At one time, I had three double crossovers on my layout. But, I had so much trouble with derailments and dead spots that I finally removed two of them, keeping only one that I considered essential. My latest issue over the weekend was a dead closure rail, so I had to solder a jumper wire to restore power. So, it is only a matter of time now until I remove the last remaining double crossover and replace it with a pair of crossovers.
The double crossover is a marvel or engineering, but I consider the Walthers Shinohara DCC Friendly Double Crossover a little too fragile for my taste. Now, I am sure that some will report that the double crossover on their layout has been there 20 years without a problem, to which I say, good for you. This particular double crossover has been on my layout for nearly 10 years, but it has been a maintenance nightmare.
Now, on to my current issue. I recently purchased a Bowser V-1000 switcher, and I noticed that at slow speeds, the loco stalls on the straight through routes. So, I started testing each and every rail segment for power. The following photo shows the power to each rail segment, blue to the upper rail and red to the lower rail. The uncolored (white) segments show the guard rails, crossing diamond, and frog rails. It just so happens that the front and rear trucks of the V-1000 loco fit perfectly over the “turnout frogs”. So, at slow speeds, the loco stalls for lack of power.
I believe that the solution is to power the frogs which are currently isolated dead metal frogs, perhaps using Tam Valley Depot Frog Juicers. The following photo shows the area in green that would require power to eliminate the stalls.
My question is, how many juicers would I need? Would two do it, one juicer on one
Use 4 outputs of one quad Frog Juicer. Then there is nothing to calculate or figure out. Theoretically, the top 2 should both be the same polarity, the bottom two should both the the same polarity, any other route lined through the crossover would be a conflict and you’d only need a dual frog juicer. Check on the Tam Valley Yahoo group or ask directly at Tam Valley if they support running 2 frogs with 1 juicer output, Duncan is pretty responsive.
LION does not juice the frogs. Frogs must fend for themselves. LION uses relays to apply power according to the logic of the alignment. On layout of him, no other power is present anywhere else on the switch.
On Route of the BroadwayLION, we do not even bother to power the entire crossover. with 48 wheel pickup it was deemed quite unnecessary.
All good points, Randy. First, the polarities on the upper and lower tracks match, so no problem there. Second, as you say, there are no conflicts on the crossover because conflicts would not be possible without a collision.
Excuse me for butting in without any real experience with the frog juicer, but for some reason, I find the “puzzzle value” of questions like this irresistable.
Don’t you also need to juice the X’s in the crossover? (is that a frog?)
I would think you need 4 juice points. One each for the top and bottom pair of turnout frogs, and one for each of the X-frogs in the crossover.
In the old style ones, those rails are powered from the frog, electrically connected to them Dunno about the DCC friendly version - I’d have to assume they have power through simialr to Atlas turnouts, otherwise a lot more locos would stall, that’s a lot of rail to not be powered if the frog is dead plus the rails in the middle. Only the longest locos could pass through such a contraption.
If the center rails are powered from the frogs, using the frog juicer would power those rails as well and no problem. If those reails already hav power matchign the proper stock/closure rail, then there is no problem, there is no need for them to change polarity. Those middle rails are clearly insulated at the frog and where they touch each other, so either they are completely dead (unlikely) or have jumpers under the frog to feed them.
I designed my layout around a Walthers code 83 double crossover. The two things I wanted the most on my layout was a double crossover and a working turntable.
The Walthers Shinohara Double Crossover was the first track laid on my current layout. I tried everything to get it to work and after many frustrating hours of tedious fixing there wasn’t anything left of the double crossover but pieces. I had so much trouble with derailments and electrical problems I ended up using two Atlas turnouts for a single crossover for many years.
Over the years I tried four other double crossovers three of the four ending up in the trashcan. The fourth was a Fast Track and you described exactly the problem I had with it. At that point I gave up and sold the Fast Track Double Crossover on eBay.
Still wanting a working double crossover I built my own from Atlas code 83 Custom Line
Rich, I only had to juice two of the four frogs for my BS 4-4-0. I got a real good deal on buying ten FJ.s and have used six of them. I have spares in case I get something like a highrailer that causes me more problems. Eventually I will power the frogs with the TO motors when I get that far, but for now Caboose ground throws and FJs give me a quick easy fix to rid myself of mainline frustrations.
There are three possible routings over this switch…
Northbound to Track 1 which includes Southbound from track 2.
