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Ross Custom's 3-way switches are a pain to properly wire. but sometimes you have too little space for a 4-way.  I am not an electronics guy so for me wiring a 3-way using 4 diodes so that two DZ-2501 controllers controlling two DZ-2500C switch machines could properly align the rails in three spur directions was a real "trial and error" production.

As it happens, there are no wiring diagrams directly on point available from either Ross or DZ to wire a Ross Custom 3-way with DZ-2500s..

Anyway since I had wired the 3-Way for non-derailing as well I decided that if I just wired the three turnouts to three momentary switches ( to ground) I could use those to control the 3-way instead of the two DZ-2501s. However, there are no three-momentary switches that I could find ganged together so I designed and 3D printed one, a 3-switch.

Here are the three 3D parts to create the 3-switch; note the purple is a representation of the circuit board with the three momentary switches attached. The circuit board is just a "break-out" board where I could mount the 3 small momentary switches.

 

Assembled it looks like this, excuse the art-deco look:

 

As printed and  unpainted,  it is this:

 

The 3-switch is raised up to sit above  and between the two DZ-2501 switches on the control panel.

by pushing the "L "the Ross Custom 3-Way turnout sets to the left most spur; "C" center and "R" right-most spur.

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So why did I buy a 3D laser printer?;----> because I am old and getting older. My hand-eye coordination is slowly going downhill. I am not as good with a X-acto knife as I once was.  My ability to glue things in proper position is going as well.

Instead of giving up for the Ole Folks Home,  I replaced my slow- deteriorating abilities with a 3D drawing program and a 3D printer.

Now I can build whatever I can imagine or rather create with Rhino6 and a FormLabs 2.

FormLabs recently came out with ceramic resin. Cant wait to try that and use a Kiln to create ceramic objects that will never deform under intense heat and pressure, like used on the skin of the space shuttle.  Look out Buck Rodgers.

 

Thanks I will take a look at that. I downloaded ????? 360 (free version of some Autocad program), but have not tried it yet. Watched a video on it and they made it look so easy... I will look at Tinkercad first though, I used to use Autocad many years ago at work ('80s & DOS version) and it had a fair learning curve as I recall. I was a lot younger and learned a lot quicker back then too! 

Edit - (Fusion 360, went and looked it up).

Last edited by rtr12

Didn't know that either? Nice to know though. I took a quick look at the Tinkercad site earlier and put a link on my desktop for further study. I'll take a look at youtube as well, I think that is where I saw the video that made Fusion 360 look so easy.   Some old dogs definitely have trouble with the new tricks, at least in my case anyway. To butcher GRJ's tagline a bit here: It always looks extremely easy when watching someone else doing something!  

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