I am putting my track plan together. It is a digital layout and
I will be running my locos digitally.
I would like to know if I can manually control thru control boxes
and a separate transformer my turnouts?
I know that I will not have to connect the decoder to the turnout motor.
So can I do it manually? If so is there a way you could explain how
I can accomplish this without frying my electronics?
I would like control signals this way in the future also.
I just like the idea of looking at a control panel and pressing buttons.
I will be running my locos digitally.
I would like to know if I can manually control thru control boxes
and a separate transformer my turnouts?
I know that I will not have to connect the decoder to the turnout motor.
So can I do it manually? If so is there a way you could explain how
I can accomplish this without frying my electronics?
I would like control signals this way in the future also.
I just like the idea of looking at a control panel and pressing buttons.
Yes you can run your locomotives digitally, and your turnouts either manually, or remotely with the switch control boxes.
To accomplish this, your track gets connected to your digital controller.
To control your turnout motors with the switch control boxes (for Marklin C-track you use the Marklin 72710 boxes), you run the three wires from the turnout motor to your 72710 box.
No turnout decoder is used.
Wiring the Marklin turnout motor
The wires from the turnout motor contain a yellow (I call it the return or common wire) and two blue wires.
The blue wires connect to the contacts on the 72710 switch control box. They get "momentary" power through the push buttons on the 72710 box. Momentary, much like your doorbell switch.
One blue wire sets the turnout to the curved position, connect it to the "red" port on your 72710.
The other blue wire sets the turnout to the straight position, connect it to the "green" port on your 72710.
The yellow goes to your power supply. This can be an AC transformer with 16 Volts.
The other contact of your power supply goes to the side port of the 72710 control box. Marklin likes to use brown as wire color. The combination yellow/brown indicates accessories power.
Note that in this wiring, there is no connection between the digital circuit that feeds the track, and the accessories power which feeds the turnout motors.
Ajckids has Brawa extension wires which are perfect 3-wire strands to extend the electrical runs from your turnout motors to the control boxes. They are available in the original blue-blue-yellow, but also in red-green-yellow, which makes it easier to discern between the two blue wires.
Signals can be controlled the same way too.
You can also use contact tracks, even on a digital layout, to control your turnouts and signals, much like we used to do on our analog layouts.