I have Peco insulfrog turnouts on most of my beginners layout. I’m ready to start some of the wiring, running the bus underneath and the feeder wires. My question is, when I get to turnouts do I simply connect feeders at say… points A, B, and C?
Thanks,
Jarrell
I have never used PECO turnouts but I think it would only be necessary to use 1 feed for the whole turnout and not one for each route. (Unless your using insulating rail joiners.) I use only 1 feed on Atlas turnouts.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong on this.
Jacon12 ,I use Atlas customline turnouts and I wire all turnouts in the manner you have drawn. You can’t have too many feeders, with feeders on all 3 legs you know for certain that power is available to all parts of the turnout.
Tim
I also have some Atlas non insulated turnouts, so I’m guessing that you wire them the same as Peco insulfrog. I agree that you can’t have too many feeders. I’m at the stage now that I’m running (testing) the track with only 2 wires hooked up to it. It’s a job [X-)]
getting the train through the yard area, trying to figure out how to ‘route’ the power through to where I want the train to go. I dread wiring that area, especially since I’ve never done any before.
Thanks for the replies, fellas.
Jarrell
With the Atlas and Peco Insulfrog turnouts, extra feeders and gaps are optional. Any gaps or insulated rail joiners are simply to isolate sections of track so that they can be turned off independently. Additional feeders are used to overcome rivets or tabs or rail joiners that don’t conduct the way they should.
Both Atlas and Peco Insulfrog turnouts have insulated frogs (some Atlas frogs can be powered through a switch machine contact but that does not affect anything else I’ve said) with internal wiring that “jumps” past the frog so that all rails have the correct polarity at all times.
yours in wiring
Fred W
Thanks Fred. I forgot to mention that I use dcc, but it probably doesn’t matter unless you want to isolate a section of track.
Anyway, thank you for the information.
Jarrell
Jarrell,
Don’t dread the wiring! It’s very easy in your situation. A breeze! Fun even! (Easy for me to say… it’s one of the parts I happen to really enjoy).
As the other guys have mentioned, with your combination of insulfrogs and DCC, there is no complex wiring involved. Additional feeders in the yard are optional for reliability insurance. You don’t need to worry about power routing because all tracks in your yard will be hot at all times… you just decide which train to drive in there with your DCC throttle, and go!
If you want to venture into something a little more complex, you could put some insulated joiners on some or all of your yard legs and wire a switch to turn off sections of track where you might want to assure no power is available to locos sitting there. Totally Optional.
Ditto the “you can’t have too many feeders” comments. Especially once you’ve ballasted, painted, scenicked, etc. If you then develop a problem with the turnout routing the power reliably, you’ve got a much larger problem. It’s so much easier to do it the first time!
As a beginning student of DCC, I don’t fully understand the original msg diagram and the replies -
This situation re wiring turnouts is one that has confused me for some time.
Are points A, B & C on the turnout or are they on the ajoining track? If on the turnout, aren’t points A & C on a piece of continuous rail? If so, why 2 feeders?
If the points are on ajoining rail, then it would seem that there are no feeders shown to the turnout itself.
I’m in kindergarten as far as wiring for DCC is concerned and am confused about this - just need some clarification.
Also, I assume that feeders would be connected to both top and bottom rails (referring to the original diagram as shown), not just to the bottom rail.
rgh
I’ve installed nearly 50 Peco Insulfrog turnouts in both code 100 and code 83, and the two types are made differently.
On a code 100 turnout, put a feeder wire on the other rail opposite point A on your diagram, and move feeder C to the inner rail that diverges from the frog. For troublefree operation, I insulate both rails that diverge from the frog. If I want the turnout to be a block boundary, I also insulate the outer rails and then provide separate feeders.
The new Peco code 83 turnouts don’t need insulators anywhere unless you want it to be a block boundary.
Ditto about the code 100s. I’ve got about a hundred of them, and Cacole is entirely correct, for two reasons:
First, the two rails that come together at the frog are very, very close together, especially on the medium and large turnouts. If both are powered, the wheels on some engines or cars may briefly contact both rails, causing sparks and/or shorts. A dab of clear nail polish, or paint, will stop this, but only temporarily.
Second, sometimes the “closure rail” (that moves to touch the outer rail) won’t make good contact, causing the engine to lose contact. There are little tabs on the bottom of the points that should help, but a heavy engine may push the closure rail down just a very small amount, enough to interrupt the power briefly. This is worst, of course, on short engines, or engines without all-wheel pickup.
As Cacole says, it is far easier to install them this way than to retro-fit after installation, ballasting, etc. Rule of thumb: put a feeder on every piece of rail and you won’t have to retrofit anything!