Model Railroading > In need of a power cut switch for engine terminal.

I'm new to most wiring projects other than standard, "hook up the red wire here and the black wire there." I want a power cut switch for my engine terminal. What kind of switch do you guys recommend? I found some info on Google, but they weren't specific enough. I don't want to use a switch that will mess up something on the layout.

Excuse my stupidity here, but I have to start somewhere. My photo below should prove that I'm not as much a novice in the scenery department.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/15 00:08 by steam290.

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KISS method, all depends how you want to mount it, most any switch will do

Ed Stewart
Jacksonville, FL

Single pole/on/off switch on 1 wire.

Whatever your flavor with only two postions, on and off:  push button, toggle switch (side to side) or  slide switch. Basically the power is cut on one wire and kills the track . The latter two would probably work the best best so you would know which is on and which is off unless your push botton has a light on it that goes out when the power is off.

If it is a DCC layout with 12-14 ga solid copper wire you can use a household wall switch. These are cheap, reliable and easy to install in one of the bus wires.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

Greetings! If you're using DCC with a large power bus, like 12 ga, and smaller feeders, around 20 ga or so, you can use smaller switches to cut the feeder lines. The photo shows the miniature toggle switches I use to kill the power to each of the 6 tracks in my staging yard. Our layout uses Lenz DCC with wire gauges as mentioned above. The staging yard is still under construction which explains the tools laying around and the as-yet unlabeled switches.

We use these switches to kill the staging yard track power as needed so the locomotives sitting there not currently in use aren't drawing any power from the system, and to save unnecessary "powered up" time on the decoders. This may be overkill and completely unnecessary from a real-world standpoint but I prefer the powering flexibility.

Jeff Johnston
www.trainvideosandparts.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/15 11:20 by Jeff_Johnston.

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Thanks guys! Those are some good answers! It helps a lot.

Posted from iPhone

I mount box cars without trucks to the "ground", and install an on-off slide or toggle switch on its roof.

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That's a cool idea

Posted from iPhone