Seep vs Peco point motors

Stuart Smith · 2007-11-26T21:53:34+00:00

Hi,I'm just about to embark on the track laying for my new layout, and I think I'm going to have to decide what to do about point motors from the outset.For my other layout, I used Peco point motors with the extra switch, which I used to control the frog polarity. They've been fine, but I thought the switch was a bit flimsy and you have to pay extra for it.You can get a Seep point motor with an integrated switch, which seems much more attractive. However, they appear to need to be mounted under the baseboard with screws, and I fear this may make them difficult to get "square" with the point above (well, difficult for someone as cack-handed as me, anyway), whereas the Peco ones clip to the point itself.Does anyone have any experience of the Seep point motors? I'm going to be using DCC (haven't decided which system yet) and I'm going to control the points using some sort of accessory decoder (the only one I know about is the Lenz one). I'd also like to hear about any experiences, good or bad, that people have had controlling the points via DCC.Just one more question - using DCC is it always better to power the point motors with a seperate feed? And how do you do it? I anticipate that my layout will have approximately 20 points, and it will go around the perimeter of my loft, so it has quite a long track run.TIA.Stuart.

Nov 26, 2007 22 Replies

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Paul Boyd 18 years ago

On 09/12/2007 16:42, Ian J. said,

How? Even on Peco points, the blades are insulated from the frogs (reverting to OO-speak!!) If the open blade was at the same polarity as the frog, then you have the very real potential for shorts from the widely varying wheel backs on RTR stock. Last time I owned a Peco point, that simply wasn't possible with either insulfrogs or electrofrogs. Admittedly I don't have any Peco points to hand, but I can't believe they would change the design to introduce the possibility of shorts when they had the design right in the first place. If the design has changed, then I stand to be corrected, but I really can't see Peco doing that.

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google 18 years ago

Indeed, that is the case in theory. In practice, the clearances are so wide that you get away with all sorts.

I only have N gauge electrofrog (where the clearance mentioned above is nearly 2mm). The switch blades are electrically bonded to the frog and it's the contact between one blade and the stock rail that switches the frog polarity.

The problem happens when the principle of proper point wiring is misunderstood or not carried out correctly. If you switch the frog by other means and do not isolate it from the switch blades then the frog can change polarity before the switch blades change over and cause a short. Once the frog is isolated, the switch blades should be electrically bonded to the adjacent stock rail.

Andrew Crosland

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