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[Albedo]

If I have a repeater*, how can I turn it off temporarily, or can I?

Specifically, I want some menacing spikes to do their thing in a trap corridor, but I want to be able to turn them off so dwarves can safely go in for cleaning/maintenance/modification/upgrades/etc. after the threat has been neutralized.

Can you turn a pressure plate on/off w/ a diff mechanism/lever?

(* http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Repeater#Wave_repeater)

A wave-repeater looks best for my purposes, but I suppose I could go with a diff repeater design if I had to to achieve the on/off function. I could add a drop of water (so all tiles are 7/7 and the wave stops) and then re-bucket out 1-water's worth to turn it back on (or any variety of similar ploys), but I was hoping for something more mechanical, direct and positive, like a simple on/off switch.

Or I could just waste 1 tile of traps for a bridge to physically isolate the active spiked tiles during maintenance, but that does not seem very elegant or dwarfy.

[Loci]

Use a minecart repeater instead. A simple looping track with a pressure plate to toggle the spikes, and a lever-activated hatch to detour the cart and deactivate the repeater. (Place the hatch directly after an impulse ramp so the cart will go down a ramp below the hatch when the hatch is open, bypassing the pressure plate.)

[Albedo]

Haven't gotten too creative w/ minecarts yet, but I guess it's past time. A little larger footprint in a tight fortress, but I'll make it work - thanks!

[PatrikLundell]

The mine cart repeater design I use (found in a post linked to from the wiki) looks like this from a construction perspectiv:

z-2          z-1       z

xxxxxxxx
x      x
x      x
x      x
x      x
x      x
xxxx         c  C       cxc


Edit: Oops. Posted instead of previewed...
c = channel, X = dig, C = channel with a lower priority than the rest (otherwise you run the risk of getting the miner stuck to have to build a staircase to get out),
At the z level the rightmost c is covered by a lever controlled hatch. All the ramps resulting from the construction (there should be one at the start and end of z-2, and one at z-1) are carved into NE impulse ramps, while all the other tracks (don't forget the single tile between the c's at z) are carved as tracks following the direction of the tunnel (with turning tracks at the corners, of course). Digging is done from the z level downwards, and you need an access to the tile hatched over to place the mine cart as well as do the digging. This access can be from above or below, but not from the east, as that will cause the cart to continue rather stop on top of the hatch when turning the repeater off (it may or may not cause the cart to jump the gap as well).
When built, a route is created on top of the hatch with a route stop on top of the hatch (don't forget to remove the default departure criteria). No need to set up any cart contents selection.
At z-2, build a cart triggered pressure plate somewhere along the route (I place mine two tiles north of the ramp the cart drops down on, but the location doesn't really matter). Then link the pressure plate to each menacing spike in the corridor. It can be noted that the repeater can drive multiple spike corridors (or other repeat things), but the cost of that is that they then are controlled as all-or-nothing, as well as not being possible to use while adding hooking up new usages (the cart will maim or kill the engineer trying to hook the new stuff up).
It's a good idea to either dump or forbid all stones and gems generated by digging the repeater, as you otherwise run the risk of a dwarf getting run over when trying to collect one of them.

Note: It's not that clear from the depiction, but the downward chute starting at z ends in a ramp at z-2 that connects to the northbound track. At z-1 the C is directly below the rightmost c at z, and there are two tiles between the c and the C. The c will result in a ramp connecting to the EW track at z-2.

[jhxmt]

It can be noted that the repeater can drive multiple spike corridors (or other repeat things), but the cost of that is that they then are controlled as all-or-nothing, as well as not being possible to use while adding hooking up new usages (the cart will maim or kill the engineer trying to hook the new stuff up).

Presumably it would be possible to create a minecart loop sectioned by multiple lever-controlled hatches, which would allow you to effectively create binary logic setups for which spike corridors (or other things) are active at a time.  E.g. Plate A gets triggered only when Hatch A is open, Plate B gets triggered only when Hatch B is open, Plate C gets triggered only when both hatches are open, etc.  That would take a fair amount of forward planning and knowing exactly how many things you'd want to hook up to the repeater, though.

Also, if you run a (hatch-divertable) shortcut across that main minecart loop above, you can use it as a repeater shutoff switch if needed (keeping the minecart going round a much shorter loop), which would then mean you could allow dwarves in to extend/modify the main loop if you ever needed to.

[PatrikLundell]

Extending the loop will have the side effect of also lowering the firing rate, but if that's acceptable you can also use doors to redirect traffic at the bottom level, but as with all extensions, you will have to make sure to add impulse ramps to maintain the momentum of the the mine cart in all configurations, as well as to ensure you're not trying to trigger any pressure plate faster than the reset rate of the pressure plate (by having too many impulse ramps).
Also, if you want to extend/maintain an existing active loop, you have to think things through very carefully to ensure the dorfs are pathing the way you want them to, and not over the active tracks, probably via physically blocking of the undesired access paths (movement restriction designations are rather ineffective).

I think it very much boils down to what you want to achieve: if you want to master mine cart usage and timing, experimentation and a lot of reading is required, but if you just want to plop down a repeater with minimal effort you'd probably do best by replicating a design already proven by someone else.

[taptap]

Why is nobody answering the question?

Compact wave-repeater based solution to my (former) problem of setting up a spike trap, that can be toggled easily with a single lever without repetitive stress injuries for the operator. (+ is door, ≈ fluid source, ^ pressure plate) .

Code: [Select]

≈+____^^   :side view
  +
A liquid crushing door in the z-level below tied to a (full cycle = on/off) input signal used as toggle for a wave repeater. Seen in the side view. The first ^ opens the front door at water height 4-0, the second ^ works on exactly 5 and is the output. The first full cycle input crushes 7 units of water leaving 35 units water in six tiles, leaving a 566666 wave repeater. A second input signal stops the wave repeater very rapidly, open the front door and resets the whole thing.