I’ve decided to use Peco 55 double slips in a few areas. I need to decide between the insulfrog or electrofrog (for DCC). I really don’t know the pros and cons of each but I want to keep complicated wiring to a min. To keep costs down, I’ve decided to not modify my other turnouts and just insulate aft of the frog rails (and hope that Peco provides enough clearance between the points and stocks…I know, I know…I’m probably going to regret this down the road but I really don’t want to spend money on DPDT switches to control frog polarity) It seems that the double slips require this DPDT for frog polarity to work at all. Am I just confused?
Wiring a double slip switch is the same as wiring two standard turnouts, which means that an insulfrog turnout doesn’t require any special wiring at all. Just power each curved stock rail and that’s it.
For an ‘electrofrog,’ the acute angle frog on one end of the double slip is powered from the contacts on the switch machine that powers the points on the opposite end, just as if it was a standard turnout. If you have other electrofrog turnouts in use, the wiring is exactly the same.
I build my double slips from raw rail, so they are the same as Peco electrofrogs. On a wiring scale of 1-10 (for DC), this is a 1.
Chuck.
dittio to that
Can I suggest that you not do any permanent fixing down of your switches for a while? Then if there are problems you can take them up and clip wires and such.
There may be 4 wires coming from the doubleslip. Make sure they are extended down below the surface so that you can get at them. Again, you can try running the layout with the frogs isolated – this will give you an insulfrog approach, but with a bigger dead section. You will probably want to make it a switched frog very quickly.
I’m confused between live and insulated-frog turnouts. Could someone please explain:
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Why use one over the other?
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Is either preferred or required for DCC?
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Can one convert insulfrog to live, and if so, how?
Thanks.
Rick
Chuck,
You are correct; an Electrofrog double slip is wired like standard turnouts. The same conditions apply:
- the frogs must be insulated
- no train must run into a turnout set against it.
The latter condition is not as simple as it looks, because the four turnouts of a double slip are actuated in pairs (one East, one West), and if one turnout of a pair is closed, the other one is thrown and vice versa. This makes it rather confusing to name the actual state of the pair.
It can be even more confusing when using a single slip Electrofrog.
Then there is an Electrofrog crossing. When on DCC, its frogs can best be switched by an autoreverser.
And this all to minimize dead spots for some locos…
Adrian
This site includes wiring diagrams for double slips and a number of specialty turnouts.
Although these are an interesting piece of trackage, I have yet to find a use for them, even on my city based station layout & yard.
Rick, as we get into larger frog numbers, like a #8, the frogs are quite long due to their rail angles. Shorter locomotives, like steam switchers, or poorly designed (usually cheaper) locomotives that have pickups close together, or too few of them, will lose connection to powered rails when a long frog is dead. They do fine entering the frog, but before the leading axle with the first contact/wiper gets to another powered rail, after the gaps, the rearmost contact enters the long frog and all power is cut to the motor. Most locos will stop dead, even with a flywheel, but moreso at low switching/accelerating speeds. So, dead frogs can be a serious problem. When you have long, big steam of high quality, they usually have multiple pickups for much of the length of the loco/tender combination, so long dead frogs are no impediment. Same for longer diesels, particularly the AB combos and ABBA, etc.
For your second question, DCC doesn’t really care if you have powered or non-powered frogs. It only cares, just like in DC, when there is a short. Now, that response is misleading, because some metal wheels will bridge intended gaps and cause shorts when a frog is live. Personally, if you can get by with non-powered frogs, you are better off. Less work upfront, and virtually no chance of shorts, barring derailments in the turnout.
It is a royal pain to convert insulfrogs to live, if a recent thread is any indication. The trick is to make a proper electrical connection that sticks while not at the same time destroying the frog. Apparently, some gently tapping and then screwing the wires into the bottoms of the
My reason for using them is real estate! without them, my A/D track may not be long enough for my longest train. Plus, I like the fact that Peco makes a code 55 in insulfrog (which I’ve now decided upon thanks to the help here) which makes wiring a little less painful. Again, thanks everyone.