Monday, February 01, 2010

Other point motor types

With thanks to Michael Campbell, my attention has been drawn to three more types of point motors:

1) Fulgurex see http://www.dccsupplies.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=284 and for instructions see http://www.finescale.org.uk/finescale/fulgurex.htm

These are a much better cost that tortoise and also much lower profile (30mm).  They can have 2 or more aux switches and the only issues are apparently noise (not a huge issue for me) and the fact that they are hard to alter later (but I hope to get them installed correctly first time and would probably glue them in with epoxy for strength and a bit of alteration time whilst drying.

2) Conrad see http://www.conrad-uk.com/ and search for point mechanism -
people say these are cheap versions of the below.  They only have the single switch and people say avoid them on reliability grounds.

3) Hoffmann see http://finneyandsmith.co.uk/finneyandsmith/hoffman.htm

as 2, they only have one switch and are about as expensive as tortoises.  Fulgurex still my favourite.

So, to change or not...

3 comments:

Paul Holmes said...

Hi Colin I have used the Hoffmann on Dinas but bought from somewhere in Germany (much cheaper even with the exchange rate. The Type 2 is cheaper athen the mARK £ (which is the only one F&S now stock) and is much more DCC friendly than the Tortoise as it does not need continuous current. look at Digitrax accessory decoders though - very small like a loco decoder and switch 4 points. You can assign 2 points the same decoder function number and then they will both switch together.
Paul

Nick B said...

Do you remember where in Germany? I need some but baulk at F&S prices.

Nick B said...

Do you remebre where in Germany? I need some more but baulk at F&S prices.