#1 – Zero maintenance layout (2200 sq ft layout) – You can’t maintain a large layout by yourself #2 – DCC 8 amp boosters and welding engine wheels of the engine derails #3 – Track Cleaning – Never again! #4 – Reverse Loops – Using a toggle switch with DCC #5 – Not removing ties on flex track #6 – IDC connectors - 3M scotch locks/Suitcase connectors for track wiring-NEVER #7 - The Rolling Stock Truck Tuner tool & why do you need one #8 – Soldering Track Joints #9 – Homasote Expansion vs Wood #10 – DCC and you have to modify the turnouts – YOU DON”T #11 – Homasote Cost – making a mess when cutting – You Don’t have to make dust when cutting
PLW the MRR Myth Busters – #10 - The Myth is:
You have to modify all turnouts to run them on DCC
Well, it certainly is good to know that I have been operating my DCC layout for 5 plus years now with 305 Atlas turnouts and I should get busy modifying them so I can run my DCC trains!
I have been using Atlas turnouts for 30 years now and never had to do anything to them. Either I am the luckiest person on the face of the earth or I must be doing something wrong.
When I converted my old layout and the Club’s layout to DCC we did nothing at all but flip all of the DC toggle switches to the mainline and attach the DCC system to the old mainline throttle wires.
Now in a Club situation we have just about every type of engine from TYCO’s to Brass and they all ran through all of the turnouts.
The one thing we have done was put drop wires on all 3 ends of the turnouts. The drops are on the ends of every turnout we use, Shinohara, Pico, hand laid and Atlas. This eliminated 99% of the stalling. The other 1% was the engines fault as one of the trucks was not picking up power.
It is amazing at the trouble others claim they are having. If proper wiring practices, track laying
I use the Atlas turnouts and have no problems with them. They basically are ‘DCC friendly’ right out of the box. Where have have seen problems is with conventional Shinohara turnouts. Especially the larger #8 and curved turnouts. With long wheelbase steam engines, the chance of the drivers shorting between the stock rail and the near point goes up. With most DC operation, the momentary short that may happen is usually is quite short lived and does not affect the rest of the layout. With DCC, the full power of the booster (or power district) may cause a booster shutdown that affects everyone. My take on this is to not get too concerned and see what happens. Modification of turnouts in problem areas can then be addressed. I cannot imagine taking a Dremel to an entire finished layout!
Ditto. Atlas are some of the ones that are already DCC friendly out of the box. The only modifications suggested for them is to wire around the rivet that powers the pointsI haven’t done anythign to mine and they work just fine.
However - I still say this is a myth, if you wheels are in gauge and the turnout is built correctly, it shouldn’t short out no matter what.
And you can do crazy things too. I was just helping a friend work on his layout, he handlays code 40 and code 25 (!!!) track in N scale. His gapped ‘frogs’ tend to extend way past the turnout. Hey, why not? They get power from switch machine contats, who says the ends of the diverging frog rails have to end within x inches of the point of the frog? There’s absolutely no way anything can short on his frogs
You know Bob, this is the funniest one yet. While I agree that you don’t have to modify every switch to run on DCC, you are just like some of the old timers in my club who, although they have embraced DCC operations, they still don’t get what “DCC Friendly Switches” actually means.
“DCC Friendly Switches” means that each point rail and it’s adjacent stock rail never, ever changes polarity. The reason why this is a concern is that with DC operation, a momentary short is of little consequence…you can usually just power through it, tho’ you might see the ammeter jump a bit. With DCC, a momentary short of the back of a driver touching the open point lasting less than 1/2 a second or so will immediately shut down the either the block or the whole section of the layout (depending on how you’ve wired it). And that can cause the loco to stop in it’s tracks if it has no flywheel, meaning it just sits there and shorts. This is not good.
Naturally, you don’t have any problems with Atlas switches of any stripe as, their points and their adjacent stock rails never change polarity! If you look closely, the Atlas switch points are 100% isolated from each other, and each point “hinge” is “wired” to the adjacent stock rail.
Peco switches are also DCC friendly, IIRC.
Walthers/Shinohara switches historically have NOT been DCC friendly (only recently have they changed them). I tested many large brass locos, from 2-10-4’s, to Challengers, to W-1’s, to EP-4’s, and more. And several of them had problems getting through an old No. 6 Walthers switch without shorting out and stopping. No. 8’s? No problems. But No. 6’s and tighter have problems handling big power without shorting out with DCC.
But as far as your “myth” goes (ie, “You have to modify all turnouts to run them on DCC.”), I agree with you on that one. You don’t. Atlas and Peco switches are immune from DCC problems. However, that doesn’t mean that you don’ t have to modify at least some swi
I don’t run DCC but I do use Dynatrol for my 5 yard engines and I use a couple of walk-around throttles from Alpine Scale Models which also have the electronic “instan” circut greakers. Never had a problem because before I started running I decided that I didn’t like the unprototypical gap between the stock rail and the off point. My solution was to remove the metal tie bar from the Shinohara swotches and replace it w/ a printed circut board tie bar w/ a gap cut in the middle. Works like a champ on stnd DC or the electronic breakers, the off point is always electrically dead.
jimrice4449,
How do you make the open point “dead”? Did you gap the rail between the frog and the points? Do you have a relay to kill the power to the open point? Inquiring minds…
While I don’t run DCC and don’t intend to switch, my turnouts are 100% DCC friendly. The reason is that my points are totally isolated from EVERYTHING, and are as (electrically) dead as Tut-ank-amon unless they have been thrown to contact the adjacent stock rail. Contacts on the turnout actuator power the frog, which is electrically continuous.
