I wanted a MTH 45-1028 device to control/activate a signal on my layout and I could not find a new device anywhere. Has MTH stopped making them or will they make them again the near future. There are plenty used devices on EBAY but I am leery of buying a used one. Does anybody have any idea if MTH will produce them again? Any comment would be appreciated. Thank you.
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My guess is it's probably a long shot for MTH to be making them again. However, there are tons of similar devices to operate your signals, I'd probably check out your options.
Hey @gunrunnerjohn.....I seem to recall @stan2004 and others (including you John) doing a whole forum thread on roll-your-own devices to control signals et. al. using OTC components from eBay and other sources. As I recall, there was no soldering involved. It was Just a matter of wiring these components together.
This might be a viable alternative (and potentially cheaper) to prefab devices that were once available from Lionel and MTH.
Just a thought......
Don't forget about the venerable Lionel 153IR.
I have a few of these and they work great. I see many of our forum sponsors have them in stock
@Junior posted:Hey @gunrunnerjohn.....I seem to recall @stan2004 and others (including you John) doing a whole forum thread on roll-your-own devices to control signals et. al. using OTC components from eBay and other sources. As I recall, there was no soldering involved. It was Just a matter of wiring these components together.
This might be a viable alternative (and potentially cheaper) to prefab devices that were once available from Lionel and MTH.
Just a thought......
That would have been Stan, he's the master of mixing up the Chinese modules to create solutions. I'm more of a "build a custom PCB" kind of guy.
You could consider the HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor for outdoor layout block detection idea, I have some boards I build for that technique. The board was laid out for either of two relays, the smaller one (and a bit cheaper) or the 10A relay. On this board the ultrasonic head was separated using a cable so it could be hidden trackside and the board mounted remotely.
The cool thing about these boards is they have a detection range, so you can actually set it up to only detect a near track and not the next one over.
I'm pretty sure I have 1 or 2 of these brand new in the box packed away that I've never used. If you're interested shoot me an email at the address listed in my profile.
-Greg
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