Turnout Indicator Lights

Well I looked around a lot on Youtube doing research when I built ours. I don't know a thing about electrical work but managed to do this one. Keep in mind however, that I used Tortoise Switch machines so your wiring will be different than mine. I used bi-polar LEDS, but you could use 2 different colored LED's, 5mm, red and green.

Several of the electrical gurus around here will chime in with instructions. Fortunately because we were already using the Tortoise machines, that made the wiring much easier for me because I didn't have to wire any diodes to the LED's. I chose bi-polar yellow/green for a couple reasons that I explain in the video. Most panels I've seen use a red and a green LED. Just personal preference. 

Atlas makes a DPDT snap relay. It throws with a momentary toggle and switch motor and can power the 2 panel LEDs with separate voltage input.

If I understand your situation, you are not using the Tortoise and do not have any sensors or feedback that indicates actual turnout position. So taking the liberty of re-stating this as a generic problem, you have two wires that occasionally but only momentarily have +12V DC or -12V DC on them.  You want a method that remembers the most recent polarity using a red and green indicator. 

One alternative would be a 12V single-coil latching relay (~$2), a bi-color LED (~25 cents), and a current-limiting resistor for the LED (~10 cents).  The two wires would hook up to the relay coil (as well as to the switch machine).  The switched relay contacts would direct +12V to one or the other LED color via the resistor to limit the current.

For those modelers using the MTH RealTrax turnouts there is a very easy way to provide turnout indication on a separate control panel.  I have an annunciator panel which shows the condition of all turnouts on my layout.  See attachment. The red and green LEDs are wired back to each pair of MTH controllers. A diode and resistor are needed for each LED. The yellow LEDs show block power.

On my control system I have 3 ways to control my turnouts:

1. Manually using the MTH supplied controllers

2. Manually using separate momentary pushbuttons mounted on a separate panel

3. Directly using the MTH DCS controller and MTH AIUs.

I can use any one of these methods for my layout.

Note: I have built an MTH turnout test board which I use to demonstrate the use of the MTH RealTrax turnout. My turnouts all use separate accessory power (not track power).

See attachment for a photo of my turnout test board showing a separate LED indicator board with red and green momentary pushbuttons.

Dale H covered this in a recent post.  It was a very clever circuit that used a capacitor to power the solenoid.  Using this method it prevented the switch motors from being over powered and burning out.  As I recall it did not used  momentary or center off switches so you could use the position of the handle to indicate the direction of the switch.

I have devised a number of simple ways to add turnout direction indicator lights. One interesting approach is to use a two-position E unit which turns on the proper light when the turnout is pulsed.

Great discussion here.  Pro Hobby seems to have covered all the options.  Has anyone tried this (or another) option with an Atlas Switch?

I wonder too then if stan2004's generic solution would work with Atlas

There should be  information available on the forum about the Atlas 6924 relay board and 6931 dwarf light indicators.   The boards have several function, and two sets of NC/C/NO relays. 

6931 dwarf lights.