BASIX SWITCH MACHINE

Product of the STR Railroad Shops

This was a construction project developed over 10 years of research and trial and error. The most recent work involved finalizing methods for quantity production. The work was done in the STR Railroad shops with development discussions from the Tuesday Night Choirboys group. Thanks to the members for their contribution over the years.

The definition of requirement - a switch machine that can be produced in limited volume by local club participants for their immediate layout requirements. A machine that would be cost effective in quantity to enable larger layouts to be not to costly to build. A machine that would be reliable during extreme usage. A machine that would coexist in combination with coil machines, discharge units and push button control along with diode matrix systems.

The documents attached show the parts and assemblies to make the resulting machine. The machine will operate with 7-12 volts motor supply, depending on the number of concurrent motors operating through a diode matrix. The push button circuit will respond to 6-28 volts from either a discharge unit or DC power supply. The machine can be operated with a SPDT switch (latching relay not required), or from multiple push button controls. The SPDT contact function on the machine can control frog, lights, or a relay (which in turn can control all above).

Mounting and drive linkage can be made to suit each installation requirement. The machine has enough travel distance that centering is not critical to the point of being fussy. The drive can be adapted to cable drives (model airplane cable drives), for remote mounting and close clearance locations. This machine is not precision but with careful assembly and installation will work reliably. The experience has been that by searching out surplus materials and lower cost items, aside from labour hours the investment has been in the range of $4.00 Canadian each for machine cost.

The goals have been met and the result is a machine the will enable modellers to build larger layouts without the exorbitant cost of commercial machines. (eg 75 turnouts at $22,00 Canadian per machine ?). This machine also provides compatibility that the commercial machines would require further additions to do. The use of transistors, relays or SCR circuits for latching were not as suitable as the latching relay we chose. This is due to the memory function required by the latch to enable full pushbutton compatibility.

I hope this documentation will encourage more modellers to develop lower cost solutions to building quality, and reliable larger layouts. This is where the real enjoyment of railroading is.

Please feel free to use this information for your individual railroading enjoyment. Please do not use this information for commercial benefits as I wish to keep this benefit alive for all modellers.

STR Railroad Shops

Bill Ackland MMR

02/25,1999

519-658-4417

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