Powering a plastic frog...

Hello all,

With all these discussions of powering frogs I got to thinking…

Has anyone tried to use a conductive silver pen to create a circuit on a plastic frog?

The plastic frog could conceivably be coated with the conductive material and a wire then attached between the coated frog and polarity switch.

A down-side to this might be the durability of the conductive material as the wheels pass over it.

But then, re-application would be a matter of touch-up on the frog, being careful to not apply excess material and cause derailments.

Yes, gapping would also be necessary- -obviously.

Thoughts???

Hope this helps.

I think I would cut out a piece of sheet metal to lay over the frog, and solder a flat head brass screw on the bottom. I’d drill a hole through the frog, and use the screw for attaching the wire. I would remove enough of the top of the plastic frog so that the top of the sheet metal was even with the rail tops. I would epoxy the sheet metal to the top of the plastic frog, while drawing it down with a nut on the screw.

I don’t see why gapping would also be necessary. But the sheet metal would have to not touch the adjoining rails. And, of course, it’s “polarity” would have to be switched.

Ed

Silver Conductive paint is $$$$ about $50 for a 1 oz jar. It also is only made to handle low current (maybe 50mA). Our hobby’s locomotives are the in .5 Amp to 1 amp range for HO scale. Maybe less for N and certainly more the larger scales.

Try about $50 for a .1 ounce jar. However, it works great for resistor wheelsets and I did dozens of axles and didn;t use it all up. So despite the very high cost, a little bit does go a long way.

I doubt the silver stuff, or even the cheaper carbon type would work for a loco. If you still have plastic frog turnouts, your best bet is DCC and keep alives. I don’t think there are any palstic frog turnouts still made outside of Snap-track and the like. All of the actual angled frog types are either metal frogs or, like Peco Insulfrogs, have only an extremely tiny piece of plastic (some may say too small - since wheels can short across the two pieces of rail right where the plastic insulates them from one another) so the problem there isn’t too big of a dead section.

–Randy

Does anyone like Fasttracks make frogs you can swap for plastic ones?

That would be a rather difficult undertaking since the plastic frog in the Snap Track turnouts is part of the overall plastic molding, it’s not like it can just pop off and be replaced. An easier job would be replacing the whole turnout and adjusting the rest of the track to match.

–Randy

A rather interesting possibility that I would think MIGHT be cured with modern materials/coatings?

Or better still, cured by replacing the entire turnout [;)]

Is it that the OP only needs to mitigate the effects of a plastic frog in a few instances? If so, that $50 jar of silver stuff or another exotic material might pay for several good metal frog turnouts that can replace the problematic plastic frog turnouts. Then you wouldn’t have a jury rigged situation that might still be an exercise in frustration.

While I am planning a layout, I have been debating insulfrog vs. electro frog Peco turnouts for staging to replace Atlas code 100 turnouts that I sold. Two things have convinced me to choose Electrofrogs, 1) powered frogs are less likely to have stalls on them and two, the design of the Insulfrog sometimes leads to shorts where two rails of opposite polarity are very close together and a wide tread can sometimes bridge the gap and cause a short (reported by some hobbyists). That can be fixed by painting with nail polish but I’d prefer not to have to do that.

Interestingly, there are some touting Peco’s new Unifrog design which is essentially a Peco Insulfrog with a metal frog in place of the plastic frog which can be powered. The rub is the rail nearby appears to be configured just like the Insulfrog and may be prone to the same shorting problem.

Reportedly Peco is planning on phasing out both the Electrofrog and the Insulfrog lines and replace both with a single Unifrog line as the tooling wears out for the various turnout types.

Moral of the story, if you like the Electrofrog turnouts, get them now while they are still being made.

Hard to tell from pictures and there aren’t many options to compare, but it appears that the Unifrog ones have a slightly wider gap - the short metal frog point is longer than the plastic piece from the Insulafrog it replaces. so the part where the two rails have a bit of plastic between then is further towards the diverging end and wider. So the cross-rail wheel tread shorting shouldn’t be a problem. Like it or not, they will ALL be this way. The new COde 70 stuff is only Unifrog, and the Code 83 #6 double slip is already out of stock as Insulfrog or Electrofrog, and only available as Unifrog. However at $80 each I will be limiting the number of those on my layout.

–Randy

I found a few photo’s for comparison but the Unifrog photo isn’t as big but they look awfully similar:

The first two photo’s are Insulfrog, the third is Unifrog.

From the photo’s above, it sure looks like the Unifrog has the same spot as the Insulfrog where the two opposite polarity rails come near each other.

So if you don’t want to pays your money and takes your chances, choose now while you can.

Yeah, that and the cross over are the only Unifrogs I’ve seen in code 83 so far. It doesn’t look like the standard code 83 turnouts have made the change yet. At $80 a pop and it would suck if that double slip shorts out like the other insulfrog. As it is I have a Walthers/Shinohara #6 double slip and hopefully won’t need anymore of them from Peco either.

The first Insulfrog seems to have a much thinner gap than the second Insulfrog. I found an absolutely HUGE picture (when you click on it) of the frog on the #6 double crossover which is a better angle than the small pic of the Unifrog - and on that one it appears that the plastic is thicker, or the rails just don’t extend as far towards the frog points. On that picture it looks like you would need soem pretty out of spec wheels to bridge over to the other rail.

I think richhotrain bought one, have to see if he is having any issues.

–Randy

As far as I know, the Peco Unifrog is only available right now in Code 83 as a double slip or a diamond crossing.

I have four Peco Code 83 #6 Unifrog Double Slips on my new layout, and I have no shorting problems so far where the rails of opposite polarity converge.

Rich

The nail polish solution works, and to date I have not had to redo any of them.

In any case it’s a trivial fix.

It is trivial but it can be elimitated altogether if you go with electrofrog turnouts. Some report having to redo the fix as well. Again, not a big deal but whats the old saying, prevention is better than cure.

As it stands, I have six insulfrog Peco turnouts from my last layout and assuming I use them on the next, I will incorporate the trivial fix. However, all furture purchases of Peco turnouts I am planning to buy electrofrog.

When laying track, I get a higher sense of satisfaction the more precise I am. Eventhough a fix may be easy and last for years, its still filed in my mind that the solution is not the most optimal.

There is always a trade off when money is involved.

Other things don’t have to be as precise, but for me, trackwork is one of those things. Others may be different.

Conductive Paint

So it would appear that conductive paints are not a viable solution.

Replacing the Frog with a Proto87stores Metal Unit

Copper Conductive Tape

I’d like to address the elephant in the room, which is: what conditions would drive someone to want to do something as exotic as to power a plastic frog? Seriously.

Seems to me, one should go for the easiest, most straight forward solution to a problem if it is well within reach. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to simply replace the turnout? Individually they aren’t that expensive.

Now for sake of argument, if more than one turnout is at issue, logic would dictate if money is lacking to replace multiple turnouts, start by replacing the turnout which is the most problematic with a proper metal frog turnout. [I] IThen as time goes by and you can swing the funds, pick up another, and another until you’ve mitigated those turnouts which are causing issues. I would think over the period of a few months, one could replace at least a few turnouts if it were prioritized, maybe more

Now if there was absolutely no way to replace the turnout (due to an “apocalyptic” reason), then I can imagine something like this may be a solution worth pursuing.

Gotta agree with you there, Jim.

Blame it all on Peco with their Insulfrog, where the frog is plastic instead of what could have been metal.

Of course, in time, the Peco Unifrog turnout will solve that problem since the turnout is wired completely live except for the frog tip and wing rails.

Rich