I am still trying to figure things out. Still building my first layout. I decided to go HO DCC. I have been using Atlas turnouts and thought everything was going fine. I believe I have read previous posts of people saying that Atlas turnouts were not a problem.
So, now with about 80% of my track laid I have noticed that when some of my steam locos go thru some of the turnouts they seem to hit a gap in power. It tends to happen with the smaller lo cos, like 4-4-0 and 4-6-0. They get about halfway thru a turnout and stop. A little nudge will get them going again. My 2-8-2 and 2-10-0 run right thru without a problem. I realize that the frog in the turnout is not powered and that means that when a wheel is on the frog it is not picking up power. But I thought that having more than one pair of pickup wheels would eliminate that problem. I made sure that the track was clean and the loco and tender wheels were clean, but still have the problem. Can someone point me in the direction of a solution? What am I doing wrong?
Atlas makes two types of turnouts, snap-switches and customline, in HO.
Snap-switches have plastic frogs. (Frogs are the small crossover section where the rails cross in the middle.) Plastic, of course, doesn’t conduct electricity so there’s a natural dead spot there. Customline turnouts have a metal frog, but it’s not powered. As customlines are generally longer, the dead frog may be more of a problem. They can be powered, but you need to switch the polarity based on the position of the points. You can do this with a Tortoise switch machine, which has extra contacts for just this purpose, or use a gadget like the Tam Valley Frog Juicer to do it electronically.
Sometimes the point rails themselves are the problem. The electrical connection to the point rails is through the rivet they turn on, and that can loosen up. You can fix this by soldering a small piece of wire to jumper it to the adjacent fixed rail. This holds for both snap-switches and customlines.
It could also be that you simply don’t have enough feeders, and you’re depending on rail joiners to transmit power from section to section. This is sometimes a bigger problem around turnouts, because there are a lot of joiners in a short space. Adding more feeders is never a bad thing.
One thing to check with Atlas metal frogs is whether they’re flush with the surrounding rails. Oftentimes the frog is taller, which can lift wheels as they cross it. Even if you have a wheelbase longer than the frog, the frog can cause a loco to lose contact. Use a straightedge to check the frog and file flush with the other rails as appropriate. I have dozens of Atlas turnouts and had to file the frogs on most of them.
While I’m at it, I also file the tops of the stamped point rails to ensure they’re also flush with the adjacent rails. Some of the newer Atlas turnouts have cast points, bit I’d still recommend checking for alignment.
I realize that the frog in the turnout is not powered and that means that when a wheel is on the frog it is not picking up power. But I thought that having more than one pair of pickup wheels would eliminate that problem. I made sure that the track was clean and the loco and tender wheels were clean, but still have the problem. Can someone point me in the direction of a solution? What am I doing wrong?
Having more than one set of pickup wheels may alleviate the problem, but not necessarily eiliminate the problem. Powering the frogs would be a step in the right direction, but even that may not eliminate the problem in every case.
You say that the track and wheels are clean. Make them cleaner.
Add feeder wires on to each rail on each end of the turnout.
Since you have gone DCC, adjust the CVs for adequate power at slow speeds.
Lastly, make sure that each set of trucks, forward and rear, are actually powered. It wouldn’t be the first time that a loco was not providing power to one set of trucks for whatever the reason.
CHeck wheel guage on the locos - every loco or piece of rollign stock that I ever had that ‘bumped’ on Atlas turnouts was shown to have out of guage wheelsets.
Add feeders - my Atlas turnouts are powered on all three sides. I added wires to power the frogs but never got around to it, the wire just hangs there unconnected. Even a small loco like my 44 tonner can roll slowly through the turnouts without hesitation A big steam loco with a long power pickup wheelbase - not even a second thought.
This is not really an Atlas problem. It’s a problem of locos like 4-4-0s having pickup on one side for the loco and the opposite side on the tender. YOu don’t normally get good pickup with this type of system. Even my old Rivarossi Big Boy had a problem with this and I had to add power pickups for both sides. There are 2 things I would look at doing since I like the idea of having a loco that can deal with an unpowered frog. These processess for differeint locos have been documented on other websites.
Get a good decoder that has the ability to deal with temporary power loss. I add a large capacitor to my Soundtraxx decoders for example and it eliminated the problem after 2 below. TCS decoders can have a “keep alive” chip added–these are I think the best nonsound decoders on the market today.
Make sure you have both sides of the drivers picking up power as well as both sides of the tender trucks. I also add power pickups for the leading/trailing trucks where easily done. For small steamers added weight can help keep the wheels in contact while it goes over the frog.
Powering the frog as mentioned earlier is the only other practical alternative and for powered devices like the Bachmann handcar which has only 4 small wheels in a small space it’s really the only optioin.
This is the traditional dead frog issue that has been with the hobby since the beginning of insuilated frogs on turnouts (1960s?). The solution is to apply power to the metal frog in the Atlas custom line turnouts. There is a small tab with a hole in it on the side that can be tapped and a feeder wire attached. I’ve done this in the past and think I remember that it is the right size to take a #2 screw. 2-72. One has to be really careful though because it is soft metal and it is easy to strip the threads.
I also think Atlas makes a kit specially for doing this.
