Good day all
I have just wired a portion of my layout and I am having turnout issues. The issue seems to rest with the locomotive losing power in the frog areas. I have to turn outs almost back to back and the power loss is in that area. I use the atlas turnout machines as well.
I have soldered the tracks as well as cleaned them. The switches seem to make proper contacts as well. The issues have not been resolved. I run diesel locomotives on it.
The only solution I can think of is to add more feeder wires to the tracks between the two turnouts and the trailing points as well. The layout is currently wired for DC with the intent of converting to DCC. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Jason
The problem is the unpowered frog of the turnouts. You can add a wire (there is a lug provided for soldering the wire to) but you need to have some way of switching the power. You can add an Atlas Snap Relay in parallel with the existing switch motor so both move at the same time, although for reliable operation with a setup like that you willw ant to look at a capacitor discharge power supply to ensure both the switch motor and relay snap into position - plus they limit the continuous current so that if the buttn is held down too long or gets stuck, you won;t burn out the switch machine, which seems to happen all too often with the smaller N scale coils. WHen I was in N scale, I burned up a bunch, until I built a CD supply, after that, never had another one burn out. It's an easy circuit to build, or you can buy commercial ones ready to hook up like the Circuitron Snapper.
Once you have the relay, the frog wire goes to one fo the common terminals, and you hook wires fromt he left and right rails to the other two terminals. If you get a short when hitting the frog, you have the track wires hooked u backwards, just switch them. Now you will have continuous power through the frog and your locos should not stall. This same solution works for DC and DCC.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy, you might have this one entirely pegged, but it seems to me that a #5 frog should be short enough not to become a power liability to all but the teensiest and poorest quality toy locomotive. I don't own, and have no experience with, an Atlas #5, so I am merely going on a visual image of a typical scale diesel or steamer in good condition trying to move through the points, closure rails, and then over the frog.
It would seem to me that an at-least-as-likely possibility might be that the dead frog length is being greatly lengthened by virtue of a problem with power to the closure rails and maybe even to the points. Unfortunately, metering this to verify often results in what seem to be perfectly good contacts solely by virtue of pressure applied in the right places by the meter's solid probes.
My NMRA compliant Fast Track #8 turnouts have fairly long, but not terribly long, dead frogs. Even so, my little Proto 2000 SW-8 had no problems going over them once I subbed the all-metal tires axle for the one with traction tires. My Proto 2000 0-8-0 also had no trouble with them. As you know, though, those hand-laid turnouts have excellent and robust continuity along their lengths, and particularly their points, because of their copper-clad ties and the use of solder.
Again, my experience with the Atlas turnouts is nil...it must be disappointing to pay any amount of money for a modern turnout only to find that it routinely leaves some locomotives stranded somewhere along its length.
I've not had any problems with HO scale #4's and #6s that I have used on my last two layouts, even without powering the frogs. However, N scale locos are even lighter and more easily intrrupted with dirt ont he rails or wheels, and I'm not sure how long the insulated part of the frog is on those relative to the turnout size - as a comparison, the insulated part of a Peco Insulfrog is VERY tiny even for the larger number turnouts. Also, even better wuality N scale locos sometimes have traction tires to overcome the light weight, so that even a big 6 axle diesel may only pick up from 3 wheels on one side - doesn't take much dead area to cut that off completely.
Mine worked (despite solding wires to the frog - which never got connected to anything) because I think my wiring made sure the ONLY dead part was the frog itself - for Atlas turnouts which are not power routing or anything, I had power feeds on all 3 legs. That way each powered rail on the turnout had a direct power source not relying on the rivet for the points or any sort of jumpers or clips embedded in the base of the turnout. That is something the OP can try as well, just add additional feeders all around the turnouts - ESPECIALLY where two connect back to back. The other possible difference is that both recent layouts of mine were DCC, so there is full voltage on all rails. When you roll into a turnout slow with DC, the voltage is cut back and what might be a slight reduction and slowdown is actually enough to take the voltage under the loco's minium running voltage - not a complete interruption of power, but a reduction. In DCC this might mean a slight slowdown, in DC at slow speeds, it's terminal.
Thanks Randy. I've placed an order to Walthers for the Snapper.
Cheers
And then there's this lesson learned while building a layout for my grandson...
After checking the first few turnouts for frog power, I continued laying track and adding turnouts. The frog switches I'm using were added and wired, as was the wire to the frog terminal. But no wires were connected at the time as I preferred to just continue getting track laid. There's a deadline, his birthday.Imagine my frustration as I began wiring the frogs when I discovered that about half the frogs had either a high resistance connection or no connection at all to the frog terminal lug. A dozen turnouts were going to have to be jerry rigged in order to get the frogs powered. No happiness there.
I learned my lesson the hard way. I suggest checking for continuity between the frog terminal and the frog before glueing any turnouts into place. And then check it again before the glue dries or you connect any more track to the turnout.
The only thing left to do now is drill a hole to solder a small wire directly to the frog. Good luck on not melting any ties during that process. Ugly.
This is going to be my grandson's layout, so I don't want him to be having a lot of trouble. It has to be done right.
A lesson learned here is the poor quality control of Atlas turnouts. I'm either going to have to check each one, and perhaps solder my own jumper underneath the frog. Or switch to a different brand of track. It's bad enough the turnouts have a curve in them where they should be straight. Now this. I have to wonder how others are dealing with this.
-Bob
Note that a high resistance between the lug and the frog could eb because of the chemical blackener used on the frog. That stuff isn't exactly the best conductor. You may have to polish the running surface of the frog and/or the lug if the lug itself was blackened in order to get good electrical contact.
Randy, if only it was that easy.There's no blackening on the frogs of these turnouts. It's a silvery cast metal. And as I said, half the turnouts are fine and half have a high resistance...say 50k to 100k...or are dead open...no connection. I should mention I'm a BSEE and have worked with electrical and electronics since I was 8, and that was 65 years ago. One of our neighbors introduced me to amateur radio and model railroading when I was a mere lad.I checked my remaining unused turnouts and 2 out of 7 have the same issue. Of course with those I can dig out some plastic underneath the frog and carefully solder.Another thing I should mention is twice I've encountered the frog heel rails not being connected to anything. I fixed that by adding droppers. I first dug through the bottom of the ties to examine the connection. There's no solder, apparently just a mechanical bond. This again is more lousy quality control by Atlas. I really do have to wonder how many more modelers who are using Atlas turnouts are having similar issues. I suppose if you run your locos at 30 mph through the yard you might not notice.