I have installed some servo motors and control electronics purchased from Iowa Scaled Engineering for throwing the switch points. The experience has been very positive, and I cannot say enough about the great support that these guys provide for their products. They make it clear that the customer comes first. Here is a summary of my experience:
1. Background: My switches are "semi-hand laid," built using Central Valley switch tie strips, some pcb ties, Micro Engineering code 83 rail, and Fast-Tracks filing jigs-- following the excellent instructions provided by Joe Fugate elsewhere on this site. The key thing is that the solid closure rails make these switches a little stiffer to throw than what you would encounter with hinged points or with commercially available manufactured switches. My track work is mounted on Midwest HO cork roadbed, which in turn is attached to two thin layers of rubber (for sound isolation), which is then attached to 1/2" plywood cookie cutter sub roadbed mounted to traditional L-girder benchwork.
2. I was attracted to the Iowa Scaled products for several key advantages that they provide:
- Compact installation: the servo motor that moves the points is tiny and as a result is much easier to fit into my layout without having to relocate joists supporting my plywood underlayment or making other compromises. The servo electronics board is also quite small and can be located flexibly in the general vicinity of the servo motor-- they are connected by a length of cable that is fixed to the motor, and plugs into the control board. This product is much smaller than the various stall motor solutions that are sold. Iowa Scaled suggests (and provides) adhesive foam tape for attaching the servo motor to the bottom of the plywood. I ended up using a slightly different approach which I'll outline later in this post
- Simple wiring: I used the MRServo2 model, which includes two sets of relay-operated auxiliary SPDT contacts. I use one set of these contacts to power my frog. The other set is not used, but is available for controlling switch state indicators, for example. I feel that relay contacts are going to be more reliable in the long term than inexpensive micro-switch contacts, which are used in some other products.
I wire both DCC phases to the servo control board and also connect a third wire to my isolated frog. In addition, I provide power to the servo control board from a 12vdc bus that I run. The servo control board has an on-board voltage regulator. Beyond that, I only need to run a single control wire out to a SPST switch on my fascia to control the switch state. Note that only needing an SPST switch instead of a more expensive DPDT switch needed for some stall motor solutions is a nice cost savings.
Six wires in total. Only one of them needs to run around- the other 5 are short jumper connections to nearby buses. The servo control board includes screw terminal strips for all connections, so once my jumper wires are soldered to my buses, it is very straightforward to connect them to the servo system.
- Economical: Iowa Scaled has priced their products very attractively, and in addition, they offer discounts for quantities, starting at 10 units. The total parts cost per switch for the Iowa Scaled servo motor and servo control board with its included screw terminal strips, plus the electrical switch to control the state is significantly lower than the stall motor options.
- All the information you need is available: The schematic diagram of the servo electronics control board is available on the web site, as is the listing of the source code for the micro-controller that runs things. Being able to view these documents enabled me to satisfy myself as to how everything worked. I realize that not everyone wants to, or can, go through that type of information, but having it readily available is a big plus. Before I made my first purchase, I had some basic questions about the products which were promptly answered via an email from their support address.
3. My installation experience: I had to do a bit of trial and error work before I got things working to my satisfaction, but once I got things resolved, everything has worked well. Iowa Scaled gives detailed instructions, with good photographs and diagrams of how to install their product. They supply 0.025" music wire to connect the servo horn which is attached to the servo motor shaft with the switch throw bar. They suggest that for stiffer hand-laid switches, you might want to substitute 0.038" music wire. I was not able to obtain the .038 stuff, but did try some .045" wire, which proved too stiff to bend properly and get through the holes in the servo horn. So I stuck with the 0.025" wire.
Iowa Scaled turns the servo motor off about 1 second after it has thrown the points in position. The friction in the gear train inside the servo motor, along with the spring force exerted by the music wire, is intended to hold the points in place once the servo motor is turned off. What I found is that I had to adjust my music wire linkage so that it was stiff enough to move my closure rails properly, while not being so stiff that its "spring back" force was able to overcome gear friction and "unwind" the servo motor gears once the servo motor turned off. The overall situation is also affected by the distance between the servo motor shaft and the hole in the throw bar tie through which the music wire is inserted. Finding this balance took some head scratching and time, but once I fully understood what was going on, it wasn't bad. In the end, I had success by modifying the way the music wire is attached to the plastic servo horn. Iowa Scaled's diagram shows the pivot point of the music wire being at a hole in the servo horn that is just "below" (ie, far side from the tracks) the servo motor shaft. That did not work for me-- with 0.025" wire, this linkage was not stiff enough to reliably move my points hard up against the stock rails. What did work was to mount the music wire so that the pivot point was at a hole just "above" (ie, the side closest to the tracks) the servo motor shaft. The difference in location of the pivot point ended up being about 1/4". This made the linkage stiffer, and it hit the sweet spot-- stiff enough to move things, not so stiff as to "unwind" things.
(Side note: during my experimentation, I considered leaving the servo motor on continuously after the points were thrown-- disabling the 1 second delay that shuts the servo motor off. I did this with great help from Iowa Scaled-- they quickly- and at no charge!!!!- provided me with a sample modified servo control board that had this behavior. Leaving the servo motor on worked-- it held the points firmly in place, as would be the case for a traditional stall motor approach. However, the servo motor made noise which I did not want. So, I did not use this approach, and instead succeeded by modifying the linkage as described in the previous paragraph).
If there is interest, I could work on posting a photo or diagram of my linkage approach. Other than changing the location of the pivot point, I followed exactly the instructions for the linkage provide by Iowa Scaled.
The other change I made is that instead of using double sided foam tape to attach the servo motor, I glued it to a small rectangular piece of 3/16" plywood. I cut an elongated slot in the plywood, and used a wood screw passing through this slot to attach to the underside of the plywood sub roadbed. I used a washer to let me use a slot that is large enough to allow moving the location of the servo motor around in 2 dimensions before tightening up the screw. I felt this would be more secure in the long term than the tape, and it also reduces my stress in locating the servo motor properly while working under the benchwork.
Hope this helps!