when hooking a wire to a soldering lug on a PECO switch machine before you solder it in place, does it matter if the wire "doubles back" onto itself? Also, do you have to solder a wire on all 4 lugs, or can you just do 1 or 2? What wattage does everyone reccomend? I have 3 irons, 2 35-watt pencil-tip, and 1 80-watt chisel tip. As you can tell I'm new at this, but not to model railroading, though. On my previous so-called "layout" (now dismantled) I never got this far.
Hi Keyrail, I wouldn't worry too much about the wire "doubling back" so long as it is firmly soldered into the lug and the solder has penetrated the wire strands. You will need to solder a wire to each of the 4 lugs. The two lugs on one side of the motor are connected to the live poles of your actuating switch and the other two lugs form the common return back to your power supply and can in fact be linked together. A 35 watt iron should be adequate for this job. Just to be awkward I use a 50 watt iron for most model railway work. Hope this helps. John [ 23. March 2003, 21:08: Message edited by: John Whitby ]
Hi Keyrail Just to elaborate on what John stated, it doesn’t matter which side of the PL10 (Point Motor) you use to bridge across, and it only needs to be bridged at the motor end and just one lead brought back to the 16volt power. The other two wires (Other side) brought back to either a control panel (“Stud & Probe contact”) or passing contact switches. Paul [ 24. March 2003, 17:21: Message edited by: Paul Templar ]
