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Fast Tracks • View topic - Double Crossover wiring

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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 12:16 pm 
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Is it possible to do it this way?

Using four tortioses, the tortoises would be wired so the route choices would be straight, or crossover. All from one toggle.

The center x would be isolated from all turnouts with gaps and wired to a auto reverse.

Wouldn't that be simpler?

Rob


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PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2008 11:44 pm 
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Electrially speaking, that should be possible. There may also need to be more insulation breaks than the ones you suggested. Possibly between the heels of all four turnouts.

John.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 9:50 am 
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Hey guys,

I'm wiring up one of these beasts using 12 V DC power supply. I have my little relay, however I am unsure as to how the contacts on it are to be wired up. Could someone point me to a diagram to show or at least give me a hint? It has eight prongs on it. Two are sort of separate from the rest. The other six are in two rows three aside.

Like this....

So I'm guessing that,

X X <---these guys are the internal DPDT switches right?
X X
X X

X X <---these two are + and - correct or coil?

Going off the DC diagram posted by littletree on the first page of this thread, which wire would go where on a relay with type of pin arrangement? I'm a little confused as his diagram shows all eight points in line. I'm thankful for the wiring schematic, I just want to make sure I get this right.

Thanks!


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:08 am 
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With most relays, there will be numbers next to the contacts or possibly a small schematic on the relay somewhere. If you could post an image of what you find on the relay, that should be most helpful.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 12:12 pm 
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Thanks John, I found the schematic on the back of the packaging. :oops:

However, I'm still having some issues. I cannot for the life of me figure them out either. I wired up my tortoise machines as per the wiring spec posted up by littletree. I've double checked my wiring and everything three or four times. Except I cannot get this to work.

I feel like I've almost got it, its just that it feels like something is missing. Perhaps there is an element in the drawing that isn't obvious or was left out?

I can get a loco to pass through when the paths are set to straight through no problem. Works like a charm both ways.

I can switch turnouts 1 & 3 which are sync'd up and almost get the loco through except it shorts out at last frog section going right to left. Alternatively though, If both routes are switched to straight through and I try to switch points 2 & 4 the switch is dead, and does not move the points unless I throw the toggle for 1 & 3 first which puts all the routes at diverge. Which will only cause a dead short anyways when the loco tries and crosses the frog points.

I have tried moving some of the wiring around to experiment with different configurations, however that only makes the problems "worse" if you will.

I'm wondering if maybe it needs another relay as a final piece to the puzzle. I would like to get this to work in DC, as it would be consistent with the rest of my wiring, however if I have to, I guess I can pick up an accessory decoder and reversing switch to operate the crossover on DCC. From this discussion, it sounds like this would be the "easier" method to take, albeit, it will cost me more.

I'm hoping some other people are watching this thread as well and perhaps give me some help too. If anyone else has been successful at getting this sucker to work DC based on the diagram posted by littletree I'd really appreciate it.

As a suggestion, I am wondering if maybe the fine folks at Fast Tracks could do up a wiring schematic and post it online for us. That would be just awesome!

Thanks.


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 1:27 pm 
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From what I can see, littletree posted that the relay setup has 3 possible states. It looks like it should work to me, but I'm certainly no relay guru. What I wonder is if you possibly have the two diverted states reversed?

The second diagram shows the crossover in a state that will only permit crossing from upper left to lower right (or the reverse direction). Any other way through will short. Same goes for the third diagram, which is showing lower left to upper right. Of course, he also said that there might be a need for another relay but if the relays he shows do what the diagram shows, it looks to me like those configurations are valid.

Jim


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 1:37 am 
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 1:30 pm 
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Thanks guys, but don't worry about it. :|

I decided to go the DCC route and purchased an Auto Rev card from Tony's Trains.

I cannot imagine how guys figured out how to wire these things up before DCC. My hats off to those brave and determined souls. For the life of me, I just can't seem to wrap my head around it. :oops:

Looking at the wiring for DCC it is definitely easier to manage for a newb to the hobby like me and cleaner looking. So I went ahead and re-wired it all. Now I am just waiting for the ARU to arrive in the mail. At least I can still run locos straight through in this set up and synced them up using just one toggle. Definitely easier from an ops stand point. Just one switch, no matter which way or which side the loco is coming from.

I'll post up when I get it all buttoned up.

Thanks again for the replies. :D


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:52 pm 
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Once you understand the basics of electrical, it's not that hard.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 4:56 pm 
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Just to follow up quickly, I finally received my reversing card and wired up my cross-over for DCC. I am happy to report it works very well. Thanks for the help folks!


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:58 pm 
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 6:12 pm 
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He's using a Tortoise (the green box in the photo). His design works very well, I've seen it personally.

(not so big) Jim


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:35 pm 
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We are currently in the process of wiring our first Fast Tracks double crossover. We have the points thrown by 4 Tortoises, driven by a Digitrax DS64. We have succeeded at switching the power to the triangular track sections via two of the Tortoise connections. We connected an AR1 to attempt to power the two "X" sections, to provide polarity swapping. We connected the AR1 inputs to the north and south track bus, and the AR1 outputs, one to each of the "X" sections. This is apparently incorrect, as it did not work.

Could one of you who have succeeded in making this work, please advise specifically where the two AR1 inputs and the two AR1 outputs should be connected.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 3:32 am 
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Location: Renton WA
RailRoad Runners
I have worked out wiring for a double crossover that will eliminate any DCC (and I suspect DC) power problems. I used 4 Tortoise switch machines (one for each set of points) and one digital auto-reverser (from Tony's Train Exchange, but a Frog Juicer jumpered as a reverser would work). I didn't want to waste an entire Frog Juicer for one reversing circuit so my choice was the PSX AR from Tony's. Attached is my diagram that has now been tested out. I have Toroises 1 and 4 wired to throw at the same time with one command, and 2 and 3 wired to throw simultaneously with another command. With this wiring it does not matter which switch pairs are set for thru or diverging, the routes always obtain proper polarity. The black lines on the crossover are just indications of where the rail gaps should be. Hope this helps some of you who have helped me in the past.
(!empty($user->lang['ATTACHMENT'])) ? $user->lang['ATTACHMENT'] : ucwords(strtolower(str_replace('_', ' ', 'ATTACHMENT'))):
DoubleXOver wiring.jpg
DoubleXOver wiring.jpg [ 170.56 KiB | Viewed 16502 times ]


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 2:15 pm 
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Hi,

Andy Tait submitted a set of schematics showing how to wire a double crossover using four Tortoise switch machines. A post with these drawings has been added to the forum here..

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1174

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Tim Warris
Fast Tracks
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