Having successfully overcome the “cheap turnout control” problem, finding a solution for the “cheap electrics” problem was a snap. I decided that rather than bother purchasing toggle switches to control my electric blocks, I would use regular household switches instead.
My house is very old and in an attempt to preserve some sense of history we’ve tried our best to ‘back-date’ modern inclusions as best we can. Once the decision we made early in our renovation efforts was to keep all the switches ‘bake-o-lite brown’ – thus I had a number of brown switches on hand. The dark switches will blend in nicely with the future fascia.
The plus side of the switches is cost – roughly $1.50 each. The boxes, switches and the faceplate cost under $10. As well, they are fantastically durable.
Anyway, not a particularly revolutionary idea, but an interesting (and frugal) alternative to conventional practice
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0 thoughts on “Cheap Electrics”
Mike G says:
Very interesting idea; they’ll easily handle the current you’re using, they’re built to last and you can even get them at the Dollar Store. I wonder how you could use 3-way and 4-way switches to your advantage?
Charles says:
3-way selects one of two (like switching cabs) with a common lead. 4-way switches two wires between two wires like reversing polarity.
Have fun,
Charles
Joe Daddy says:
Well, and I don’t mean to be krewel or to rain on your parade, but I don’t like toggle switches on my railroad at all. In fact, other than those built in to devices like power supplies and other discrete devices, I don’t have any toggle switches anywhere on my layout, most especially on the facia. Several reasons:
1 – I think toggles are butt ugly betty
2 – One can never seem to relate the correct switch to the correct function, turnout etc
3 – Fat guys like me invariably flip them when they should not be flipped.
So, I use decoders to do all my electronic switching chores and when I want individual control, I use a push button (which is not a toggle)right next to the turnout or device to be controlled so there is never any doubt about which one controls which.
Just my 2 cents, and I do like your site and the pictures. 🙂
Model Railroader says:
You are hardly raining on my parade! You make good points – if I wasn’t so cheap I would have probably done something different. The layout is so small I can navigate around it without flipping switches with the stomach. 😉
P.S. Got your blog in my reader – watch for updates all the time.