I build them in that manner (and have done so for over 35 years) because I prefer them to be prototypically close to the stock rails in the open position. When every wheel in a train is likely to rub on the open point, the only “final” solution is to kill the point.
As to how to isolate the points, mine pivot on wire nails fitted into holes drilled into the roadbed, with physical gaps between them and the closure rail. Connecting them to the closure rails with plastic rail joiners would also work, until the joiners fail (which they eventually will. They aren’t designed for mechanical stress.)
I am only repeating what others state. THEY say go visit Allan Gardners (sp?) WIRING FOR DCC page and there is a list of what to do.
I didn’t even know that page was around when we changed the Club layout and my home layout from Block DC over to the Keller Onboard command control system way back in 1991.
I just hooked it up in place of one of the old power paks and away we went. No shorting or melting (Which the Keller system did very well) nothing. The trains ran smooth throught the turnouts. So there is no argument just fact. All of the others in our area that had the Keller system did the same when they changed to DCC. Just unhooked the Keller system and attached the DCC system and ran the layouts. No modified turnouts PERIOD.
Now I have been on a lot of forums and this is the first thing that is stated to a NuBe asking about changing over to DCC or building a new layout is the DCC friendly turnouts.
I am stating that they are all frinedly to a point. Yes the long wheelbase steam can and will cause problems but when others bring their long steam to my layout to play on they do not trip out the system.
And I have a lot of #4 turnouts so those long steam should be doing it a lot. But then again they are just running the train from one end to the other and not doing much of any switching. So the steam engines are seeing very few sharp turnouts to go through.
tomikawaTT,
That is certainly one way to do it. However, my club tried out a similar idea on a yard ladder we brought from our old club, and it’s turned into a reliability nightmare because it, like yours, relies on mechanical contact to power the moving part of the switch. It worked for a while, but then we have to go back periodically and clean the point and the stock rail with a small file in order to get power through the point. We are, at some point, going to go back and solder tiny wire leads to the points, but at the moment we have to clean these over and over. YMMV.
Note that the only ones listed that are not “DCC Friendly” are: Walthers/Shinohara (old), Micro Engineering (old), Kato (some), Orr, and BK Enterprises. So if you don’t have any of these, you shouldn’t have any DCC issues (unless you make your own switches, then it’s up to you).
I HAVE read it, MAYBE the others should as they are the ones stating that ALL turnouts have problems.
I only stated that I was not having the problems OTHERS have stated and I know you are not having problems either.
This is the problem, Where are the others that state these so called problems to watch out for. THEY never come on this thread and try and dispute what they have stated.
Appeariently you are the only one that will continually say these Myths don’t exist yet they get brought up on this forum almost weekly. Where the ones that spout off about these proven things Are you the only spokes-persion. Or are they afraid to get called in the carpet.
It’s DEFINITELY out there as a “you must do this”. Just look at any of the DCC manufacturer’s groups on Yahoo, or common one like DCC4EVERYONE. Every time someone new gets a DCC system you get message slike “DO I have to change my turnouts?” or “I’m building a new layout and want to use DCC. What turnouts should I use?”
There are lots of things that are ‘wrong’ by commonly accepted practice that work just fine. I mean - when I first completed one of my mains I hooked exactly two wires from my Zephyr to the track and wow - the trains ran without slowing down at the far edges. No #12 wiring bus, and I don;t solder all my track joints - but it worked. To look anywhere you’d fidn that it should be impossible my trains to cover some 35+ feet of track with only 1 pair of feeders and not slow down or lose power. But they didn’t. There’s now a power bus and feeders every 3-6 feet, but it actually worked reliably without doing that.
OLD Atlas switches had BLACK PLASTIC frogs, and jumpers to extend power beyond the frog. Today, or some 25 years later, Atlas turnout’s still have dead frogs with jumpers to power beyond the frog. The basic change is BLACK METAL instead of plastic - except for 'Snap Switches.
Since the UNPOWERED frog was Atlas’ early design it can be considered either the ‘forrunner of DCC’, OR - a simpflified hookup for first-timers. - including me. YOUR choice.
My vote goes for ‘lucking out’ (or buying ‘what was cheapest). The More complicated design’s ROUTED power via the powered frog - such as Tru Scale, Anderson, and Atlas’ own switch kit with a real RAIL frog. DCC has changed the rules regarding Polarity. (Whut’s that?)
To say " ALL switches need modification" is indeed a “MYTH”
, and in this case is a ‘MISS’ -by at least ’ half a MILE’.
If you read that website, then why didn’t you know what “DCC Friendly” means? You started talking about adding feeders and “engines stalling” because they didn’t have power, about cutting gaps and filling them with glue, etc. NONE of these issues have anything to with whether a switch is “DCC Friendly” or not.
You “know” I’m not having problems? We are handlaying any switch to be DCC Friendly at our club that’s under a No. 8 in size because of this issue.
Maybe they’ve been put off by your confrontational attitude…
Ok, that’s 4 times in this one post alone (not counting all the other times in the other “myth” threads) that you’ve gone on about what these “other” people are saying.
Now, you prove it.
Please quote exactly where it was said that ALL turnouts have problems with DCC, and likewise all the rest of your “myths”. Since it happens “almost weekly”, it should be easy for you to find with the Forum’s Search feature.
If you don’t, I’m willing to bet that most people here will consider your “myths” (especially this one) to be so much hogwash. I know I will. Because so far, all it sounds like is a giant, multi-thread "str
I’ll lay odds you don’t get a sensible response. Notice that when I asked Bob to back up his repeated claims about what “other” people were saying, the silence was deafening.
Yeah, that’s how I see it, too. All Bob’s done is put forward his own modelling preferences, biases and prejudices under the guise of “myths” to be “busted”.