I am in the process of this exact thing and was pointed to this thread.  That is exactly what I am wanting to do, so I have a couple questions. 

By saying a 12 volt battery, that is the part that I’m confused.  I was told you have to use their PWR-56 power supply.  Any pics would be appreciated.

Next, with 600 ft, how far spread out are your switches?  RailPro manual says with 16 ga wire the length is only 20 feet.  I need longer distances unless I do some major redesign.  So what size wire did you run and what kind of lengths?  Are your AM1’s spread out around the layout or centrally located?   I would prefer to have them centrally located. I assume the AM1’s are in some sort of water proof box, so did you wire in a switch to kill the battery power or are they powered all the time even when not using the railroad? 

Again, any pics would be greatly appreciated.  I don’t want to reinvent the wheel if I don’t have to. 

Ah, now I understand, I thought you were talking radio range, not wire length. In that case yes 20ft is probably about right; first and foremost the AM-1 is an indoor item designed for H0 and similar sized layouts. It's not meant for driving things over long distances, I don't think I've known anyone to put all their point controllers in one spot, but put them in close proximity to the points being thrown.

Now that said, expanding a bit the AM-1 is not designed for driving significant loads over long distances; if the AM-1 was just being used as a "data line" so to speak to something else that throws the points and takes all the grunt in doing so (for example a high power relay)  then there really shouldn't be any reason you could not drive that something else from a significant distance (wire length).

That's just a very board example mind you. I looked up the LGB 12010 and that's just about the worst manufacturers documentation I have ever come across, it doesn't even mention what type of point machine it is so I don't know if it's coil or motor driven.

I've fixed the link. Again, mcbunton has done this this already so hopefully he'll be able to pipe in to give you better pointers than I can.

- Tim

Where did you get 20ft from? The AM-1 manual gives a warning that the range is over 100ft so to be wary that "your neighbours could control your AM-1", if your neighbours used RailPro as well that is.

Dry environment does not equal do not use outdoors ever. The AM-1 is not IP68 rated so if you wanted to install it outdoors you'd want to make some sort of weatherproof enclosure for it to protect it while your not running trains on a nice sunny day like you did for your previous system. Bringing them inside after the days running might actually be the easiest to do even though it's not what you want to do. If you wired the AM-1 up to a plug and socket set up you could simply plug and unplug them at will without disturbing the actual wiring of the AM-1. Of course how you want to distribute the AM-1s and the LGB switch controllers you have around the garden is going to be the determining factor, 50ft is an awfully long wire to drive a large scale point motor, especially if it's a snap type.

Even though there's not much in this thread another user (mcbunton) has done what you are wanting to do and with some luck they might come across this thread and chime in.

As for the LGB switch controllers, I have no idea on them and without something more concrete to go on like a part number sorry I'm not going to go searching on them.

- Tim

I am just getting into the RailPro with battery for my outdoor G scale.  I had originally bought 2 AM-1 for switch control to get started.  So I started to read up on them and see an issue.  First, they say in a dry environment and second is the distance. Basically with a distance of 20’, how can you possibly use these outdoors. My previous system (LocoLinc) I had a board mounted in a closet on an outside wall and had conduit run from that out to the garden and ran a multi strand solid wire cable thru it. Perfect for keeping everything inside nice and dry. I have no idea how far the wire has to go, but it could easily be up to 50’ for some of the switches. How on earth can anyone make it work outside in a midsize garden railroad?  I don’t want to constantly unwire and take things inside.  What is the solution?  I now see the AM-1 is replaced by the TC but it us still the same issue.

Next, I have a number of the LGB switches controllers.  Are they considered motorized or snap?  I will end up with probably 10-15 switches by the time I’m done.

Input is appreciated beforeindive any further.

I would reinforce that 400v piv is way beyond what is needed. This is not to argue, but often people who are not engineers take suggestions verbatium.

I juat had an instance of a manufacturer showing a blocking diode on a keepalive circuit with a 1000 volt piv...  and the poor individual went nuts fitting this component... because it was huge...