For my frog wires, I just got some brass screws, think they are 1-72, the typical #2 is a 2-56. Not even self tapping, but the metal is so soft, I could just turn them in without a lot of pressure. I put the turnout face down on the workbench though, so the pressure wasn;t into space, which could pop the whole frog off. I put the screw in from the bottom, until the bottom of the screw was flush witht he top of the hole - when I painted the rails, I painted that bright bit of brass as well to hide it. Soldered a length of wire (greem, for frogs…) to the brass screw head, and when placing the turnouts, drilled a hole for the frog feeder and dropped it in.
And that’s as far as I got - every turnout has a green wire hanging down, but not connected. I was SURE my yard and the lead to my cement plant would surely need powered frogs so my little 44-tonner could work back and forth - but noe, even it went nice and slow without stalling. Now, had I NOT put the wires on the frogs, I’d have all sorts of problem and have to make an ugly mess adding the wires from the top. But I think my real secret is that all 3 legs of the turnouts have feeders on both rails. Since Atlas isn;t power routing, you can get away with this - and it also means there is no reliance on the interconnections underneath for power to get from one end of the turnout to the other.
Well, I really appreciate all the answers I have received so far. At this point I am going to go back and make sure that all wheels are extra clean. And then, although I have already added quite a few feeders to my 14’ x 18’ layout, I am going to add some more at the ends of the turnouts. I would also like to add some weight to the small engines because the leading wheels also tend to have problems, but I am not sure how I would go about doing that. I will also check the guage of the wheels. If all of that doesn’t do the job then I guess I will have to look at powering the frogs. I am trying to avoid that because I already have 15 or so turnouts installed and I think it would be a real mess to try to get a wire attached to the frogs at this point without pulling up the turnouts.
Thanks for all the input and any more out there are certainly welcome.
I want my layout to be as trouble free as possible but I do not have unlimited funds. So I have to make do with what I can afford.
Most of my turnouts were already mounted when I realized that I wanted to power all the frogs. I drilled a small hole next to the frog on the side towards the wall, so it would be less visible. Then I stripped both ends of a #22 wire and pushed one end down through the hole. I bent 1/4 inches of the top end at a 90 degree angle and soldered it to the outside of the frog so there would be no clearance problems with wheels. Once ballasted, this wire is not noticeable unless you’re really looking for it.
If you’re using Tortoise machines, consider getting the circuit board edge connectors for them. It’s much easier to make connections when you can unplug-solder-plug than doing it upside-down on a mounted Tortoise.
To save yourself some potential unneeded work consider using a test light such as used in automotive work with a clip on one side and probe on the other–very cheap and the bulb will light with DCC or DC or even AC. Connect it at different points on the switch where wheels would make contact and see if you get current flow. Jiggle the switch to make sure the current flow is uninterrupted. If it goes on and off you may need to make sure the contacts are working well under the switch.
A test light is a wonderful instrument, but here is some important advice …
If you get a test light that is self powered (i.e. has a battery in it), make sure your track power is OFF. If it is on, you will burn out the test bulb for sure.
Geee, that sounds like the voice of experience, and it only took me two bulbs to figure out my goof.
I know this may seem like a band-aid solution, but in the long run, it’s a great idea if you are running DCC. Put one of TCS’s Stay Alive modules in the tender and forget about having contact issues ever again.
Considering the time involved to fix all your turnouts or convert them them to live frogs (and even then you might experience some stuttering) - you could install a Stay Alive module and that little 4-4-0 will literally crawl over anything in front of it (even a sheet of paper !) without even a hiccup.
I am considering installing the TCS Keep Alive modules in my Bachmann 4-4-0 and 4-6-0. However I can not find anything that tells me that they can be installed in my locos. Nor can I find anything that tells me how to do it. I am not experienced in working on locos and I am afraid of messing with my DCC locos without a clear path ahead. Is there any guidance out there?
Are you sure both wheels are picking up power. I had a BLI Pacific that would stall on turnouts. They are designed to pick up power from both tender wheels and driver wheels but I discovered I was not getting pickup from the driver wheels on one side. I had to take it apart to discover that an electric screw which I believe was suppose to perforate through a piece of insulation had not done so preventing the driver wheels from picking up power so when the powered tender wheels hit the unpowered frog, the loco was getting no power and stalled.
I have had a similar problem with my SW7 switchers. The problem might be that with the shorter locos, one pickup wheel is on the frog and the other is on the point rail which might not be getting power the way it is supposed to. If you have a voltage meter, check that the point rail is getting power. The longer locos are probably beyond the point rail when the other pickup wheel is over the frog.
There is one other problem with Atlas turnouts that will stall a locomotive. If you look closely at the frog there are two rail ends attached that are very close together. These rails are opposite polarity. They are so close that a metal wheel tread can touch both. In the old days with mechanical circuit breakers the resulting short didn’t last long enough to trip the breaker.
Now we have electronic breakers that trip much faster and will stop a slow moving locomotive. The solution is to paint the top of one of the rails for about 1/4 inch. I do the rail that has less traffic to wear the paint off. The paint can be clear or some dull color. I would avoid silver because it often contains metal flakes, defeating the purpose.