in parallel

the switch machines can be wired in parallel. 

One answer

Edge connectors are good for the Tortoise. Solder to the connectors to avoid the chance of frying the terminals on the machines. It also makes very easy the last step here.

https://tonystrains.com/product/ttx-tortconn2-tortoise-edge-connector-for-tortoise-slow-motion-switch-machine

Wiring in series should be good; parallel will put 12V across each machine, which can be a little too vigorous.

If the machines aren't coordinated when you first connect them, switch the connector on one of them to get both switches for straight or crossover.

DrJolS 

Your

description is inexact.  With a single 12VDC supply, you must reverse the polarity to the tortoises, hence you need a DPDT switch.  It's not a "two position switch", but rather a double pole, double-throw.  Hence, DPDT.

Wire it as a normal "polarity reversing" switch, then wire the two tortoises from the center contacts.  If one of the tortoises moves opposite to the desired movement, reverse just it's connections.

To be fair, I think that's what your suggesting, it's just wording.

Blair

Wiring Tortoise switch machines.

Thanks for all answers and to Blair, you are right in that I should have said DPDT and with that have the polarity reveresed.

Kind regards,

I plan on remote mount use for crossovers

The Circuitron remote mount for the Tortoises can control two turnouts simultaneously. I would use one motor and two linkages to control a crossover. There are creative "engineers" who have also designed systems that use one motor to control four turnouts in a double crossover

two turnout w/ one switch machine

if you use pivot linkages between the rails pinned to the throwbar, you can probably align the switch machine to easily control two turnouts.

Wiring possibilities

The following link explain and show numerous possibilities to wiring Tortoises motors including led panel and show also some special linkage to throw unreachable turnout.

Myself I use Tortoise and Hankscraft display motors for my layout and use a two transformer power with a common path; this allow you to power all the motors with only two wires, not negligeable if there are a lot of motors to wire.

This power system is explained in the link I share with you.

https://palmettodiv.org/sites/palmettodiv.org/files/gordon_fewster_-_wiring_and_installing_tortoise_switch_machines.pdf

It's also possible to program an Arduino circuit to control the switch motors from your panel control this could help to again minimize the numbers of wires from the control panel.

Arduino control

CMRInet is an established method for communicating between a PC and multiple node throughout a layout to do I/O to for turnout and signal control and reading turnout position and block occupancy detection.

as far as I know, an Arduino cannot directly control a Tortoise machine.  Relays are one approach, but ironically, you need a higher current circuit to control the relay which just needs to handle ~15ma.   Relays could be used to switch between +/- 12V or reverse the polarity (DPDT).

another approach is to use op-amps to reverse the polarity to a Tortoise.   An I2C board allows many Tortoise machines to be controlled by a single Arduino

If I use...

If I'm using two power supplies and a SPDT switch (as in diagram 2 on the Circuitron instruction sheet, in combination with diagram 4 for the LEDs), what would the wiring look like for a single cross over?  Would I just wire the two Tortoises in series as  in the DPDT case?

Thanks

Bill Lugg