tortoise in series

[mighalpern]

I saw we had an old post about multiple turnouts in a hidden staging, and most replies were with some form of diode matrix system.  My friends hidden staging has 7 tracks in and 7 out.  he wants something simple  where you can select one track and both sides line up for it.
 So I was wondering has anyone tried the system described in Model Railroader several years ago where the tortoises are in series to each other and use diodes to control in a cascading fashion.  I am at work right now and dont have the article in front of me, but this seems pretty straight forward, or is it?
anyone tried it?
Thanks
Miguel

[jdcolombo]

I have used the following to operate my Tortoises (over 100 of them) on my layout, including in my staging yard:

http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/556Stall08.html

Each of these boards will run 4 Tortoises, and the web link above has a bunch of wiring diagrams, including how to wire the boards using a diode matrix to control a yard with single-button selection for each track.   See also this page on the same site: http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/StallRouter.html which illustrates how to use the boards to run a six-track staging yard with a rotary switch (which is what I did). This site also has a wealth of other information about Tortoise control.

The only problem is that I'm not sure the boards are still available - you can e-mail Rob Paisley and see if he still has them.  When I bought them a few years ago, you could get them with a parts kit, although the parts are very common and can easily be ordered from Digikey or Mouser.

John C.

[mighalpern]

thanks John:
I remember crossing Rob's site several years ago,  thanks for the reminder   
I sent an e-mail.
hopefully he still sells kits

Miguel