Our original IntuiSwitch™ controls make direct, local control of turnouts that use stall motor switch machines like the Tortoise™ as easy as possible. With built-in status display and just two wires to the power source and two wires to the turnout, they combine ease of use and ease of installation.

We developed the -H (Hybrid) IntuiSwitch™ as an enhancement for layouts that use DCC and/or JMRI decoder boards for remote or computer control of layout operation. When paired with a decoder board that supports the capabilities, the -H IntuiSwitch™ adds local control and status display to these decoder-based layouts. This can be invaluable when fixing problems during operations.

Our Hybrid -H and -HQ controls provide the same attractive look and feel as our conventional IntuiSwitch™ controls, but haves a different circuit board inside. It provides pushbutton input to for a DCC, LCC or JMRI decoder board, and displays turnout status from the decoder board. The decoder board (instead of the IntuiSwitch™) actually drives the turnout, based on input from the IntuiSwitch™ and the DCC, LCC, or JMRI networking. This has several implications:

• Other types of switch machines can be used, as long as your decoder board supports them.
• The hybrid -H or -HQ IntuiSwitch™ doesn't need a supply of its own, as long as the decoder board provides appropriate status outputs.
• The decoder board's logic decides how to combine the pushbutton input from the -H IntuiSwitch™ with the commands from DCC, LCC or JMRI. Some decoders include the ability to remotely enable or disable input from the pushbutton.

Our hybrid -H and -HQ IntuiSwitch™ controls are available in both mounting styles (Classic IntuiSwitch and D-IntuiSwitch).

The IntuiSwitch™-H

The -H hybrid IntuiSwitch™ has a four wire electrical interface, accessible via the included breakout board with screw terminals for easy wiring. Two wires provide the connection for the pushbutton, and the other two provide connection to the status LEDs. The cable has green sleeving over the end that plugs in to the breakout board. This sleeving (along with different color coding on the breakout board) makes it easy to tell the conventional and -H IntuiSwitch™ controls apart when wiring the layout.

This IntuiSwitch-H 2.0 Wiring Quick Reference Guide (pdf) shows the connections using the supplied breakout board.

The IntuiSwitch-HQ

The -HQ IntuiSwitch comes with a three-wire cable designed for easy hook-up to the Tower-LCC and Signal-LCC boards from RR-CirKits. The cable plugs directly on to any the eight three-pin headers of RR-CirKits QL Breakout board. A ribbon cable then connects the QL Breakout board to a corresponding connector on the Tower-LCC or Signal-LCC board. One QL breakout board can handle up to eight IntuiSwitch-HQ controls. Here is a Hookup Diagram for using the IntuiSwitch-HQ ™ controls with RR-CirKits LCC boards.

The three-wire interface used by the IntuiSwitch-HQIntuiSwitch-HQ is also compatible with some other boards, and can be interfaced easily to an Arduino as well.

Pricing of our -H and -HQ IntuiSwitch™ controls is $15.95 each, the same as our conventional IntuiSwitch™ controls. They are a special order item, and may take longer than our standard versions for delivery.

We accept payment via PayPal and major credit cards.