I’m preparing to go to DCC. I see all these things out there where people are saying you have to rewire your turnouts or they won’t work with DCC. I’m using EZ track with turnouts that have insulated frogs. Is this something I have to be concerned with.
I have no experience with EZ track, but there should be no rewiring of anything required if your engines have been running on DC with no problems on the turnouts.
I have a couple of frogs I will need to wire to get certain engines through, but the insulated frogs seem to be just fine in most cases. The worst that can happen is that the train will not go through, either from lack of power or a short. In those rare cases, you can rewire then.
No, this is one of those things where a few problems with a few vendors products has become a mountain out of a mole hill. Convert to DCC and worry about it only if it causes problems. I am guessing there won’t be any.
I’m not familiar with the Bachmann track, but I am with the Kato Unitrack, and it is very similar. The Unitrack has two seperate places to connect electrical to. One to make the frog live and one to make it insulated. That makes it real easy for DCC. The Bachmann track should have something similar, since the two are marketed against each other.
The issue that may affect your DCC operation with insulated turnouts is the possibility that metal wheels may bridge the gap across the insulation momentarily and cause a short. This short can occur with analog operation and cause any problem. However, DCC always operates at at least 12 volts. This requires the short protection circuitry to be extremely sensitive in order to protect the system. Consequently, that previously unnoticable momentary short circuit will now shut down the system. The easiest solution would be to keep a thin layer of nail polish or CAC on the frog points to insure that there is never any short circuit created.
The light bulb trick (#1156 bulb in series with feed) helps too.
You should modify older shinohara code 100 turnouts in some cases. The new code 83 ones as well as atlas are DCC friendly.
Don’t know about EZ track but if the frogs are insulated you are probably OK.
I HAVE E-Z TRACK IN PART OF MY LAYOUT THE SWITCHES WORK
JUST FINE WITH DCC
A DCC friendly turnout is simply a turnout with less chance of a short if something doesn’t track right through the turnout.
Shorts are bad on a DCC layout because a short can shut down the whole layout. The most common place a short occurs on a layout is at complex trackwork like a turnout.
If you can make it harder for something to cause a short at a turnout when it doesn’t track right, then the turnout is now DCC friendly.
As long as things track right, all turnouts generally work fine with DCC.
Using a dead (insulated) frog rather than a live (powered) frog can make a turnout more DCC friendly. Atlas and Peco insulfrog turnouts generally fall in this camp, as do the new DCC friendly Walthers/Shinohara turnouts.
Using a turnout that has the points and closure rails the same polarity as the stock rails can also make a turnout more DCC friendly. Atlas and the latest DCC friendly Walthers/Shinohara turnouts generally fall in this camp.
Did some one say FROG!!! I thought that CROAKED a long time a go[:D]
Turnouts Fact and Fiction;
FACT diesels b od not care if the frog has power or not (spam the frog)
FACT Steam of 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 WANT powered frogs
FICTION all DCC ready turnouts are READY FOR DCC. NO, not untill you check the points with an NMRA gauge so the the flanges clear.
FACT with DCC you MUST check the gauge on ALL METAL WHEEL SETS period.
FICTION it takes two wires to run DCC!!!
Your best friend in DCC is a PSfour or light bulb.
FACT No turnout is fool proof as far as DCC period. Wheels pick points equal short.
With all this stated you are at the mercy of EZ tracks QC departtment as far as how well it will work. Get yourself an NMRA Gauge and a TRUE RMS meter and you will have a good running DCC layout.