DCC or control panel, which is best?

QUOTE (Sol @ 23 Oct 2007, 13:59) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Ian, while you have minimal problems with Peco motors & it is true that turnouts ( as Peco calls them) need to be installed properly, you indicate that you do not have switches on the motors.
OK, no panels therefore no indicating lights to determine which way the turnout has thrown - I presume then that you can see all turnouts easily? Or does your DCC system indicate to you that the turnout blades have moved? Peco motor with accessory switch is a 99% certainty to indicate that the blades have moved. Tortoise motor contacts only indicate that the motor has moved but not the blades - I had that problem due to the tiebar sticking, fixed now of course

Paragraph 3 of my post states that I do have switches on some P/motors for signaling and they operate OK. I will be fitting more switches as time and finance dept (petticoat government) permits. The signals show which route has been selected as well as adding to overal look of layout.
Re being able to see points, that is the beauty of operating points thru DCC. Most times the points are changed by DCC hand control in the area of point, specialy shunting in yards.
This,of course,changes when setting routes, I can not see my whole layout from Ecos panel but my ear is well tuned to a changing Peco point. Hopefully with accessory switches fitted to p/motors feed back into Ecos screen will be available in near future.
The screen on Ecos has icons for each point and route which shows direction the point has changed but that at the moment is only at system end.
It is only when operating on my own that things are sometimes in lap of model railway gods.Must admit, very little problem so far.

Happy DCCing
Iansa

IMHO there are two camps as regards point actuation, those that use solenoid devices & those that use motorised devices.

Ian says that he has used Peco points & motors for over 30 years with no problems, so he must have some equipment that is very old - I have an theory that its just possible that the tooling is now past its sell by date.
For example the Peco points on the "public" side of SL are some 20 years old & had been reused about 5 times by the original builder. They were actuated by Peco motors under the points & worked with a high degree of reliability - they were changed for Fulgurex because of the cost comparison when you allow for the extra switching required.
The storage yard was constructed using new Peco points, motors & track. Although very carefully installed we only managed around 90% reliability which is no good at all for automated loops. We tried using H & M point motors (they were brand new) & although the reliability was better we still had problems with the points themselves which made us think that there is some problem with the points themselves. We tried a variety of voltages from 12 - 24v DC & AC & a CDU fitted with extra caps.
All the points, motors & track on the storage yard has now been replaced by FLM profi & works with almost 100% reliability BTW when the FLM point motors actuate you hear a descrete click, not a clunk or a buzz.

Our experience is that older Peco points are fine, but later ones are not - does anyone else have any similar experiences ?

Regarding the reliability of the Fulgurex motors we had a test jig set up in the workshop using some automation which ran for 24/7 (Rocoline trackwork/Fulgurex motors) - it was 100% reliable over some 250,000 cycles plus.

QUOTE (dbclass50 @ 23 Oct 2007, 17:07) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>IMHO there are two camps as regards point actuation, those that use solenoid devices & those that use motorised devices.

Ian says that he has used Peco points & motors for over 30 years with no problems, so he must have some equipment that is very old - I have an theory that its just possible that the tooling is now past its sell by date.
For example the Peco points on the "public" side of SL are some 20 years old & had been reused about 5 times by the original builder. They were actuated by Peco motors under the points & worked with a high degree of reliability - they were changed for Fulgurex because of the cost comparison when you allow for the extra switching required.
The storage yard was constructed using new Peco points, motors & track. Although very carefully installed we only managed around 90% reliability which is no good at all for automated loops. We tried using H & M point motors (they were brand new) & although the reliability was better we still had problems with the points themselves which made us think that there is some problem with the points themselves. We tried a variety of voltages from 12 - 24v DC & AC & a CDU fitted with extra caps.
All the points, motors & track on the storage yard has now been replaced by FLM profi & works with almost 100% reliability BTW when the FLM point motors actuate you hear a descrete click, not a clunk or a buzz.

