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Servo'd up

invercloy

Entry posted by invercloy

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I've just bought some products from Tam Valley depot to control servos to act as the point motors. Similar speed as tortoises, and the servos cost £19.99 for 10. The Octopus II control unit + associated gubbins is working out at around £85 to control 8 points. Additional bits include 16 mimic board controllers which consist of a push button and two LEDs (single, not bicolour) for route indication, as well as Y servo leads to link two push buttons to one servo. I'm excited to see how these perform when they turn up, the youtube videos and forum chatter in the US looks very promising. I'll post some details when they arrive. Frog switching will be done by microswitch as shown here. So overall including all the controls, mimic panel boards etc it still works out marginally cheaper than Tortoises.

 

I costed up building it all myself and it works out about the same price given the current exchange rate. Admittedly I've not taken account of import tax in that, but then I don't have to assemble it myself.

 

Demonstration videos of the units here:

 

 

 

I should be able to link signal control into the point operation where appropriate, but this will be done using the MERG Servo 4 as these can be reprogrammed to produce signal bounce when returning to horizontal, about the only thing the Tam Valley units seem incapable of sadly.

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GWRfan

Thanks for the videos. Its a most elegant solution and appears simple to set up.

 

 

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davec.hh

Thanks from me too. I'm thinking of using servos for operating points when I get them made in 0 gauge.

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invercloy

No problem folks, they seem little known in the UK. Duncan @ Tam Valley has been very helpful so far. I do have a 1.5 week wait for the parts to be assembled, but that's half of the waiting time in the disclaimer on the website and I'm sure it'll be worth it.

 

Will post feedback on them during and after installation.

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