SEEP point motor wiring

[DevonCottage]

I have come back to modelling after a 30 year gap but have a few old items that I am trying to re-use. Amongst them are five SEEP point motors. I have found a wiring diagram on https://www.railwaymodellers.com/join-the-railway-modellers-club/?mepr-unauth-page=1032&redirect_to=%2Finstalling-gaugemater-seep-point-motors%2F which indicated that the 'common' auxiliary contact was tab F, but having soldered one in to test I can get it to change the points (made from a copper-clad kit, not an insulfrog type) but not the track polarity. The blades will go across but the frog and 'downstream' track remain energised in one direction only. I even tried swapping the wires to test whether the common contact is actually D or E instead but no luck. A friend suggested I try Tortoise motors instead, but they seem to be currently out of production. I would welcome any useful suggestions.

[brossard]

SEEPs are not renowned for their reliability.  Who knows what has happened to yours over the years.  Yes, Tortoise motors are what I'm using as I wire my layout.  However, they too are legacy items from more than 20 years ago.  My choice today would be Cobalt from DCC Concepts.  These have all the features that Tortoise should have had.

 

I just had a quick look around and I too am finding that both Tortoise and Cobalt are out of stock.  Probably due to a lot of people rediscovering their model railways.

 

If you have a multimeter, you should be able to suss out which connection does what.  Your crossing should be isolated for polarity to switch.

 

John

 

 

[BoD]

I’m not sure how old your SEEPs are but if you look closely you can see the conducting tracks on the ‘baseboard’ of the motor itself and work out all of the contacts from there.  The Seep frog switching usually depends on the movement of a washer over conducting tracks on the board to which the coils are fixed. Do yours use  the washer around the arm that throws the point to do the switching?   Check that this is positioned correctly and moves enough to break one contact and connect the other.  Sometimes the fixing of the point motor may not centred and the washer may not move across enough. 

 

 Perhaps the throw of the point blades on your hand built points do not allow the washer to move fully across the gap.
 

I prefer slow action point motors because I worry that the thump of the solenoid motors may weaken the point blade connections plus their switching seems more reliable.

[DevonCottage]

Thanks for the comments. I agree slow action motors would be better, if I can get any. Thanks for the tip about Cobalt motors - shame they're also unavailable. I'll keep my eyes open for any that do become available.

[brossard]

Definitely worth upgrading to slo mo motors.

 

John

[Sol]

And there is this slo mo unit

https://www.dcctrainautomation.co.uk/mtb-mp6-point-motor.html

[ejstubbs]

DCC Train Automation also do the cheaper MP1 which works like a stall motor i.e. it doesn't need a momentary switch - although it doesn't stall, it switches itself off at the end of travel.

 

The MP6 uses a pulse to trigger the movement although it can be run from any 9-16V DC supply, it doesn't need a CDU to provide the 'whack'.  You also need to provide separate continuous DC power to the motor itself.  AFAICS it uses the pulse to trigger an internal switch that connects the continuous power to the motor, which then switches itself off again at the end of its travel.  I actually struggle to understand the value of this approach, unless it's that if you're replacing a solenoid motor you don't have to swap out the momentary switch as well.  Or maybe it's for use with separate DCC decoders - but the MP7 seems to be intended for that (I know less than zip about DCC so this is purely a wild guess - and this is the non-DCC subforum, after all).

 

There is also an MP5, which is similar to the MP1 but has more internal polarity switches and a similar plug-and-play connector to the MP6.

 

There is discussion about the early versions of the MTB motors here.  The manufacturer's web site is here but beware: most of it is in Czech, even if you select English as the language.   (I guess Chrome's translation facility would be helpful here.)

 

A bit of digging around should unearth other potential suppliers of the MTB motors.

[ELTEL]

Another alternative option would to use a micro switch to change the frog polarity, not sure how practical that would be with Seep point motors.

 

i know on all the H&M point motors used on the fiddle yards of the club layouts have a micro switches attached for changing frog polarity.

 

Hope it helps

 

Terry 

[tarifa]

Servo's are another slow action option and frog juicers to switch polarity; or a micro switch activated by the servo.

 

Mike

[ejstubbs]

4 hours ago, ELTEL said:

Another alternative option would to use a micro switch to change the frog polarity

 

And another option is to use a latching relay like the Gaugemaster GM500.  You wire it so that it's triggered by the same pulse that fires the point motor (same as wiring two SEEPs to switch a crossover).

[Sol]

or the Heathcote units

http://www.heathcote-electronics.co.uk/point_indicator.html#POINT-INDICATOR-RELAY