FasTrack Turnouts Using Track Power ?

I have FasTrack switches controlled with Legacy. I read about seperate power vs track power and decided to go track power. The light and switch motor are fine with the 18 volt current. Out of 12 switches I have three that refuse to program, lucky for me they are close enough to use manual.

Bob

I have 4 command control FasTrack switches, all are powered by track power, and on all 4 I have removed the remote control lever so that all 4 are completely 'wireless'. These have all been working 100% perfectly, without any problems at all.  

you do know the legacy system is not a power management system?  it is a control system.  do you have command control switches?

You other option is to lower the track voltage a bit. I run my TMCC/Legacy stuff at 15.5-16v for a little extra peace of mind and hopefully extend the life  of a few bulbs. TMCC/Legacy run fine at lower voltages,I believe others have even run it at as low as 14v.

Experimentally, I've run down as low as 10V measured on the rails with Legacy.  Some of the locomotives have issues, and very few of them will open their couplers at that voltage.  I have several TMCC and Legacy locomotives that won't fire the couplers with less than 17-18 volts, so that's what I use.

I have 30 fastrack switches and fastrack.  Switches powered by track power and controlled thru SC-2's with Legacy controller.  Layout is 3 yrs old.  No problems (knock on wood) to date.

I have 11 fastrack remote turnouts all fed by track power to reduce wiring.  I have had no issues running at 16 - 18 constant with TMCC.

 

I use Aux power, ONLY because I run convential and command and in convential I dont like to run the train through a switch at high speed.  All running at 14volts and it has been fine.  Since I only have 6 the wiring was not that bad. 

Gentlemen,

   Paul makes a good point, the FasTrack switches actually take so little power to run that most times anything under 12 switches can be run off regular track power with a decent size transformer.  Running most newer trains on this engineering set up works just fine, with Conventional, TMCC/Legacy or DCS, unfortunately these beautiful switches will not accommodate pre-war Tin Plate, on a repetative running basis, so I could not use them on my layout, wish I could.

PCRR/Dave

 

BobDuckworth

Quick question. Did you also wire up the regular fastrack remote switch as well?

No I did not.  too many and takes up too much space.   and switches rarely fail.

Thanks for the info, gang.

 

and on all 4 I have removed the remote control lever so that all 4 are completely 'wireless'

I'm going to do the same thing, Nicole. Sit back with a favorite beaverage and control everything with the CAB.

 

 

you do know the legacy system is not a power management system?  it is a control system.  do you have command control switches?

Yup, BigDodge ..... I'm buying command control switches, and I did not want to bother with power management/wiring issues, so I wanted to use track power for them.

 

...  the FasTrack switches actually take so little power to run ...

 

Pine Creek ... Mike stated on the video that FasTrack switches only use 5 volts.

 

Thanks again, everyone

Jim

The Fastrack switches are designed to work on full track voltage (18VAC). No regulator overheating issues will occur.