Berko/Eckon Two Aspect Signal Wiring Up DC Controlled Layouts

Decide where you want to site your signal alongside the track making sure it’s positioned so that it doesn’t foul any passing trains. Have a look at the real railways for ideas & reference as to where to site the signals on your layout.

Drill a suitably sized hole big enough to take the signal wires.

Next, if not already fitted on the common return wire on the signal, a resistor will need to be soldered to the common return wire. The resistor is normally supplied with the Berko/Eckon Signals. The common return wire on these signals is usually the white wire. Please read & check the supplied instructions that come with the signal beforehand.

Once the resistor has been soldered to the negative wire, feed the signal wires down through the drilled hole.

Don’t glue the signal base to the baseboard just yet!! The signal needs to be connected up & tested first before gluing the signal down onto the baseboard.

Run the two wires (+ Positive & – Negative) from the 12V DC power supply to a chocbloc connector. Strip the ends of the two wires & insert them into the chocbloc connector. Then tighten the grip screws on the chocbloc connector to securely hold the two wires.

Next, take the common negative wire (The one with the resistor on) & insert that into the chocbloc connector, on the opposite side to the – Negative wire from the transformer. Then tighten the grip screw to hold securely hold the common negative wire from the signal.

The diagram opposite right shows the signal common return wire (shown in grey for clarity) with the resistor on, connected to the transformer.

As mentioned at the start, the two aspect signal is controlled by & operated by a Single Pole On/On Switch. Peco PL-22 or the Berko/Ekon EE2 Single Pole On/On Switch or similar is used to operate the two aspect colour light signal.

The blue switch in the image opposite right is Peco’s PL-22 Single Pole On/On Switch.

The grey switch in the second photo opposite right is the Berko/Ekon EE2 Single Pole On/On Switch.

These can be found Peco’s website & also Berko/Ekon website (Online Models) or most model shops.

Now we fit the + Positive wire from the 12v DC transformer to the switch. In this case, it’s the Berko/Eerko EE2 switch (We’ll show how to connect to the Peco switch further down the page of this article). On the side of the switch that has the single nut/screw connector on, attach the + positive wire from the 12v DC transformer to this connector.

Online models amongst others, do wire end tags for soldering on to the ends of wires. They allow for easy fitting of the wires onto the wire nut/screw connectors on the Berko/Ekon switches. Simply solder the wire end tag onto the end of the wire. Undo & remove the nut on the wire connector on the side of the switch. Slide the soldered wire end tag over the connector & refit & tighten the nut to firmly hold the wire in place.

These wire end connector tags can be found here:

(20) 8BA n/silver tags for lectralok switches – Online Models (onlinemodelsltd.co.uk)

The diagram opposite right shows the + Positive wire connected from the 12v DC transformer to the switch.

Next, connect the green wire from the signal to one of the two screw nut terminals on the side of the switch that has the two terminals. As mentioned in the section above, solder a wire end tag onto the end of the green wire prior to connecting the green wire to the switch.

On Berko/Ekon two aspect & three aspect Signals, each wire is the same colour as the LED it’s connected to. This helps makes it easier to identify which wire is which. The wires for the two & three aspect signals.

• Red wire – Red LED
• Green wire – Green LED
• Yellow wire – Yellow LED

On the four aspect signals, the second yellow coloured LED is factory fitted to a blue wire.

• Red wire – Red LED
• Green wire – Green LED
• Yellow wire – Yellow LED
• Blue wire – Second Yellow LED

Now, connect the red wire from the signal to the remaining of the two screw nut terminals, on the side of the switch that has the two terminals. As mentioned in the section above, solder a wire end tag onto the end of the red wire prior to connecting the red wire to the switch.

Turn on the power supply to the signal, & test operate the colour light signal.

Once happy that all is working okay, lift the signal up so that glue can be applied to the underside of the base of the signal. Then fit stick down the signal & that completes the install & wiring up of the two aspect signal to the Berko/Eckon Signal.

Wiring up to a Peco PL-22 On/On Switch.

A Peco PL-22 on/on switch can be used to operate the two aspect signal. You’ll need as well as the PL-22, the Peco PL-23 switch housing unit to mount the switch in. Or you can omit the PL-23 switch housing unit & mount the switch on a board, mimic control panel, or on the baseboard itself. The two images right show both the switch & switch housing unit.

PLEASE NOTE: Before soldering & connecting the signal to the switch, feed the wires from the signal through the mounting hole in the switch housing unit.

As before the same as the Berko/Eckon switch, if not already fitted, solder the resistor onto the white common wire. Here we’ve shown the white common return wire as grey for clarity.

Now cut a wire to length to connect from the chocbloc connector to the location of the switch. Strip both ends of the wire, & insert one end of the wire into the chocbloc connector on the + Positive side (shown in the diagram in red). Then solder the other end of the wire to the middle terminal tag on the underside of the switch.

Now take either green wire or red wire from the signal, it doesn’t matter which & solder it to one of the remaining two tags on the underside of the switch. Here we’ve shown the green wire from the green LED on the signal connected to the switch.

Finally, take the remaining wire from the signal (in our case it’s the red wire from the signal), & solder it onto the remaining connector tag on the underside of the switch. Here we’ve shown the red wire from the red LED on the signal connected to the switch.

This completes the wiring up of the signal using the Peco switch. Power-up & test the signal & switch to make sure all is working. If all okay, as before, lift the signal, apply glue to the underside of the signal base, & stick down the signal.

Happy modelling.