No techies out there?

Ron, Why do I need an S88, whatever that is when it is at home? I really am quite naive and ignorant of the digital side. My previous experience lies with using 5104, 5105 track control sections. Do I not just connect one wire to either side of the reed switch? Help, Alan

David, Thanks for that. I shall try ordering some and report back on my success. alan

Hello,

I tested long time with reed switches. I had some Märklin ones of my past layout and needed more of them and I looked on third party reed switches.

My tests showed one thing: no third party reed switches tested by me could reach the good performance of the Märklin reeds.

I have the Magnets on the last car of the train and use this even as a lost car detection mode. If some car are uncoupled, the reed will not switch and the train running behind is stopping at red light. No accident in this way.

So on the last car sometimes the distance is a little bit bigger from the magnet to the track. With the Märklin reeds absolutely no problem. Safe switch every time. With the third party reeds sometimes it switched, sometimes not, really depending on the speed of the train. To get nearly the performance of the Märklin reed, I have to use much bigger reed switches than the Märklin ones. This looks awful and needs a lot more of work to put them into the K track (cut of 3 crossties)

finally, I used the Märklin reeds on visible tracks (smaller, better protected behind the plastic shell, much easier to put in place). On hidden tracks I used the third party reeds (big, ugly with tie cutt out). The third party reeds which showed not reliable function were the one on curve. I replaced them with Märklin ones even on the hidden track.

To get better performance of the third party reeds, I had to invest in improved the magnets, which make things not really cheaper.

The Märklin magnets are crap for third party reeds. No reliable function. Ok on Märklin reeds. anyway the Märklin magnets are to expensive related to the performance.

I found good and cheap ones: magnets for magnetic boards. You can find them in a lot of different shapes to very cheap prices. Do not use too strong one, in case they will move your switch blades while passing on them and cause a derailment.

I lost a lot of time in finding the right third party reeds. All the test to build them into the correct position and running tests to get them reliable. I spent a lot of money in buying different versions of reeds and magnets.

When I look behind, it would have been worth to spend more money on Märklin reeds to have lesser trouble during installation and save a lot of my free time, having an absolute reliable function and better mechanical protection.

rgds


Stephan

they might work, I like the specs

0.5A 140v 10VA

as there are a lot of reeds on the market that are only rated at around 5V so when they see 16+ volts from the s88 they tend to weld together. Chances are though to handle that much voltage and amps the reed may be thick and takes a lot magnetic force to close.