Northbound into track 2; Red signals displayed against movements from track 1.
Southbound from track 1; Red signals displayed against Northbound trains and agains movements from track 2.
On Layout of LION Turnouts and Signals arte controlled by separate levers. Green signals cannot be displayed for the routes not alighed.
Tracks 1 and 2 both have red signals displayed unless the track lever is aligned to that track. If said lever is so aligned, then the interlock will allow the signal to be cleared but ONLY IF the Southbound Dyckmann Street platform is open.
No northbound train can leave Dyckmann Street unless lever 3 is reversed. If levers 1 and 2 are normal, and no train is ocupying track 1, then lever three can be moved, Green over Green is the display and the train will move to track 1.
If Lever 1 is reversed (lever 2 is normal because of a mechanical interlock between levers 1 and 2) AND track 2 is not occupied, then lever 3 can be reversed and the train at Dyckmann Street would receive an Amber over Amber indication permitting the train to proceed to track two.
IF LEVER 3 is reversed, then the homeball at Botanic Gardens displays red over red, and a train may not continue to Dyckmann Street until it is cleared. The block system would of its own display a red signal if Dyckmann is occupied, but once the train leaves that signal could be lost, but the reversed position of the lever prevents that train from proceeding. Were it to proceed, it would encounter a clear signal a Dyckman Street and would rear-end a train sitting in the station. So there
All of the frogs on the Walthers Shinohara DCC Friendly Code 83 Double Crossover are isolated dead metal frogs. But the crossover routes do not cause stalls because of the distance apart of the crossover frogs. At least with the loco roster that I have, none of the wheelbases results in both the front and rear trucks crossing dead sections at the same moment. So, the problem is limited to the straight through routes.
Don, when I refer back to the thread for which you provided a link, you mention that this solution will not work with the Walthers double crossover. I assume that you are referring to the Walthers Shinohara DCC Friendly Code 83 Double Crossover.
From what I can tell, frogs 2 and 5 (see diagram) are insulated. So you would not need the relay because putting juice to an insulated frog is worthless. [:D]
In the above diagram, only 1 route was valid at a time. If you threw both routes, the frogs at 2 and 5 would be in conflict polarity wide. AS they are insulated, the polarity doesn’t matter. That’s why you can throw both at the same time.
Other then that the wiring should be the same. You can obviously ignore wires 5, 6, 7 on both tortoises as well as they are only used to help determine the polarity of frogs 2 and 5.
You can even get away with using 1 DPDT on two tortoises. But the linkages and wiring is different. Instead of tortoise A controlling the left side switches, and B the right (as above), tortoise A would control the top side, tortoise B the bottom. You would connect tortoise A’s outputs to frog 1 and 4. Tortoise B’s outputs would change polarity on frogs #3 and #6 .
The linkage of this later arrangement is more complicated because both throw bars are not lined up parallel to the tortoise. This requires a perpendicular linkage which gets “complex” One side of the DPDT would read “Clear/Closed”, the other side would read “Thrown”.
I got an email back from Duncan, and he confirmed what Mr. B. had already said, and that is that one Frog Juicer can power two frogs with the same polarity.
They are on two different tracks but on the same end of the crossover, if that makes sense. Why only two need FJs, I don’t know. Parts of the electrical side of the hobby are my weakest in the knowledge end of things. I wonder if I were to turn the crossover around if that would mean I would need FJs on that end.[%-)]
I believe the confusing is resulting becauseof confusing the old non-DCC friendly version with the current DCC friendly version. If you look on Wiring for DCC, it shows the electrical paths for the old non-DCC friendly one, and in fact those middle frogs (2 and 5 on that one picture) are fully live and need power routing to them. But if you look at the OP’s photo of his actual crossover, you can see where things are insulated with plastic inserts which do not appear in the old version seen on Wiring for DCC. Batman’s post further backs this up - likely the individual sections of rail that go diagonally are all interconnected with jumpers under the plastic bits. You’d have to remove the crossover from the layout to test accurately, but a continuity tester or multimeter on ohms would quickly conform the way it’s all wired together.
Despite all the potential paths, there’s only 2 conditions that are valid, which is why you can rig up just 1 Tortoise to run all 4 sets of points - if either route is set to cross over, then neither route can allow a train to go straight through, because one side or the other would be going through open points. So either both are set to go straight, or both are set to cross, no other option is physically possible.
