Tam Valley Depot

Tam Valley makes a number of interesting DCC products. I'm still exploring and testing them, so this page may be somewhat incomplete

Turnout control -

I'm using some custom built switches with a live frog, so besides DCC control of the switch motor, I want power routing to the frog.

I purchased the SSD002 singlet decoder, servo, and the relay board.

The servo plugs into the decoder board and the connector is on the edge, with the letters "BRS" for Black,Red, Signal, so you know which way to orient the servo cable.

The relay cable has a white wire on one side and a black on the other. White is also the signal.

On the decoder board, you see a white triangle near the pin where the white wire goes. On the relay board, the outer 2 pins have S and B, so S is for the white, signal wire.

(the manual does not tell you this, and the illustration shows a cable with a brown, red, and an orange wire.)

While experimenting, I used a permanent marker to mark which was switch 1 and switch 2... they are marked on the back of the board, but not the side you push from.

Press both buttons until both leds flash, then send a stationary decoder command (open or closed), and the decoder will be programmed to the address you used.

Programming

First, the later versions have a jumper that prevents programming from the buttons. IF you don't have this version, sell yours to someone and get that version. The biggest problem I had in setting these up was getting them programmed, and then inadvertently messing up the programming by trying to operate the turnout.

Mounting the servo

Well, this is pretty easy, or so it seems at first. I purchased the complete kit, which included a servo mounting kit from Motrak Models. http://www.motrakmodels.net  The kit is number 1002/4 and was $12. It mounts most "9g" servos, including the HS-55.