DCC questions please

Just run 2 more wires. You may/may not need insulated rail joiners on the frogs, you do for live frog.

Martin

"scoot" wrote

You don't NEED to do anything. You could actually still allow the points to isolate power from the sidings and park locos in them which you'd not yet converted to DCC.

When you change the point(s) to allow access to and from any one siding then DCC power would be restored (in the same way that DC works) and you could then operate the siding.

I'm not saying this is an ideal scenario, but switched isolated sections can still occasionally be useful even with a digital system.

John.

I would be inclined to suggest that you'd be better off leaving your wiring as it is and let the turnouts switch sidings as they do for you in DC.

You can add feeds to all your sidings, which you would need to do if you wanted to leave sound/lighting idling, but if you do, you'll create problems with back- feeding your turnouts. Basically, you'll end up with the common live frog problem of switch blade and neighbouring stock rail at opposite polarity when the turnout is switched the other way - a recipe for wheels to cause a short.

It isn't a perfect situation, but leave it as it is. Isolated sidings can be useful even in DCC!

Graham Plowman

Not with insulfrog points you won't. If you back-feed insulfrog points the switchblade and adjacent stock rail will be at the same polarity. As a result of that, you can bond them together, as I do on my garden layout.

garden

Jane,

Yes, you are quite right - my apologies.

Graham Plowman