Big_Boy_4005 posted:That's a good question. I have some that stay and some that want to move. I may have to work on that. If you add some friction or tie it to something like a light switch to lock it in position, it should stay very nicely.
I visited a guy's layout once, and he used a dowel as a push rod, which he tied to a toggle switch. He was in HO, and used the electrical contacts of the switch, for power routing. We don't need that aspect, we just want something to have that positive click. To connect it to the linkage, he drilled a hole in the plastic paddle.
I went ahead and ordered a set of the Sullivan push rids, just to see how they will work on my layout. I am really liking this design a lot. I will have 4 switches that will require remote operation, and I think that this will work just fine. I really don’t want to get into all of the wiring required to operate all of these switches with an electrical controller.
Regarding the detent; I remember, several years ago, a guy posted that he used a large wooden dowel, with a knob on the end, as the actual pusher that would slide thru his layout fascia. He then connected his cable, or what ever flexible device to the end of that dowel, under his layout.
To lock it in place in either direction, he drilled a small hole in the dowel, at a designated position just beyond the knob, and put another much smaller dowel, or may be a roll pin, thru so that it protruded out of only one side of the larger dowel by, again, a designated amount.
He drilled a hole in his layout fascia just large enough for the large dowel to slide thru, back and forth, then he cut a small notch thru the fascia, from the hole up, just a bit larger than the smaller dowel or pin, so that it could slide thru from one side to the other as well. Once it was in the correct position, either on the outside of the fascia, or on the inside of the fascia, he would rotate the knob to turn the pin away from the notch, and it would then be healed in place by the fascia itself.
The key to all of this is, of course, to get the travel of the dowel assembly coordinated with the bends in the music wire such that the switch is thrown, with enough load on the music wire to truly hold it in place.
