On Video: Testing DCC Concepts Cobalt SS turnout motors...

Until now I've used manual turnout throws on layouts for a few years after abandoning the truly sorrowful experience of childhood and later early twenties and thirties of playing around with solenoid drives...

That said, it has it's limitations and especially with N and the delicate turnouts I have been making from the wonderful British Finescale kits. I have had my eye on servo drives for a while but they still take up quite a lot of space and hence are of no use for the average shelf layout - however, this DCC Concepts system is a surface mount unit and nice and compact. Although not cheap, if you consider the effort in wiring up the and adding frog polarity switching into the mix, then they're not as bad as they first seem (RRP is £60 for a set which controls and includes everything you need for two motors - I got mine from Rails for £50 plus postage). 

First impressions are good, well made and reasonably straight forward. The 'proof of concept' works (see video above) on the bench so next will be taking a look at installing these on the larger 'Gerald Road' layout. Until next time, more soon...

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