Tortoise and Peco turnouts

[peteski]

The guide sleeve/tube constrains the wire to flexing only in torsion around its own center (one degree of freedom), rather than flexing up, down,  or in a spiral. Fewer degrees of freedom means less opportunity to divert energy from the intended purpose.

As for the advantages over simply using a thicker wire, I can think of four:

• it's easier to secure a stationary guide tube than a moving wire;
• a thicker wire might not fit into the connecting points (machine throw arm or switch tiebar) at either end;
• a thinner wire is easier to shape at the ends to make those final connections; and
• a thinner wire is less conspicuous where it may be visible in the scenery or trackwork.

I still can't picture where exactly the tube is used.  Are we taking about a simple fulcrum type of a throw (using the plastic fulcrum point built-in on the Tortoise), or are we talking about pushrod-type of motion (horizontal, parallel with the layout surface)?

[nkalanaga]

I can see using it either way.  The pushrod method is obvious.  The other way I can see is to put the wire in a tube, making a "thicker wire", but leaving the ends sticking out to connect to the Tortoise and throwbar.  In effect, you'd have a very thick wire with thin ends, minimizing the flexing.

[rgengineoiler]

     I took out the springs on my Peco C55 double crossover and installed 4 Tortoise's.  I like the throw quality and solid contact.  I am using the music wire that came with the Tortoise also.  Doug   

[rsn48]

So here is a quicky picture for you to see the brass tube.  I forget the diameter of the wire, but its thinner than what comes standard on the tortoise.  The tube is cut to length and the wire slid in, and the tube is put through the retaining hole.  I can get diameter of tube and wire if you want.  The wire is longer than will be its final length once installed; two are already in.  I don't care about the sound of the Peco setting, the snap isn't near anywhere as loud as the solenoid turnout machines we are used to.  I'm installing these for auto throw operations only, the remaining 98% of my turnouts are manual throw.

[peteski]

Ah, so you enlarged the hole in the fulcrum. That now makes sense to me.

It will work, but I'm not sure if it is superior to just using slightly heavier wire (as that is really what you are doing in a round about way).

[rsn48]

Believe it or not, the hole was not enlarged, now you've made me go upstairs and actually look at the diameter of things; might have to charge you a beer for this: [The tortoise might look a little beat up, its from an estate sale] Only the wire goes through the hole in the Peco switch, and why didn't they put a hole in the center for the throw arm, come on!

Brass Tube
K&S Engineering
1/16 x .014 or
(1.57mm X .35mm)

Music Wire
K&S Engineering
.25 or (.64mm)

Concerning heavier wiring, another friend who was helping me insisted that .39 wire would work better and was skeptical of the brass tube method, after installation he conceded it worked as good as the .39 not sure if it worked better or not.  I'm not suggesting the tube way is better or worse than thicker wire, just that was how I was told to do it, against the protestations of my friend.  It worked and that's all I care about.

[nkalanaga]

"why didn't they put a hole in the center for the throw arm, come on!"
Because the spring's in the center?

Remove the spring and one could drill a hole there without much work.

[s40er]

Here's how I connected my Tortoises to my Peco's without removing the spring at all.   This gives the Tortoise a lot more torque, and made it fairly easy to have 1 Tortoise through crossovers pretty easily.

[rsn48]

First about the Peco spring, some turnouts the spring isn't accessible at all.

What size wire do you use for the modification you use, with the tortoise wire moving the other vertical wire, what size is the vertical wire?

[peteski]

First about the Peco spring, some turnouts the spring isn't accessible at all.

What size wire do you use for the modification you use, with the tortoise wire moving the other vertical wire, what size is the vertical wire?

The method shown by s40er might be needed when the scenery base is rather thick.  But if it is just plywood and roadbed, the standard installation (using thicker wire with the built-in fulcrum) works perfectly well.

All the switch machines in this photo thrown Peco switches with the spring still installed. But the standard throw wire has been replaced with a thicker music wire. I don't remember the thickness - I'll have to measure it next time I'm operating that layout.  I think  it is 0.032".

BTW, the only switch machine with the mechanism facing the viewer is not a standard installation. Due to space constraints, it had to be offset from the throw bar. It throws the turnout using an extra linkage inside a brass tube hot-glued to the bottom of the layout.  But the other machines hust use straight wire going up to the throwbar.