wiring turnouts

[eeyore]

I purchased the HO scale EZ Track with electric turnouts.No wiring instructions.Can someone tell me how these switches are wired?

[NarrowMinded]

If your using the Bachmann power supply connect the red (2 wire) accessories plug to the Accessory outputs, then plug that into the side of the switch, then plug the green (3 wire) plug into the selector switch. then momentarily press down on the selector switch the turn out should switch over if not slide the switch into the other position and press down.


NM

[mf5117]

if its the worlds greatest hobby set that comes with 4 switches the red 2 wire plug ,plugs into the side of the 1st switch then gang them together all 4 switches . I believe they came with 10ft green  extention's then plug those into the 3 prong side of the spdt co black switch . it just takes  a short press of the button . to make the switch operate .

[BradKT]

I agree with what all of the previous posters have said, but I would add one thing.  I don't know how complex your layout is, but if you have a layout that features parallel tracks and your layout has switches for switching trains between those tracks like I do on my layout, then what I am posting here could be very helpful.

I also have Bachmann EZ-track switches (#5s and #6s).  At the suggestion of some of the members of the group, for those switches that were switching trains between parallel tracks, I wired them together in pairs to Atlas switch controls (the proper term is connector) so I could activate both switches at the same time with a single control.  It makes life a lot easier when you are dealing with manually operated switches...and it's easy to do.

For each pair of switches, I got a couple of Bachmann's green extension wires and cut them so that I could plug one end to the wire from each switch and connect the bare wire ends to an Atlas connector (the simple on-off one, I forget the number, but you can get one that could be used to control one, two or three pairs of switches).  I then ran a length of wire (an unused section of the green wire would suffice...or any 2-strand wire that could handle 18 volts would do, such as doorbell wire) from the Atlas connector to the AC accessories outlet of a DC transformer.  If you are running a DC layout,  no problem.  However, if you are running a DCC layout, you cannnot power Bachman switches by connecting them to either the Command Station or the 5 amp power pack because there is no terminal for powering DC accessories to connect the wire powering the switches to.  You would have to power your switches by connecting them to a DC transformer.  Just about any old one would suffice. 

The beauty of this approach if that if you have several such pairs of switches, using the Atlas connectors allows you to connect the connectors to each other (the parts to do this are included) and then you only have to make one connection to your power source (the DC transformer)...which then in turn supplies the power to all of the Atlas connectors and for all of your switches.

I positioned and mounted the Atlas connectors near my transformer...right in front of where I sat to control the trains on my layout for easy access.  You can either screw the Atlas connectors down to mount them or use double-sided tape.  You can get some excellent heavy duty double-sided tape by Scotch for $10.00 from Home Depot.

[OldTimer]

Brad,
I think you meant Atlas Switch Control Box, not Atlas Connector.  The Connector is three SPST switches (on-off) grouped together.  The Switch Control Box is a SPDT switch specifically designed to momentarily provide the power to operate a twin-coil switch machine.  If you somehow did wire one side of a switch machine to the terminals of an Atlas Connector and activated it, the switch machine would sit there choking on 18 VAC until it melted, burst into flames, or both.   

You are quite right in your observation that the two turnouts in a cross-over can be thrown together.  After all, there is no other place to go once you've thrown the first one. 

Old Timer

[BradKT]

OLD-tIMER:

I STAND CORRECTED ON THE TERMINOLOGY.

That was how I did it on my layout and it works beautifully.