wiring an A.F. switch

Hi, if you are talking about the Pikemaster switch Track. I don't know. if that's what you have go to eBay. There is a seller selling those switches also there is a photo of the wiring info for those switches. No need to buy just look at the photo and save it.

 

You need the controller in addition to the turnouts. The controller has 2 wires, black and yellow that connect to the Base post and the 15V post, respectively, on a Gilbert transformer. The two 4 conductor rainbow wires from the controller connect to the terminals on the turnouts. Just match up the colors. The website americanflyerexpress.com has all the Gilbert instruction manuals online. It is best to look at the diagram for the 720A turnouts (or the 26742, or 26760), they are all the same except the late production came with a controller that had no lights. I do not think you have Pikemaster turnouts because those are 3 wire.

Lee, if you don't have an AF switch controller, you can make your own. For clarity I will call the track switch a "turnout" in this explanation.  The black dotted or ringed post on the turnout is for the "base post" the yellow is the hot wire to the light bulb. the red and green should make sense to you--red, curve; green, straight. Find a double throw single pole switch with a center off, and momentary throw; or two momentary switches/push buttons, normally off. Connect a hot lead to the switch(es) and one side to red, the other side to green. All the turnout requires is a "pulse" of power to the wire to activate the coils in the base. Any long-time connection will fry the coils!

I hope this is "clear as mud." It's kinda hard to explain in writing only!

David D.

When wiring AF always remember, black is base post, Yellow is fixed 16V. Most 720A switches are marked with dots to indicate which color wire goes where. Starting at the stud closest to the motor housing. Black, Red, Yellow, Green.

 

Tin

I have 4 wires at the switch housing; one has no dot(black base), one red, one yellow, and one green. 

Thanks Dave & Tin for the wiring help.

I have 4 conductor cable, 16 AWG, that I will use. Don't know if I have the old A.F. switch control or not.

Lee Fritz

LionelTin posted:

When wiring AF always remember, black is base post, Yellow is fixed 16V. Most 720A switches are marked with dots to indicate which color wire goes where. Starting at the stud closest to the motor housing. Black, Red, Yellow, Green.

 

Tin

Does the Yellow post have power or do I need to power it? It's been a few years since I last used the switch.

Lee Fritz

There are two different yellow wires in the list above. The yellow in the 4 conductor rainbow cable just provides constant voltage to the light in the lantern in the turnout. The first yellow wire in the above post references the power feed from the transformer to the controller. The turnouts can be tested without the controller by connecting the the black conductor in the rainbow cable to the Base Post of the transformer and the yellow wire in the rainbow cable to the 15V transformer post. The light in the lantern should now be on. BRIEFLY touch the red wire to the 15V post, the turnout should throw to the curved track. BRIEFLY touch the green wire to the 15V post, the turnout should throw to the straight position.

AmFlyer posted:

There are two different yellow wires in the list above. The yellow in the 4 conductor rainbow cable just provides constant voltage to the light in the lantern in the turnout. The first yellow wire in the above post references the power feed from the transformer to the controller. The turnouts can be tested without the controller by connecting the the black conductor in the rainbow cable to the Base Post of the transformer and the yellow wire in the rainbow cable to the 15V transformer post. The light in the lantern should now be on. BRIEFLY touch the red wire to the 15V post, the turnout should throw to the curved track. BRIEFLY touch the green wire to the 15V post, the turnout should throw to the straight position.

Tom,

You lost me with mentioning about 2 yellow wires. I am wiring the switch using after market wire and not A.F. wires.

My question is does the yellow at the switch provide power or need to receive power from an outside source?

Lee Fritz

It will be hopefully clearer if you look at the wiring and setup in the instruction manual located on the americanflyerexpress.com website. The first thing to do is forget everything you know about Lionel turnouts, Gilbert are completely different, there is no track power alternative. The yellow were at the turnout connection only lights the light, it is not connected to anything else. To operate these turnouts a controller is mandatory unless you want to implement a home brew solution as described above by traindavid. The black is common, power to move the points is provided by a momentary connection of 15V to either the red or green terminal. With the Gilbert controller in hand the difference between the two yellow wires becomes easier to see.

