Electrofrog or Insulfrog turnouts?

Well, I switched from Insulfrog to Electrofrog because my short 2-8-2 steam engine would stall sometimes on the insulfrogs. Other than that I've had no problems with either.

H>In a DCC layout do you prefer electrofrog or insulfrog turnouts? Peco states

Locos picking up current from a lot of wheels, or from wheels far apart will go o.k. through Insulfrog points, those with only a couple of wheels picking up, or with these wheels close together will tend to stall at low speeds on Insulfrogs. Example of first case, a diesel-elec loco picking up from both bogies (trucks) or a steam loco with tender picking up from loco and tender. Example of second case, d.e. loco picking up from only one bogie or short wheelbase steam shunting loco. (switcher). The more wheels picking up, the more reliable is the running. Regards, Bill.

"Scott" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Bill, Oh Oh turnouts! One of my pet peeves as I don't care much for building turnouts or fixing them but have been forced to over and over again.

Insulated frogs prevent the chance of momentary shorts. With DC these brief shorts may and almost always do go completely unnoticed but with DCC can shut down the power district that the short occurs in and that means for some DCC model railroaders the entire layout. On the other hand some locomotives will stall at slow speeds through a turnout with an insulated frog most notably smaller engines or steam engines.

Powered frogs will eliminate stalling when a locomotive moves slowly through the turnout.Generally performance will be more reliable with a powered frog. Turnouts can be modified to isolate the frog routing power to it independently from the point rails so that possible shorts can be eliminated. This is called making a turnout "DCC friendly" these days but is basically yuppafied BS speak for the same thing people have been doing to make turnouts electrically reliable for many years......like its something new. Its interesting that Model Railroaders figured out long ago how to make excellent turnouts but in all this time the manufactures have not.

PECO turnouts are good products. They will probably work as advertised so you could go either way and most likely be pleased though the electrofrogs, at least the older ones can be made electrically better. See the Loys Toys web site for some diagrams that show how turnouts including PECO electrofrogs can be modified and how turnouts should be made in the first place. Some people report that they have no problems running DC or DCC with un-modified live frog turnouts from other manufactures. I believe they live on a different planet than I do where things work much better and poor product design never fails.

I have four PECO electro frogs on a small ON30 layout. They are about five years old now and have never once been a problem. I used PECO switch machines below the track with them. Walthers code 83 HO track will be used for the main layout and though the turnouts ( live frog) are not installed they have all been modified and tested with a number of locomotives on a test track using a Tortoise switch machine. There are a few that must be adjusted slightly for gauge when permanently installed. They look very nice and operate very well. On my timesaver I have Atlas insulated frog turnouts. I hate them. My steamers hate them too. They were all out of gauge or with frogs that sat too high or both and took a lot fiddling to get them functional.....every one of them. Steamers that can make it through them clunk through the crude frogs and they can even stall my SW8 on occasion. The Atlas switch machines were worse than the turnouts and were rapidly replaced with some ancient Lamberts. Other larger diesels don't seem to mind the Atlas TOs but occasionally I notice a slight hesitation when running extremely slow through one. Any turnout that stalls a locomotive is not "friendly" DCC or otherwise. I have plans to eventually rebuild the timesaver using a good product like PECO electrofrogs. Two things I will never have on a layout again. 1. Insulated frogs. 2 Atlas turnouts.

So I'd say your choice of PECO is a very good one. The electrofrog will probably serve you best and give stall free operation no matter what you run through them or how slow you go. If PECO says their electrofrog is DCC friendly it probably is and will work as advertised.

After going on about turnouts I must say I haven't bought any for quite some time and some of the newer products from any of the manufactures even Atlas may have been improved. I would like to think that after 50 years or more it's possible that one of the manufactures other than PECO could actually figure out how to make a turnout. Bruce

Bruce... you said that turnouts can be modified to isolate the frog routing power to it independently from the point rails so that possible shorts can be eliminated.

That sounds like it would solve a number of my problems. How exactly do you do that?

Carter

electrofrogs,

I had a similar problem on my shunting layout, only with 0-6-0ts. I scrubbed the top surface of each turnout with the fine side of a 6" oilstone until the plastic frogs were brought down flush with the running rails. =8^] Drastic, I know, but it made an amazing difference in running quality.

note, the pegs on the outer ends of the tiebar are higher than the running rails.

Regards, Greg.P.

Carter, A picture is worth 1000 words. I have a diagram showing how most turnouts with live frogs can be modified. I would be glad to email it to you. Just email me if you want it. It's well worth the time and effort to modify turnouts. Your turnouts will be 100% electrically reliable. If they are gauged correctly when installed and your switch machines move the points the way they are supposed to it should be the very rare occasion that you have fool around with a turnout problem. In fact so rare the only time you should ever have a turnout malfunction again is when you have a bunch of guests over to see your railroad run. Your turnouts will be so good that even one or two guests will not have the power to invoke the law. It will take at least three or more but even then your turnouts have a good chance of holding up. Of course that's for the turnouts only, other things could still go wrong and probably will when three or more guests are watching :) Bruce

Carter, I forgot this link at Wiring for DCC. They have quite a few diagrams for different turnouts.