Scale Shops - $6.66 each.