Latest Purchase - Not Quite Advance :)

[Super]

I wanted to try them on some wiring mods like coach lighting. I think it would be much easier to reach under a coach and just push an on/off button that to reach under and and move a slide switch. Plus I also wanted to try the button micro switches on either the front/rear of and engine or a coach and maybe even see how a small button switch would look on a roof seeing as you would only need to drill a proper size hole for it with no filing and fidgeting. I also wanted to try them on building lighting. I hope you find some for us.

Now that's a good reason for me to go looking for some. You might want to think about the Takara way of using these switches though. What they do is have the front car hinged at the nose, this then allows the rear of the car to move up and down (there's a very small spring on the inside rear of the car cover). So what you do with their trains is you turn the battery switch on that is located on the bottom of the middle car, put the train on the track, then simply depress lightly on the rear of the front car and off she goes. Then when you want to switch her off you just again press lightly on the rear of the car and it stops.

Personally I think this is a very elegant solution to the on/off issue and beats the normal throw the switch and put on the track or hold and throw the switch hands down

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You could maybe use these, they are not on/off, but rather multi-positional switches, but you could use a small screwdriver to switch say from 0 to 1 to turn on a current. In fact if you fitted multiple functions to a single wagon or loco this could be a good way to use one or more functions individually or combined. Further thought, combine it with an array of resistors or something and you could adjust light levels

Surface Mount Rotary Switch

[Super]

Thats certainly a different idea. I also just thought of somewhere else I could use one right now. I was thinking of putting a flickering (not flashing) LED light in a small projector building for one of my current custom scenery items I am working on, a Drive In Theater. A button cell and one of these micro push button switches would be perfect to have all the workings contained inside this little building. A couple years ago I bought a 50 bulk purchase of these for next to nothing from China thinking they were regular on/off switches only to discover they were the momentary on switches. I ended up throwing them away which I was sorry for as I thought later they would work great as a activation switch inside a blue track that would operate trackside lights as a train passed by. I got the idea after watching these videos from Panda Neko. There is also a video out there that shows someone installing the smaller momentary buttons in a blue track but I can't find that. All it took was the appropriate sized round hole for the activation button as the height of these micro switches would easily fit within the rail underneath the track without any modification.

That is a pretty cool use of a momentary switch, however in those cases the switch is tied to a whole bunch of electronics to provide a timer and other functions to switch from one LED to another, flash them etc...

You could defintely use the momentary switches in the track though so that they activate something as a wheel rolls over it, a lot of the surface mount ones use very little force.

[Super]

Thats exactly what I was thinking. Using one for lowering crossing gates and crossing lights for one. When the train and all its wheels pass, the lights and gates would turn off. Even thought that using one for lights to come on and off for buildings as trains pass by would give a layout a sense of life. Don't know if any of this would work but some of the greatest ideas start with but a simple thought or a simple minded thought

Yeah, what you really want is something that is triggered by the contact of the switch then lights or whatever the subject for a set number of seconds or similar. There must be some electronic circuitry or a chip for such functionality, maybe I'll have a browse around later

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Super - if you want something 'animated' for your layout, how about something like this;

ARC Welder Simulator

[Super]

I figured that since the wheels would be almost constantly striking the button it would keep gates up until the wheels passed. The trick would be to find the button that that was the exact proper height to just protrud slightly through the bottom of the track where the wheels would strike it but not so high as to make the train bounce over it like in that video but they have many different heights I believe.

That welder card is pretty cool and would look good I bet inside a maintenance building or the like. Too bad they don't link to a video.

I've actually seen those welder cards in action at exhibitions etc... in exactly the way you mention, in an engine shed, car workshop, factory or similar. They are very realistic and exceptionally bright, even working in a fully lit room. Definitely adds an element of animation to a scene and not as massively expensive as you'd think...

Right Mr Super, I've got a little update for you, I've still to locate a 'latching' (i.e. on/off) micro switch, but in my search and requests to various companies tech support departments one came back with an interesting component.

Basically thay usually carry two small circuit boards, one low voltage (up to 7v), one higher voltage (up to 20v) which contains a chip which acts as effectively an electronic on/off switch which is 'toggled' by a momentary switch. This to me sounds like it could be something that you may be able to use for your track activated options, I only speed read the specifications, but I think they may also offer a timer off function

Anyway the links are here, if I find anything else interesting on my travels I will post here;

Low Voltage
Standard Voltage

[Super]

Thats interesting. Thanks for the info Nigels