Smartswitch turnout machines
Rich
A little advice about installation.
You will get excellent service from them if you use a regulated 12v dc power supply for powering the motherboard and the decoder. Something as simple as a 1.5 amp wall plug pack from one of your local electronic stores.
The sales of them is going very well in Australia and there are new item in the pipeline such as a stationary decoder for lighting alone which is fantastic for people who have friends around for running sessions as the Dispatcher can have DCC control of four sets of lights and can call trains onto the main line without issuing voice commands. I have one under test at present and also another under Beta test by a friend of mine. These are so new that they don't even have a price yet.
My web site should be up and running in a few weeks and will have all of the latest info as I get it. Anyone who wants any technical info on any of the ANE products is more than welcome to email me at
timesaverlayouts@bigpond.com and if you wish you can request to be added to the email newsletter which will only come out when new products arrive.
You will also be pleased to know that Walthers have also taken on the ANE range for resale. This is Hot News and advertising will be coming up in the NMRA Scale Rails magazine in the near future and for Aussie readers the advertising will be coming in the local NMRA Mainline magazine.
Another unit on the way is one to control boom gates at your crossings but this is a little way off. I will keep this site informed.
The Super SmartFrog unit is also now available and acts as a reversing switch and senses the approaching train and this causes the lights to go to yellow and kills the power to the frog and then moves the turnout to accept the train and when the movement of the blades is complete , the light goes to green and the frog powers up and ten seconds after the last set of metal wheels passes the sensor gap the light goes back to yellow and the process reverses until the turnout direction is back at the default direction. These units are $30 Australian. I am using them on a Y for turning short trains so I don't have to use any switches of tell the turnouts what to do. The standard SmartFrog doesn't have the auto sensor feature and it has two aspect lighting outputs for LEDs instead of three as on the Super SmartFrog.
A new large size set is now available as well for those O and G gaugers but no pricing yet.
Geoff H
