Posting questions here may advertise my lack of knowledge about this stuff, but it’s okeh because my ego was surgically removed when the young Mexican lad I hired to help me with my layout knew much more about putting in concrete roadbed than me. He was/is great and is an artist with concrete.
So, the roadbed for the mainline is in, the track is laid, and track power is connected using burried #10 low voltage landscape wire. Isolated sidings are wired with #12, and everything works very well. There is no perceptual slow down of any engine tested even at the fartherest point away from the controler. Today I connected the 4 switches to #12 low voltage wire. All 4 were tested before installing and they worked fine on the work bench. The furtherest switch is about 100 feet from the power source and hooked up through an LGB switch control box at the source. The three closer switches seem to work fine, the most distant one almost works, but not quite. The source voltage on my $9.95 Radio Shack meter is 15 volts but at the switch I get 9 volts. I cleaned and lubricated the switch and it still only moves about half way. I already have all the layout wiring burried and would like to not pull it up and change to a larger guage for the switch. I see that the switch can support 2 motors, and I have many extra switches from which I can scavage more motors. Will that work, or is there a way to boost the voltage at the source so that I have more power at the switch?
I’m sure this has come up before, but couldn’t find anything on it. Can anyone help?
Norm