Okay, I'm back, but this time I am trying to wire a dwarf signal to a fastrack remote switch track. I was told it could be done, but after several hours of trial and error I have gotten nowhere. Not to mention that when I put those switches on the layout, I didn't take into consideration that fact that I would at sometime have to do be able to reach those switches.
Oh yeah....I replaced said dwarf signal (for those who saw my last post) with a MTH 153 block signal.
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Okay, I'm back, but this time I am trying to wire a dwarf signal to a fastrack remote switch track. I was told it could be done, but after several hours of trial and error I have gotten nowhere. Not to mention that when I put those switches on the layout, I didn't take into consideration that fact that I would at sometime have to do be able to reach those switches. Oh yeah....I replaced said dwarf signal (for those who saw my last post) with a MTH 153 block signal.
Denny,
A circuit could be built to change the dwarf-signal lights from green to red (and vice versa), depending on the position of the points in a Lionel Fastrack switchtrack. The electrical "signal" for this switching would be the Yellow wire in the set of wires that come out from the switchtrack. This wire always has an electrical voltage, but the polarity changes between positive and negative, depending on which way the points are thrown.
The Yellow wire could be connected to a circuit like the one shown in the diagram below. (The Yellow wire should not be connected directly to any lamps; that would probably damage the circuit internal to the switchtrack.) The Yellow wire could be connected through resistors (1 K-ohm or higher) to the bases of transistors, thus turning the NPN transistor on when the Yellow wire is negative, and turning on the PNP transistor when the Yellow wire is positive. The transistors, in turn, would provide power to the Dwarf Signal lamps.
The circuit diagrammed below is conceptual only. I have not built it or tested it, and at this point in time I do not know the exact values for the resistors.
/Ralph Platz
Thanks Ralph, I'm going to try that. I have a friend who is a Lionel tech at a hobby shot a couple of towns over who can help me with the resistor values.
I was wondering if anyone has gotten this circuit to work? I was thinking about placing a relay in the circuit rather than powering the signal lights directly. Then this circuit could be used to power many different signal types.
Thanks
I haven't tried it, but I don't see any obvious reason it wouldn't work.
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