New Controls

Over the weekend I did some work and installed a new control box on my layout. It controls power to the two engine house sidings. Previously this was controlled by a ground throw switch I installed. The direction of the turnout determined which of the two spurs had power. The problem was that there were some times I wanted both turnouts to not have power (such as when I ran a transfer in from the interchange/staging area).



I made the box out of styrene and painted it with Testors Silver to match the shed. I mounted the the switches inside the box by dropping a few globs of hot glue over the backs of them once they were set in place. An important note: Be sure not to get the hot glue inside the switches.

I was able to reuse the wiring from the ground throw without much rewiring. I did have to hollow out a little bit of the foam to accommodate very bottom of the switches where the wires attached. I attached the matching wires and then tested it. Good thing I tested because I actually shorted the circuit the first time I tried it, but luckily I had not soldered. After getting the switches working correctly I attached the wires with solder and glued the box down to the layout.

After testing it out with some trains on the layout I was very happy with it. Later on I will have to rip out the switch ground throw and replace it with a plain one.