Isolated vs Synchronous led switch

Maybe show us what your schematic is now and we can fit the new switches into your scheme.

The isolated version is what you have now - a switch and a separate LED.  They are packaged together but the switch position and the LED color are isolated/independent.

The synchronous version means the LED color is synchronized/tied-to the switch position.  Flip the switch and the LED color changes.

There are many scenarios but, for example, suppose you want the LED to indicate what's actually going on at the controlled device (a block section, a turnout position, whatever).  In that case you would feed back a signal from the controlled device to drive the LED.

Stan,

First, thank you for helping with the info.

Just to be sure I am on the right page with your explanation - I will be usng the DPDT to

a) turn on/off track power ( 0-18vac)

b) illuminate led (4.5vdc)  on position =green ,  off = red

So for this application I would get the isolated version since I have 2 different voltages at play.  I run in conventional at times so even though I turn the switch to on, there not be any voltage from the transformer at that time while there will always be DC voltage present for the leds.  

I hope I am making sense. This switch would be perfect for my control panel since the new panel is smaller and eliminating the seperate leds would look a lot cleaner, and easier to implement.

Thanks,

Ed

The isolated is easy to make into a synchronous version, you can't go the other way so easy.