Sorry for all the confusion. You have a good understanding. Kato has made a few different switches with different inner workings and they are not all the same. I believe that this has ruffled a few feathers. As you can see we all have different view points. (Mine is always right [:S]).
For the switches you have I believe my method to work as that is what I have done. Some Kato switches are DCC friendly and some are not. The work around for NON DCC Frindly turnouts is to isolate the ends as stated before. The Kato #4 units do have the transit screws in the bottom and you can easily change to non power routing.
Don’t get discouraged by conflicting posts. Most importantly Have FUN![;)]
I started with a Zephyr (the original one) and never looked back. One cable handles any extra throttles, signalling and detection, extra booster whould you ever need more power, etc. Probably won;t need any extra power with N scale, not for a while, since the Xtra has a 3 amp output (my original Zephyr is 2.5 amps and I ran 8 HO locos at the same time, half with sound - that would be nearly 16 N scale locos - and the Xtra has more power). It can run up to 20 locos at the same time, just add throttles to control them.
I can assure you that I have several N-scale #6 Unitrack turnouts operating on DCC without having any of the rails isolated, and it works with no issues whatsoever. I have seen people recommend isolating the legs of the tunrouts, but I have never seen any reason given for it other than “they are power routing”. Again, many(probably most) power routing turnouts would cause a short and do need to be isolated, but Kato’s do not work the same way and they do not cause the same short that other power routing tunrouts cause.
I dare say you are incorrect sir. All Kato switched are not the same. You may need to investigate that for yourself. I killed two Kato switches that way.[sn]
#6 routes power under the frog, not through the frog, and diverging rails are gapped and isolated from the frog.
Unitrack if it works on DC it’ll work on DCC. Visualize what’s happening, and tinker around a little, then there will be no more mystery. For discussion of track, DCC is simply another form of power to the rails, that’s it. So know your hardware(how does brand X route electricity through it’s turnout)
Everything I have read emplies the HO #4’s are just like the N #6’s, and the HO #6’s are just like the N #4’s, but I will say that I do not have any hands on experience with the HO turnouts, so maybe they are different than N scale ones. I do know, from personal experience, that both the #4 and the #6 N scale turnouts do not need isolating(and it is N scale that the OP is asking about).
If you try to power the leg of the turnout through the turnout, I can see how that might damage it - I don’t know right off hand if the internal wiring could handle a high amperage load or not, but I would not be surprised if it could not. However, that only means that you need to jumper power to the legs of the turnout, not isolate it.
The only time you should have to put insulated joiners on the diverging side frog rails is when the frog is not insulated. Because if you think about ti for a second, it would be a dead short. One frog rail is the right rail of one path, but it’s the left rail of the other path.
The old adage was feed turnouts from the point side, never from the frog side. Because in the early days pretty much none of the turnouts had insualted frog rails.
On turnouts like Atlas, those two rails are insulated from one another. You can connect feeders anywhere with no short.
If the power routing does indeed connect both rails past the frog to one side or the other, gaps are absolutely needed, since that means the rails past the frog are not insulated from one another. Not sure how it will burn up the turnout, since as soon as you applied power you’d have a dead short through the rails.