Switch-It Reviewed by User.

NCE Corporation product page

by Larry Maier

Switch-It® is a new accessory decoder manufactured by NCE Corporation.  It is assembled on a 2.1” X 1.3” printed wiring board with a set of 8 terminals on each end of the card.  It is designed to operate up to two stall motor switch machines, and each switch machine may be assigned its own unique DCC address.  It is worth emphasizing at this point that Switch-It® is designed for stall motor switch machines (such as Tortoise™ or SwitchMaster) ONLY.  IT WILL NOT WORK WITH TWIN COIL SWITCH MACHINES.  Having said that, Switch-It® makes the installation and control of model railroad turnouts a breeze!

I connected my sample to a Shinohara #6 code 100 switch.  I had everything working starting with sealed boxes in less than an hour.  I first used a plunge router to cut a ¼” X ¾” slot under the points of the switch to allow clearance for the Tortoise™ switch machine.  Next, I used the drill template enclosed with the switch machine to mark and drill the four mounting holes.  I bent the control wire per the enclosed template, and mounted it to the switch machine.  Finally, I used four #4 wood screws to mount the switch machine to the bottom of the road bed.  Now the best part:  I connected two wires from the track to Switch-It®, and two wires from Switch-It® to the Tortoise™ switch motor.  With two stacked squares of Scotch Mounting Tape, I attached the Switch-It® to the side of the Tortoise™ switch machine.  That was it; the switch was installed and ready to operate under DCC!  Below are two pictures of a typical Switch-It® installation:

The White/Black wire pair goes up through the road bed and connects the track power to Switch-It®.  The Red/Green pair connects the SWA output to the Tortoise™ switch motor.  SWA comes from the factory with the default Accessory Address of 1.  To operate the switch, I pressed SELECT ACCY, 1, ENTER.  At this point, pressing 1 routed the switch straight through, while pressing 2 routed the switch through the turn.  If the switch doesn’t respond in the correct direction, simply reverse the Red/Green leads to Switch-It®. 

SWB is connected to the next two terminals after the Red/Green wire connections on the top row of terminals.  By simply connecting two more wires to these terminals, you can have a second switch machine up and operating in seconds.  SWB is factory programmed to accessory address 2.  The second switch is easily accessed by keying: SELECT ACCY, 2, ENTER.  A 1 or 2 will then route the second switch.  Using the Macro capability of the NCE Power House Pro, a series of operations can be stored under a single command.  Once Switch-It® is installed on your layout, you can set up a complete switch route through multiple turnouts with a single macro execution.

Notice that the Switch-It® module is mounted with the track and switch motor connections to the top.  This is the recommended mounting configuration since it leaves easy access to the second row of terminals.  These terminals provide two functions.  First, by installing a momentary pushbutton switch across each pair of terminals, (1&2, 3&4, 5&6, 7&8) the points of each switch may be aligned manually by pressing the appropriate pushbutton.  This is a nice feature, since it allows automatic routing via normal DCC or computer control, while allowing a local override for such things as yard switching, etc. 

The second use of these contacts is to allow the operator to change the accessory address of either SWA or SWB.  This involves a little bit more of a rain dance to accomplish than with normal engine programming since the NMRA standards for accessories define block addressing, which means that accessory addresses occur in groups of 4.  If you simply access an accessory and change its address, then the 3 addresses above and/or the three addresses below it may also be assigned the new address, resulting in several accessory outputs responding to a single address.  To avoid this problem, address outputs within a range of 3 (higher and lower) must be set to OFF prior to programming a new accessory address.  Switch-It® accomplishes this task by having jumpers connected across the manual switch control terminals either momentarily or for the duration of the programming sequence, depending on the particular DCC system that you own.  I followed the directions given in the technical reference that comes with each Switch-It®, and was able to easily change the accessory address of the switch.  This procedure is easy enough if you are doing one or two decoders, but it could prove to be time consuming if you are doing a complete layout.  If you are upgrading your entire layout with Switch-It®, it might be easier to set up a programming jig.  This could be as simple as a couple of wires to your DCC power station with a couple of jumper wires mounted to line up with the manual control terminals.  Mount each Switch-It® into the jig, provide the fixed or momentary connection needed, and set the address of the SWA output.  Repeat the procedure for the SWB output, and label each Switch-It® with the addresses just assigned.  Now the Switch-It® modules can be mounted and wired to their associated accessories, and when you are all done, all the addresses are already assigned without having to crawl under the layout to set the correct jumpers on each one.

As mentioned above, Switch-It® is designed for use with stall motor switch machines.  These motors generally draw about 25mA of current in the stalled position.  Since the current is limited by the switch motor, LED’s can be connected directly in series with the switch motor.  If a red and green LED are connected in parallel with each other and in series with the switch machine, the red or green will indicate the routing of the switch with no further circuitry!  Use of a dual red/green LED would result in a single device whose color defined the switch routing.

In conclusion, NCE Corporation has produced a very useful addition to its product line.  Switch-It® is well documented, very easy to install, easy to use, and it adds a dramatic new dimension in the DCC control of your layout.

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