I’ve gone in circles reading forums all over the internet and I can’t seem to get a straight answer so I figured I’d ask here. I’m building a small HO layout and will be using DCC. Thanks to a certain upbringing in the model railroad world I’ll be running manual switches, most likely modern Walthers. I appreciate moving the points with my fingers. I understand things get more interesting with live frogs. I plan on testing to see if they are needed. If not my question is this: Do I need to do any additional wiring or is the standard of good feeder distance, soldering joints etc. enough when using these switches?
https://dccwiki.com/Turnout will probably answer your questions.
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the club complete a 5 track warehouse that i wired up. after a little testing with an sw-3, i decided there was no need to power the frog and installing over-center springs for switch control
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I used dccwiki when I installed my turnouts. I used Peco Electrofrog turnouts and followed the wiring rules and my turnouts are all finger flick manual. The layout is DCC using TCS system.
Well, whether you’re using a manual or electric turnout really doesn’t matter. That’s only related to how the moving parts move. The wiring as far as track power is the same for manual or electric tunrouts. What does matter is if it’s an electric frog or a dead frog, whether the turnout is power routing or non-power routing, “DCC friendly” or not, etc.
Since you specify using Walthers turnouts, their turnouts made in the last 10 years or so are all “DCC friendly” so should work well. Depending on your track plan, you may need to add power gaps in the track to prevent shorts.
I have a variety of turnouts, but a number are Walther #5’s before they added springs. On one of these my Bachmann 45 tonner’s headlight flashes and if I a going dead slow it stalls. It doesn’t happen with any of the other #5’s.
I no longer solder turnouts in case I want to move them, nor do I solder all the rail joiners. There are good people in this forum who say they have never had a problem, but I have had rail kinkage.
One thing for sure, if you power every rail in a turnout, via jumpers or directly, you won’t have any problems, ever, with stalling on a turnout.
I also have a layout with DCC and manual turnout throws. I happen to use Bullfrog Switch Machines from Fast Tracks, which mount under the table. That said, the NEW Walthers turnouts have overthrow springs, so you don’t even need any physical switch machine now to hold the points tight to the stock rail. These turnouts also have isolated frogs, so you don’t need special wiring or modifications to make them DCC compatible.
If you need powered frogs, I’d suggest Frog Juicers from Tam Valley Depot. I have a few on my layout, but most of my frogs are just unpowered, because I haven’t had many issues with locomotives stalling at unpowered frogs.
Hope this helps,
DFF