On our club layout, many of the smaller engines like the Geeps and switchers loose power in the turnouts. They are older turnouts mostly Atlas and it could be that the electrical connection in the grommet no longer exists. One of the older club members says that it is common to loose power and that we need to power the points–he just can’t remember how.
So, how?
You can tap (I forget the exact size) the hole next to the frog. Then screw a feeder wire to said frog. However, you’ll probably need some method to control the polarity to the frog, or add more isolation gaps to the turnout.
I simply make sure that power is also feed from frog end of the turnout. This does the trick for me, and I don’t have to worry about keeping proper polarity on the frog.
Nick
Chip, are they losing power at the frog or are the switch points not getting power? (Two different problems.) You might take a look at some of the suggestions offered at Alan Gartner’s site: http://www.wiringfordcc.com/switches.htm He shows how to install jumpers on the turnouts.
Powering the frogs on Atlas turnouts is simple if you are using the tortiose or other machine with built in toggles. I tap the little hole on the side of the frog housing and attach a wire using a short 2/56 screw. The black metal of the frog will not take solder so this is the only way I know of to get a secure connection.
If it is really the grommets (where the points pivot) losing connection then the points are what would be losing power. To fix that one solders a flexible jumper wire the over the grommet area to the point from the rail that point is “pinned” to. One wire required for each point.
If the issue is really frogs, there are at least six different versions of the Atlas turnouts out there, that would required three different fixes depending on the specific turnout. Modern Atlas turnouts (customline Mark II and Mark III) have metal frogs that need a feeder from a switched source. The regular customline and the original snap switches had an insulated frog and there is nothing that can be done with them – well, short of using some sort of conductive paint. The older Atlas with hot frogs (usually had fiber ties) can be solved with either an external switch (like tortoise) or with a jumper wire as above. The thing here is that only one jumper wire is needed because the frog and points always have the same single polarity.
Either that or I don’t understand what he means by the grommet area. There are some electrical “wires” inside of some of the ties that could have broken. In that case simply adding normal feeders to the frog side of the turnout should resolve the issue.
When I was using Atlas turnouts I used a device called a snap relay to power the frog. Whenever the switch machine was activated, the snap relay would send the correct polarity to the frog.
My mistake. It’s the points.
Chip,
The points can get power from 2 sources:
The best ‘fix’ is to solder small jumper wires from the stock rail or closure rails to the point rails. I have had to do this with several older turnouts. Out of 46 turnouts, I have had to ‘fix’ 3 of them in the past 18 years. Ando most of the problems happened after I painted the rails or ballasted - Be carefull!
Jim