Are Cobalts too big?

Where you have two parallel tracks at the 6' distance apart and have two turnouts side by side to make a junction like the below… Are Cobalt motors too wide? Looking at this printed out full-size, I am sure it must be a squeeze to get them into position… Has anyone done this? I don't want to start buying expensive motors if they aren't going to fit…

Hi Mike,

Extend the arms using steel rod of the appropriate diameter (dog leg design), and/or use some of the kit used in WIT. Even better, use WIT control and have the Cobalts at the edge in one place. It makes the wiring easier and neater. If you are using Peco turnouts use the hole in the end of the switch bar rather than the one in the center.

Easiest solution is to simply stagger the turnouts by the 1.5 x the length of the Cobalt. Then you can have them all under the respective switch bar.

Is this DC or DCC? Insulfrogs or electrofrogs? Power-routed? (If they're Peco electrofrogs I believe they're power-routed). I was figuring out the wiring for DCC while thinking about the Cobalts. If it's DCC you might want to think about using some frog juicers, it would cut down the wiring.

Nigel

Thanks Nigel.

This is going to be DC. I enjoy the traditional side of wiring and also have no budget to get into DCC…

I don't want to stagger the turnouts as cosmetically I love the look of the parallel tracks crossing.

I've always shied away from WIT as it's so far out of my comfort zone. Mechanics, especially dogleg pivots etc. just seem so difficult to understand.

HOWEVER… a fully WIT approach would save a lot of cash, and I am very intrigued about a row of motors changing the points via WIT. It's an excellent idea, thank you… One I think I should give serious thought to. If you have any links to point me to good WIT tutorials or pictures, I'd be grateful…

Mike.

can I ask what you mean by 'WIT' control?

It took me a while to work it out too... Wire In Tube... Controlling a point by sliding steel wire or similar down a tube...

I've only used Seeps and Peco so far Mike and only Peco would fit as a guess. 
I'd be looking at WiT or linkages/cranks.

Gormo's Great Chesterford Junction has a really good "how I done it" on mechanical linkages that might give you some ideas and there should be something in the index for WiT.

Cheers

Marty

Mike, you could place the cobalts as per my red   area , they don't have to be in the same plane


but yes WIT is the cheapest - I use it as well as Tortoise, Peco below mounted & Peco side mounted solenoids.

Hi Mike .

 As Sol has pointed out , probably the easiest way , is to

 stagger the motors . Another way ,is to purchase a length

 of piano wire from your local model shop.   Mount the motors beside

the tracks , replace the existing wire with a new longer wire .Bent with a

 dogs leg .

 Regards Ted

Thanks guys - much appreciated. I think I will start with two and see how I get on. Sol - does your approach require piano wire, or does the supplied wire bend enough? There are surprisingly few pictures online of anyone doing this.

Mike, use the existing wire unless you want to mount them alongside the turnout.
The manual is pretty good.

but you not have to have them facing the same way - they can be either side of the tiebar
like this


or this way

Pico point motors should fit if you put them on opposite hands. 

Thanks Chris, that is super helpful. I've read recently (John on Granby??) that the Peco motors aren't all that reliable though… How have you found them to be?

I've only just started using them, but I'm likely to change to the seep ones because they are cheaper and you don't have to get an extra switch for the electrofrog.  They also look smaller but I haven't tried the seep ones so I'm only going by photos.

I've found the Peco very reliable but changed… ah switched… (so many puns here :shock:) to Seeps because of the accessory switch already part of the motor. They are a bit of a fiddle to get aligned and operational but worth the effort. If you use Peco or Seep remember to lube the armature rod prior to install, makes a huge difference.
You may be able to offset the Seeps in the same manner as the above photo but because of the alignment requirements you may find the overall length of the Seeps clash in the middle.

I use Seeps and the accessory switch drives a 4 point relay that drives frog polarity, point direction indication on the control panel and a lock out of signal actuation.

Cheers

Marty

Going very slightly  :off topic, anyone had reliability problems with the Seep switch?

Having just got one for the new layout, the switch seems very similar in operation to the Peco Pl-13 switch which I had problems with in the past.

I didn't have the PL-13 directly attached to a point, but operated by a wire attached to a surface mounted PL-11, for changing point indication LEDs.

It may have been my dirty garage environment, but I seemed to be for ever cleaning the contacts on the PL-13s to get them to work.



Ed

[user=1560]emmess[/user] wrote:

Thanks Chris, that is super helpful. I've read recently (John on Granby??) that the Peco motors aren't all that reliable though… How have you found them to be?

Peco point motors are fine it's the peco switches (for frog polarity) that I have found unreliable.

I also prefer the quiet zzzzz of a tortoise to the rat a tat tat of a peco motor:lol:

I'm being very quiet.   :lol:

I wasn't going to mention it…
Just in case you've missed it Mike, have a look at Max's Port Elderly topic.

Cheers

Marty

Servos (apart from being very quiet  :lol: ), are also very small and can be close coupled and mounted directly under the individual tracks.

I hesitate to mention them, as it requires a different mind set to embrace them.

They work with DC and DCC.

Hmm, Max. I do like the idea of using servos. I've never considered them before and I know nothing about how they are set up other than you have to program them, is that right? Do they need a lot of circuitry and faffing about to get working? I am off to read through your Port Elderley topic…