And the switches stay mounted securely in the foam? This is a nice alternative to the tried and true knob-on-the-fascia method (which doesn't work well with some layout arrangements and/or construction). I wonder if sliding a small spring on the piano wire on each side of the switch would give you the spring tension that works so well on the CI ground throws. Maybe something like the Kadee HO coupler springs, or Kadee N restraining springs. Anyway, thanks for the inspiration, Jeff! ---jps
jps - I did not mount the slide switches directly to the foam. After creating an opening in the foam for the body of the switch and drilling a 1/4-inch hole for the wires to pass through to the underside of the layout, I glued two small pieces of 1/16-inch plywood across the front and back of the opening. Then I glued the switch to the two pieces of plywood. This seems to provide a solid mounting for the switch. I did all the gluing with foam-safe (odorless) gap-filling CA. Your idea of using a small spring on each side of the lever sounds like it would work. I also think that if the throw wire was bent into the proper shape, it could act as its own spring. However, I was not clever enough to figure out how to bend the wire to accomplish this! I used DPDT slide switches, removing a decorative silver ferrule around the throw lever and then shortening the lever, which was much longer than necessary. I soldered 6 color-coded wires to each switch and insulated them with shrink tubing before mounting the switch on the layout. The red-green-black wires are used to power the frog and change its polarity when the switch is thrown. The orange-purple-grey set of wires are available for illuminating control panel indicators or for trackside signals. Currently, this second set of wires isn't connected to anything. - Jeff
