wiring a single crossover for DCC

[erosebud]

I'm not looking for sympathy here, but it's the reason I'm asking here instead of searching my library:  I had a stem cell transplant in February and haven't been doing any train work since some months before.  The transplant, I'm happy to say, has been successful to the point where I'm back in the basement a little bit each day or so. But the phenomenon known as "chemo brain" has affected my thinking and power of concentration, so perhaps you can help.

I have a yard with two longish tracks that I decided to connect to each other with a pair of opposing turnouts--a crossover to keep a loco from being trapped behind its consist.  So far my layout's DCC wiring, all very simple and straightforward, has worked fine, but I discovered that adding those two connected turnouts left me with no power to the tracks beyond them.  I'm terrible with anything electrical, but I have a feeling that what I must do is cut through the center of the crossover, insulating them from each other, and make sure there's a set of feeders to each of the tracks.  But before I do anything, I thought I'd ask here if it's that simple.  Additionally: should I be wiring one of my "frog juicers" to each of the crossover turnouts as I have all the others on the layout?

I appreciate any help you can offer--references to other threads, websites, the Kalmbach books (I have most of them), or what have you.  Thanks.

[DigitalGriffin]

erosebud

but I discovered that adding those two connected turnouts left me with no power to the tracks beyond them. 

Well this is odd, unless you are using power routing turnouts.  In that case only one of the inside legs are dead.

What make & model turnouts are you using?

And two turnouts should really require two juicers.  (The two frogs are of opposite polarity all the time.)  But to be honest you could use a single tortoise with some linkages to handle both turnouts and the frogs without the need for a juicer.

[skagitrailbird]

I hope I am not leading you astray but I think all you need are feeders beyond the turnouts. Try some jumber cables to temporarily simulate feeders beyond the turnouts. If there is power with no shorts, etc. you are good to go with feeders. If not, your quest continues but with little cost and effort for the failed experiment.

[erosebud]

I use all Micro Engineering turnouts (DCC-friendly, as I understand it) and joiners, and I solder all connections.  I also have Tam Valley juicers on all turnouts (except these two), and they mostly work--some all the time, some just some of the time; I still get stalls at certain turnouts, and I'm too ignorant to know how to test them and there seems to be no pattern to their occasional failures.

I only have two turnouts controlled with Tortoises (and they work like a charm in tandem on a hidden track, with no juicers).  My other turnouts are thrown with FastTracks Bullfrogs for the sake of my great-nieces and -nephews.

I'll install the two juicers (since I have some on hand) and then try adding jumpers if necessary.  That's about all the work I can manage in a day.

Thanks for the advice.

[richhotrain]

If your ME turnouts are DCC-friendly as you say, then they are the newer version with dead metal frogs.  The frogs are fully insulated from the point rails and the frog rails, so no additional gapping is required.  However, ME turnouts are power routing, so you need to place feeders on all three ends of each turnout that makes up the crossover.

Rich

[BroadwayLion]

If you have northbound power on one side and southbond power on the other, then you do have a problem, but if both tracks are wired for southbound traffic you will have no problem.

LION leaves the puzzle switches and crossovers completely unpowered. Makes wiring simple, and with 48 wheel pick up who cares if there is power on the track or not.

ROAR