What's the lifespan of a Tortise switch machine?

We've lost a couple of Tortoise machines over the years, but we've had some in place for almost 15 years and they're still working fine. I guess their life expectancy parallels that of real tortoises.

I installed 16 Tortoise machines on my previous layout in 1996-1997 and none have failed yet.

I would not worry too much.

However, as a precaution, I purchased special 8 position edge card connectors so that wiring would be easier and If I needed to change one out, simply unplug old machine, install new one and replug connector.  About a five minute job.

Good luck and happy railroading,

Don

You can't worry about what might happen.Lots of people do that in the hobby as I have seen.When a piece of equipment fails,replace it.Some may operate indefinitely.Nick

I'm with Don. Some of my Tortoises are older than his and still going. I used male/female quick disconnects on mine for quick replacement, but so far haven't had to use them.

One failure out of twenty since about 1989

Clem k

One failure out of 32 since 1992. I only have 17 now on my small attic layout plus 3 spares. Not sure if those I sold/gave away kept purring.

My club has 40+ machines and has zero failures in over 15 years.

Regardless of brand of switch machine, the one that is most likely to fail is also in the least accessible location. 

Having that in a tunnel or wired in some way that necessitates overhead soldering increases that failure likelihood by an order of magnitude.

Lastly, one should also remember anything that can go wrong, and doesn’t go wrong, is just waiting for a much worse time to go wrong.

Roughly have about 25. The layouts expanded over the years and some haven't been in service as long As the originals. Layouts 24 years old and I've never had one fail. Have replaced a few broken throw bars but never had any issues with the motors.