I found an interesting way to power turnout point motors on my layout. Originally I used a 13 Volt Automotive Battery Charger. But I found the turnout motors were not always responding well, and sometimes they were very noisy. Some time ago I had to purchase a new power supply for my wife's laptop computer and I noticed that the output voltage on the laptop power supply was 19 Volts and about 4 amps - I thought it was worth trying a laptop power supply if I could find one cheap enough to experiment with. Then in May 2008, a friend of mine noticed a laptop power supply with a 19 Volts and 3.16 Amp output in the local 'opportunity shop' with a price tag of $1.00! He got it for me, and I tried it on my layout - the turnout motors stopped making most of their noise, and every point motor worked without a hassle. It puzzled me a little why the DC Battery Charger rated at 8 Amps would not power some of the point motors where as a 3 Amp laptop power supply would. Here is my theory:

• I think the Laptop Power Supply is AC, not DC. I beleive it is recommended that AC be used for point motor power.
• A Laptop Power Supply is rated to give the same power output constantly, whereas a DC Battery Charger is really meant to be a trickle charger.
• The fact that the Laptop Power Supply is 19V compare to the DC Battery Charger being 13V probably makes bit of difference too.