need plans for capacitor discharge mechanism

Bill Pontin

Member
Anyone point me to an online source for creating a capacitor discharge mechanism to change the points for up to five switches simultaneously. Our NTrak club is using a very cumbersome method of switching from the main lines into the set up yard. Worse case is the red, or outside line, there are a total of five switches to change to cross over the yellow to the blue and then into the yard legs or ladder. Presently we change each one individually and invariably one gets missed and we end up with a derailment mess. Some one mentioned changing the points with a capacitor discharge mechanism. The end goal would be to set a rotary swtich to say the red line, push a momentary switch and the capacitor would change all the necessary switches. The yellow line only has three points and the blue line one. There was an article published on this some time ago and none of us can seem to locate it. Any help would be appreciated.
 

racedirector

New Member
Hi Bill

I was just looking for the same thing and came across this thread:

http://www.the-gauge.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8080&highlight=capacitor+discharge

kettlestack (Errol) posted a good looking circuit that I am going to build in a post around the bottom of page 2. Otherwise the thread contains some other sources of info.

Also, to do a number of turnouts in a route, it might pay to look at a diode matirx as well for cascading the route with one push.

Cheers
Bruce
 

jon-monon

Active Member
LINKS!

Hiya Bill, Mikey gave us this one many moons ago, and it has what you are after, as well as other methods:

http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/CircuitIndex.html#index

(Scroll down to Switch Machine Control Circuits)

For reference, other bookmarks I have on MR (and general) electronics:

http://www.mrollins.com/circuit.html

http://www.talkingelectronics.com/

PWM Motor control:

http://www.4qdtec.com/pwm-01.html

http://users.telenet.be/educypedia/electronics/circuitsmotorcontrol.htm

http://www.optics2001.com/electronics/Circuits/Electrical_motor.htm

555 timer:

(common for LED flashing or making pulses for other purposes)

http://www.talkingelectronics.com/FreeProjects/555/555-P1.html

http://wolfstone.halloweenhost.com/TechBase/com555_555TimerCalc.html

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Bill_Bowden/555.htm

I know some of these are enough to give a guy aheadache, but there are many simple preplanned circuits there, and if someone wants to learn some electronics, the 555 is a great toy and costs pennies.
 

Bill Pontin

Member
Thanks JM, bookmarked all the references you listed, thinkI will take a little home study with all of them. Racedirector thanks, don't know how I missed that posting, should have done a little research here on the Gauge before I posted. Should thank KS and NG for the information they gave me in the chat room last night. :wave:
 

chipmonk

New Member
hey bill,

Your post and the fact that i saw a capacitive discharge unit at the LHS for 30 bucks led me to search out some schematics on how to make my own railroad electronics and if you have a lil experience with electronics and are willing to do a lil work you can have all kinds of cool stuff for dirt cheep! not mention making its half the fun! ....anyway check this link out, all kinds of railroad related circuits that are easy to make.

http://users.rcn.com/weyand/tractronics/articles/articles.htm

Have fun:thumb:
Chris
 
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