Our experience is that older Peco points are fine, but later ones are not - does anyone else have any similar experiences ?

Regarding the reliability of the Fulgurex motors we had a test jig set up in the workshop using some automation which ran for 24/7 (Rocoline trackwork/Fulgurex motors) - it was 100% reliable over some 250,000 cycles plus.

You don't say exactly what the trouble you experienced with the Peco points. I presume the points stick and do not activate properly.
You say you changed p/motors and still had trouble which,as you say, points(whoops pun) to the points being the problem more than the motor.
You say newer Peco points give problems. This I do agree with as I have experienced new Peco points sticking. Not often, only the odd one. It is usually the tie (throw) bar sticking. A little bit of work soon fixes it.
RE age of my points and p/motors; some are 10yrs old up to 6months.
Always check resistance in each coil with DVM. If under 4 ohms chances are P/mototor will give trouble when activated. 3 ohms or lower will usually let the magic smoke out. If being operated with DCC the overload in accessory decoder will shut down. Resistance should be closer to 5 ohms in each coil.
Happy DCCing
Iansa

QUOTE (Ian @ 24 Oct 2007, 01:28) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>You don't say exactly what the trouble you experienced with the Peco points. I presume the points stick and do not activate properly.
You say you changed p/motors and still had trouble which,as you say, points(whoops pun) to the points being the problem more than the motor.
You say newer Peco points give problems. This I do agree with as I have experienced new Peco points sticking. Not often, only the odd one. It is usually the tie (throw) bar sticking. A little bit of work soon fixes it.
RE age of my points and p/motors; some are 10yrs old up to 6months.
Always check resistance in each coil with DVM. If under 4 ohms chances are P/mototor will give trouble when activated. 3 ohms or lower will usually let the magic smoke out. If being operated with DCC the overload in accessory decoder will shut down. Resistance should be closer to 5 ohms in each coil.
Happy DCCing
Iansa

Hi Ian,

Yes, I should I said what the problem was - it was the points themselves sticking, sometimes the tie bar & sometimes the contacts fouling the underside of the rail. The H & M's worked OK, but I felt that the points and/or linkage would give before the motors !
Personally, I don't think that you should have to work on new products to make them work - certainly not with the ratio I had (about 12 out of 16), maybe I just had a bad batch, although they were a mixture of hands & radius.

QUOTE (dbclass50 @ 24 Oct 2007, 16:59) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi Ian,

Yes, I should I said what the problem was - it was the points themselves sticking, sometimes the tie bar & sometimes the contacts fouling the underside of the rail. The H & M's worked OK, but I felt that the points and/or linkage would give before the motors !
Personally, I don't think that you should have to work on new products to make them work - certainly not with the ratio I had (about 12 out of 16), maybe I just had a bad batch, although they were a mixture of hands & radius.

I agree re not having to work on new products but sometimes thats the way things are. We pull our loco's to pieces to fit a decoder for DCC. I don't see much difference really.
The small amount of fiddling it takes to fix a peco point is not really a problem for me. The lower cost of Peco points is also a decider for me.
Happy DCCing
Iansa

QUOTE (80class @ 23 Oct 2007, 21:59) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I have been following this thread with interest. I can't really justify spending more than £4 for a point motor and in the past have had no problems with peco. For my currently under construction layout, the DCC system will be my ECoS but I plan on using the MERG Accessory Encoder/Decoder units for both DCC and panel point control.

I will order a PM-1 and see what I think, how do others rate seep point motors?

I use the PM-1 with ther MERG decoders though driving from a DCC command station not from the Encoder. I've only just got the first section of the layout working though, so my experience is quite limited. I chose these on grounds of low cost and small space (N gauge with hidden sidings just below some baseboards). I'm not particularly happy about the 'sloppy washer' switching on the PM-1, if used for frog polarity it can go either open or short circuit. Bending the PM-1 operating bar to re-position the washer relative to the turnout helps to some extent but I may have to fit microswitches if I can't get them working reliably.