Sorry this seems confusing, the Gilbert turnouts are wired differently and are connected differently inside the turnout. Lionel's have auto derail, Gilbert does not. Gilbert has auto power routing to the selected route, Lionel does not. Lionel has a track power supply alternative, Gilbert does not. I hope we are getting closer to what you need.

To wire the switch I supply hot to the Yellow, and Common to the black or base, and momentary hot to either Green or Red to throw the switch. Correct?

I have wired this switch before but forgot how to wire it since I had everything packed away for almost 4 years. I have 5 A.F. engines and about 20 pieces of rolling stock. Most likely I will be using a Lionel post war ZW for power.

I know about the differences with Lionel and American Flyer switches. I got my first A.F. train in 1969, the # 295 engine still smokes.

Lee Fritz

That is correct. Be careful with voltage selection on the ZW, the Gilbert turnouts should be run from no more than 16V for maximum life. I run mine from 12V.

The 295 is a nice engine and relatively rare. If you plan to include the tender whistle controller for the 295 that changes how the track power is supplied to the 690 track terminals. I do not bother because I do not care for the sound.

Tom,

Thanks for the heads up about the voltage supply for the switch, I did not know about using 16 volts as max voltage.

Also can you give me more info on the 295 tender's control? What is the 690 track terminal?

I have a couple of uncoupler devices for A.F. track.

Lee Fritz

The #690 terminal is a track lock on for attaching power wires to track...

Marty

 

The 690 is as Marty states. It is not necessary but is helpful if original Gilbert track is used.

Engines such as your 295 (and others like the 285, 315, 325 etc.) had an Air Chime Whistle in the tender. It is basically a speaker, resistor and capacitor. The control box is a larger version of a Gilbert control button with either a cardboard or metal tube plugged into the top. This tube had a vibrator in it that put a higher frequency AC signal on the track that was reproduced in the tender speaker. The sound is pretty lame and in my opinion not worth connecting.

The wiring diagram is on page 15 of the 1954 Gilbert instruction manual. It is a bit more complicated than the track switches. Also, I am not familiar with the workings of the ZW output terminals so I cannot with confidence tell you which ZW terminals correspond to the Gilbert Base Post, 7-15V post and the 15V post. One other watch out. Your ZW outputs a pure sine wave so the 295 will operate well. Should you switch to a modern non sinusoidal power supply, like the new ZW-L the tender whistle may sound constantly because the switching harmonics in the phase angle controlled output waveform will be picked up and played by the tender speaker.

Lee, I agree with Tom that the AF whistle isn't much, more of a "BLAAAT!" sound than anything--I was sorely disappointed in it as a kid after reading the catalog "fluff" on it. However, there is a version of the "horn button" (actually a larger plastic box that the vibrator tube plugs into) that has a slider switch instead of just a button. I am told that these actually give a pretty fair sounding air horn noise. Of course, the capacitor in your loco tender needs to be in good shape too for this to work properly. The "U" post equates to Gilbert's "Base Post."

Tom & David,

Thank you for the information about the 295 engine and tender. I was not aware of all the features in it as my parents bought it for me in 1968 as a used set along with some H.O. race cars.

The engine smokes and the tender does have some kind of sound in it. Also found out the engine & tender like the older Lionel transformers, have not used the p.w. ZW as yet, used a small 45 watt transformer and an MTH Z-1000. The engine & tender did better with the small Lionel transformer, the MTH Z-1000 made it have a noise from the tender.

Lee Fritz

What I have done is remove the tender shell and unsolder one of the speaker wires to stop the sound. Then you can run the engine with any modern power supply. If you want to try the tender sound the standard Air Chime Whistle controller is the #708, they are cheap and easy to find, but the vibrator tube may not work unless refurbished. The fancier version David mentioned with the slider to change the frequency is the #710. They are harder to find in working condition and cost more. Be careful if you look for one on line, 710 was one of the few numbers Gilbert used twice. The number 710 was first used in 1946 and 1947 for the actuator track for action cars with the pickups between the rails. It was discontinued in 1948 with a design change of the action cars. You do not need this track section for your trains.