turnout recommendations for DCC

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 23:35:27 UTC, "C. Dewick" wrote: 2000

I have said this before and will repeat. For several years I operated on a large layout that had several hundred turnouts, mostly Shinohara. NONE of these turnouts were "DCC Friendly" and the ONLY electrical problem we had was the failure of power routing due to poor point contact. Properly gauged wheelsets and turnouts work on DCC without being made "DCC Friendly". Never assume that a factory turnout is properly gauged and never assume that factory wheelsets are correct.

I am not opposed to using "DCC Friendly" turnouts but there is NO reason to scrap otherwise perfectly good turnouts.

Tillig Pilz Elite are DCC friendly, though styled for Europe. I use them and like them.

MicroEngineering also now makes DCC friendly turnouts.

Atlas turnouts are all DCC friendly, and their "super switch" and "custom line" turnouts are above toy quality, though they appear to use the same hinge as their regular snap-track turnouts

Peco now makes DCC friendly code 83 turnouts.

I have a couple of the Railway engineering turnouts and they are very nice especially if you hare handlaying everything else, but want ready-made hand-laid type turnouts with wood ties. They will build essentially anything you can send them a drawing of.

Ed

in article snipped-for-privacy@lios.apana.org.au, C. Dewick at snipped-for-privacy@lios.apana.org.au wrote on 2/18/05 3:35 PM:

Not totally. We experimented, and saw that large engines did not like to go over Walthers #6 turnouts without shorting. These engines were large

Paul A. Cutler III

They are definitely not DCC friendly. You have to make the DCC fiendly cut, as with Peco. But they are very nice turnouts and very reliable. They need a strong switch machine like my servo based model which is recommended by Tillig. Roco might be an alternative too.

Regards, Kurt

I consider Shinohara Toy grade as well (coarse scale). Code 83 is still overscale for most H0 prototypes. All the RTR brands you mention are DCC friendly if all your wheels are correctly gauged.

I agree with you in principle. However DCC brings more important requirements for ensuring shorts, etc. don't occur so making sure the trackwork is 'DCC-friendly' from the outset is a Good Thing. Track/wheel standards are just as important with DCC-equipped layouts as they are with prototype railways - DCC's just raised the bar somewhat so that we need to pay more attention to getting these aspects more tightly controlled.

It doens't necessarily mean that needs to be taken as a seperate thing to normal good track construction principles and proper running-gear maintenance. Making track 'DCC friendly' is more than making sure turnout power routing is reliable and that shorts don't occur as trains move through turnouts. The methods which are used to build trackwork on layouts should embrace the ideas which DCC has raised on the spectrum of importance.

Manufacturers can help by producing higher-quality turnouts which can be made DCC-friendly by the end-user or are produced so they can bear the 'DCC-friendly' tag from the time they're made.

I've still got loads of new-old Shinohara turnouts here which I've had for around 5 years since I first decided to build a new layout after moving house. Nothing's happened on the layout construction front due to children and my Saab's getting in the face of the 'budget' for the layout, but I definitely plan to use up all the Shinohara turnouts and modify them as I go. 8-)

Regards,

Craig.

Craig,

In my previous HO existence I had a mix of Shinohara and Peco points with a LENZ DCC system on my layout. The standard Shinohara points worked fine with the DCC system but I did find I had shorting on a single curved point. The curved point tended to be a little sticky and it had little bronze or brass strips on the switch rails which caused the shorts. I simply snipped these off with a pair of rail cutters. If you electrify the frog as you should you don't need them anyway. I understand this is the essentially the same modification that new Shinohara points have had in their new DCC friendly guise. You can buy older (perhaps cheaper second hand) points and make the same modification yourself.

-- Trevor Hodges Warren Australia Why settle for half when you can have the whole O?

Thanks for that Trevor. I've bought a few bundles of new old-stock Shinohara turnouts from a few Ebay sellers and will modify them all for 'increased DCC friendliness' (!) as I install them on the new layout.

Making the frogs 'actively switched' is the primary objective along with fixing the switch rails so they aren't electrically connected.

Regards,

Craig.