[HO] Shinohara turnouts

The DCC "friendly" method is one way to build a turnout but isn't necessarily the nicest. It does make the turnout easier to run the wrong way tho and some feel that is an important "advantage" to be able to do. On a large club layout, that may be true but a home layout tends to make that unimportant as usually only one loco is running anyway and the power unit shutting down won't hurt the operation as much. I'll note that after having seen a local layour running DCC, I'm not all that impressed with the stuff as well as the thinking of the people that designed the electrics for the layout. They can't run anything over about a

20 car train without running into shorts with metal wheels on a reversing section at one end of the layout.

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works every time it is tried!

Jerry, changing the wheels is not just for the switches. I have changed all my wheelsets to metal because they do not accumulate the (tm){Not UP's} like the plastic wheels do. I also changed them because I use the KD magnets for uncoupling and the Athearn wheelsets have steel axles that were attracted to the magnet and produced unwanted uncoupling. They also roll and sound better than plastic.

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No argument about the non-powered rolling stock and the plastic crud. I do replace them. I was referring to the locomotives, which don't have plastic wheels and do short the frogs. I've rarely ever seen a car short the DCC at a frog, metal wheels and all. Most older Athearns will.

Another th>Jerry, changing the wheels is not just for the switches. I have changed all

-- Jim Sherman xROADKILL snipped-for-privacy@zYAHOOa.COM < remove lower case letters, then use what's left AS lower case

The hurrider I goes the behinder I gets; which makes sense because the older I gets the more behind I gets. And I is gettin an old behind!

You are right, Jim. I mis-interperted the post.

Sorry 'bout that.

Jim Sherman wrote:

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Hang on... now this is something I'm going to have to know about soon.

So if I get this rightly, I don't need to have insulating joiners or rail cuts on the rails from the frogs on a Shinohara unit? If so, this will really make life easier for me. I'm planning on getting DCC this year sometime and have had the usual trouble with power etc..

rgds

I believe that is the case, but only with the code 83 Shinohara from Walthers. I have heard nothing about the code 70 and 100 (which are from Shinohara, not from Walthers) getting the same treatment.

-John

Yes, this is essentially the same story I heard from my LHS owner this week. Horizon was hearing from so many outlets that they were no longer going to be carrying the Athearn line that I think it really shook them up. Horizon certainly didn't purchase Athearn to loose money so it has done an almost complete turn-around on a number of its terms and conditions for becoming an Athearn dealer or simply dealing with Horizon.

CNJ999

If the system didn't short, it was enough to send every

Steve, Since you brought it up, what causes that Soundtrax restart? I have a curved Shinohara turnout with the little bronze electrical contacts built in to ensure better contact. I'm using PFM switch machines and for just a mili-second the PFM unit and the turnout disagree. In other words, a short. I have been putting up with it for years because it's never been a problem. However, if I have a Soundtrax equiped loco on the layout, it will start chuffing and I have to select it's address and mute the sound again. Lucky for me, I don't like sound or the Bachmann 2-8-0s that have it, so they are rarely used. Still, I would like to know why this happens? Doug

No, that is not correct. With Shinohara/Walthers turnouts, you absolutely need to gap the rails coming from the frog. When the points are set for straight, both rails on the diverging route are shorted together. Similarly, when the points are set for the diverging route, the rails on the straight route are shorted together.

If you had an ultra-simple situation where both routes of the switch were stub ended AND if had no feeders on those sidings but instead powered them through the turnout (whose feeders were on the OTHER side of the points), you could get away with no gaps. But as soon as you have a situation where track polarity is set by feeders or rails coming in the other direction, you will have a short. Analog or DCC, all the same.

Note that you don't necessarily need to put the gaps in the turnout...you could gap the corresponding rails further out (in case you're worried about damaging your turnouts). You just have to decide how close you want to be able to bring your engines to the switch without having to switch the points to the proper direction.

Vince

No, Vince -- the new Walthers/Shinohara turnouts have an insulated frog, and they do not need electrical gaps. I don't have any of the new turnouts (yet), but I got my information from a Walthers employee who has a few of the preproduction samples on his layout.

Mark,

Can your source tell you if the frogs are insulated metal or if they are made of plastic?

Allen Cain

Watch those contacts as your flip the turnout back and forth. You may see them spark as they contact the points? At the club we took those little contact helpers out and a lot of strange problems, that seemed like a brief short, went away, YMMV? All are old Shinohara turnouts.

We are changing over to Torti. The only complaint so far is that, in the yards the ladder tracks are so quiet that everyone has to look to insure all the turnouts have moved. The old machines made a hell of a racket and provided interesting audio clues.

Good luck, Paul

Paul, Thanks, but I had that part figured out. I'm curious to 'why' it sets off the Soundtrax equipped locos. I use Digitrax and I can have a couple of unassigned locos sitting around the layout. When I throw that switch with the brief short, those Soundtrax locos will start chuffing. I have to select their addresses and turn the sound off again. Just wonder why, other than the obvious. Doug

HAH!! Ok, I lost track of the thread. I'll get off that tangent now.

As far as DCC oddities go; on the home, N-scale, layout, which is all Digitrax, I have two conists. One is a pair of SD90's (2452 & 2453) and a pair od SD70's (2402 & 2459). Every once in a while, I will select the SD70's and when I tell it to go (forward or reverse) not only do they go but, the SD90's go as well. If I select the SD90's only the SD90's respond. Inorder to clear the problem I have to clear and reprogram all the units and reconsist. It hasn't happened often enough for me to try all the clear & reporgram combinations but, SD70's only & SD90's only have both been tried. I haven't tried changing the lead/top addresses. It's really, REALLY strange.

Paul

Wow...nice. I wonder if I can sell all of my yet-to-be-installed turnouts on ebay.

On 1 Feb 2004 06:14:17 -0800, snipped-for-privacy@rrhq.com (Doug) painted grafitti on my boxcar saying:

The spark itself creates a short burst of rf energy probably enough to cause the circuitry to overload enough to restart the sound.

The first radio morse code was sent with spark gap generators.. bob

I'm totally baffled by this. Going from a live 'frog' to an insulated one is a retrograde step, so why is everyone getting so enthusiastic about it?

I have always built my turnouts with the crossing vee isolated from the surrounding rails and switched by a microswitch operated by the tie bar assembly. The closure rails and point blades are bonded to the adjacent stock rails. Easiest way of wiring a turnout and gives the best reliability.

V>

is everyone getting so enthusiastic about it?< Not necessarily, it all depends on how they do it. Central Valley switches use an insulated frog but only the wing rails from the point. In their design the frog is live and insulated by model terms!

A dead frog, that is no power in it is a backward step, no matter how the rest of the turnout is wired. I will be useless for small shunting locomotives and slow speed operations generally.