TEAR IT OUT!!!

[Green_Elite_Cab]

The red wire is positive the green is negative. The board is drawn with a pencil. I then took 1/8 inch pin stripping for cars. Put it on the drawing to make the map of the yard. I then drilled small holes at each track coming off of switch. I don’t remember the size. It is large enough for a small nail, 16 or 18 to drop in but the head wouldn’t go through. The shinny spots you see on the picture are the nail heads. The red wires coming from the switch machines( I used atlas under board) are small speaker wires I used the thinnest solid speaker wire I could find. I think it was 24. I ran the common / negative / neutral what ever the middle one is called as a single wire from power supply to machines as shown on drawing. I just made a loop around the screw and went to the next one using bare wire. The speaker wire I soldered to the nails in the board. The coiled red wire is from an old electric tester with a probe. Which is attached to the power supply positive. When you touch the nail head the circuit is completed ant the switch is thrown. Very simple and basically maintenance free.

We just replaced this system on the oldest control panel at my club. Now all the switches are controlled by push buttons.

It was fun to make sparks with the system, but i'm guessing the new button one is a bit more intuitive.